Written: February, 2001
My attendant carer didn't turn up tonight. I phoned the agency this morning and they said I was listed for a carer at 4:30pm. Not only do I prefer my carers to come in the morning, but they have a history of being unreliable and that only gave me a half hour to call the place if nobody showed so I was a little worried up-front. I don't know what's going on at the carer service, but three of the last four rostered spots have been no-shows!
Sure enough, 4:55pm and no carer in sight. I called the agency and spoke to the receptionist (who now knows me by voice, most of their clients are elderly and I'm 26). The receptionist said that by this hour everybody usually is running late and to call back in 15 minutes if nobody had arrived. He promised to leave the phones on just so I could call back.
At this point a friend briefly dropped in which brightened up the waiting time immensely. She left just as 15 minutes had elapsed and I was calling the agency back to say that no, nobody has turned up yet.
The receptionist, a very nice guy actually, explained that the agency had been short staffed and had asked a second agency to send a carer out to me today. He promised to call the second agency to find out what was going on and then call me right back.
He called back pretty promptly to say that, being now well after 5pm, the second agency had turned their phones off and weren't answering. Basically, he had no idea if my carer was coming, when they might be coming, if they'd forgotten me completely, or if aliens had invaded and stolen the roster. Although we figured the aliens thing was pretty unlikely, really.
He said "Umm, what do I do?", and I told him (TOLD him!) he was going to call me first thing tomorrow morning to tell me exactly what the heck had happened and what he was gonna do about it. I think I did everything right. I acted assertively but I did not yell at the receptionist guy, it's not his fault. He didn't screw up the roster (though that's been done before too), he rostered me right and the person just didn't show.
I am half proud of myself for being appropriately assertive about the attendant thing. But on the other hand I'm still in a filthy apartment with bins that haven't been emptied in a week and a half, no prepared food, 2 weeks worth of laundry that needs doing, filthy floors ... I'll let your imagination do the rest.
I thought of calling a friend for help, but there's only really two people I can call for help. One of them had his first day at University today and will be exhausted, and also lives 45 minutes drive away. The other desperately needs time to himself and is also exhausted and overworked. I don't want to ask either of them.
I could ask my parents for help, but dammit I'm twenty six and I hate going crawling home asking for help! This shouldn't happen. Don't the attendant carers realize what being this helpless feels like?
I hate being dependent.
