Take charge Donna
It's fantastic to see that Donna is finally taking an active role in her care. For a good part of her life she was in institutional and semi-institutional settings where she had very little control over her life and very little say in directing her care. She has her own home health aids now, and she is allowed to direct her own care...an idea that, until recently, was new to her. I read a social worker's evaluation of her that she had saved from some 20 some odd years ago, and they concluded that Donna was not ready for independent living at that time. Well, how could she have been!!! She was never really taught how to be in charge of her own day to day living. Plus she was so drugged up that she could not even think straight. (I discussed the mis-management of her seizure medications by her doctor in another post many months back if you are interested). She was encouraged to be a 'good client', to not make waves or challenge authority. No one ever gave her a chance. Many, many times we complained to her doctor and her nurses that she was tired all the time. They never even acknowledged that several of her prescription medications were causing that problem. I'm not even sure they even made the connection. Well, it's taken Donna a while to get used to directing her own life, but since I started encouraging her to take charge of her own life, she has been getting better and better at it! I'm very proud of her, and she's rightfully very proud of herself.