The Human Touch

The will to live is an amazing tool. When it's used daily and cleaned it is a remarkable invisible life energy. It gets us out of bed in the morning when we can't find a good reason. It helps us to find food in the kitchen and to smell the roses. But when it it's not working, it's broken. Some of the time, if we're young enough, we can get it jump started. We always have next week, next month, a commitment, a project even something as simple as a phone call that we have to make to keep us going. When you're young you still have successes around the corner, life will always get better. But when you're old and can't find that one reason to hang on because there aren't many more tomorrows then it can become a death sentence. When they are craving that hug or a simple hand hold and no one is there to oblige then it can be very hard to continue. As a care giver we can get caught up in our duties to our charge. Doing the laundry, cleaning the kitchen or the bathroom and preparing meals can sometimes take up all of our time. When we're done it's time to go home or read a book while our charge is napping. It's easy to put the human touch aside because we don't need it as much. We don't realize it's even missing times.We have a family, a husband, friends that we can rely on. We aren't needy that way. But these elderly folks don't have the daily human touch that we take for granted. It is sooo important to remember that these people live alone and don't have the daily contact we're used to. Some of these elderly folks don't have the family around that others have, or if there is family there can very often be family tensions and basic family crap that gets in the way of more human interaction. They need the back rub, the arm rub the hand hold if you aren't too squeamish. I have one charge whose feet I am supposed to rub with cream each time I go in. I get squeamish about that, I don't like to touch people's feet especially when the toes are all crooked. But I have to do it. It's her way of receiving human contact. Thank goodness for laytex gloves or it would never happen. Believe it or not this woman will be stronger than someone who gets no contact, even if it's with laytex gloves.