Self-Managed Exhaustion

I feel like I have taken a real beating today. It was evaluation day, where the Occupational Therapist from Alberta Health Services was evaluating the level of care I needed. She was quite business-like in all of this. She watched me go through my catheter routines, my toileting routine, my shower routine, my re-dressing routine, and every other morning routine you can think of. The only part she didn't get to see was exercises; the HCA came early and the OT came late, so no exercises today.

Measured, and found wanting; that;s how I felt after all of it. The OT talked and asked a lot about the current care I was receiving, yet placed no focus on my deteriorating condition and likely future care needs. She seemed more interested in my medical equipment than my medical needs. Fortunately David was here to help me keep some perspective. Yet still it is exhausting to be subjected to questioning, like the crook in the police interrogation chamber. And at the end, I was the guilty party, unable to be sick enough to get more hours of funding. I'm not sure if this is what will happen. This is just how I feel.

The OT made one thing completely clear. I would not get funding for a live-in care giver. If I wanted that level of care, I would have to supplement the funding from AHS. The best I can hope to do in my situation, based on her comments, was to take the management load off of AHS and transfer it to my own shoulders. The only advantage to that would be getting to choose and schedule my own care givers.

My current care givers mostly do a good job. There are several of them, so I really have a team of people caring for me. I see no advantage to changing that. So I am guessing Self-Managed Care is not for me. I am disappointed to have put in all this effort for what appears to be no gain. I don't know for sure. I won't find out for a week or so. But I have a bad feeling about this.