Helpful husband serves as caregiver

Have you ever had to have a caregiver? Well ... I have had a caregiver three times, and who might that be?

You guessed it, ole Bob himself.

Both times that I had knee replacements, he was there for me, and last winter when I broke my left wrist, (I am left-handed) he came through with flying colors. When I had my first knee done, the doctor asked me, "Who will be your caregiver while you are laid up?"

Bob pipes up and says, "Me, I will be her caregiver."

The doctor said, "Will you be able to prepare the meals while she is unable to?" He again raises his hand and said "Yep, I can do it."

I did see he had his fingers crossed behind his back. I have to give credit where it is due. Granted he makes a great pot of coffee, can heat up soup, fry a hamburger on the grill, pour a bowl of cereal, and make super peanut butter sandwiches. So I was a wee bit apprehensive, and I wasn't surprised when we had soup just about every other day. Guess the meals were OK, as I didn't lose any weight.

He took me to my doctor's appointments, wheeled me around in my wheelchair, and over all was a good caregiver. By the third time he took care of me, I was laid up with my broken wrist. I had one heck of a time feeding myself with my right hand, missed my mouth most of the time. I think he was a little bit worried that I would slop all over myself when we went out to eat, and of course I did. He even helped me on with my clothes, put on my shoes, and many other things that I was unable to do. He even had to run the sweeper, do the dishes, and last but not least, he had to do the laundry. He had done the other things, but laundry, never. So I very laboriously with my right hand wrote out the directions for doing laundry. I must admit, it was a wee bit hard to read, but I was very proud of myself and thought it looked like a million dollars. He (so I thought) took it downstairs and hung it on the wall above the washer. What he really did was when I wasn't looking re-wrote it and hung his own version on the wall. After I was up and about and able to do the laundry, I noticed the directions on the wall, but in his handwriting. Here, verbatim is his directions.

FOR DARK CLOTHES

l. Turn on outer faucet's behind washer.

2. Set timer for 12 minutes, then pull knob out to start the water.

3. Use 1 cap of laundry detergent, 1 cap of colored bleach for colored clothes. Close lid and when full, it will start.

4. After the load is done, put clothes in dryer to de-lint and fluff up.

Do not put my colored shorts or Marilyn's underwear in the dryer.

FOR WHITE CLOTHES

Put in one cap of laundry detergent, then one cup of ammonia bleach. Pull knob out and let washer fill with water about 4 inches. Then put white clothes in and close lid.

Never use white bleach on colored clothes.

After washing is done, leave lid open, but close faucet's.

Sparkling clothes will be the end result.

We have lines in the basement that I use during the winter when I can't hang clothes outside. But hanging up clothes for Bob was all together another story. He just couldn't seem to get the hang of it ('scuse the pun) or exactly how they were to be hung, all you gals out there know how to hang pants or trousers, shirts, underwear, socks and sheets. I didn't think anything about it, until I was able to go down into the basement and he had just hung up a couple of loads of clothes, it was comical the way he had hung some of them, but who was I to say anything. My Mama always said "don't bite the hand that feeds you" or something like that. Anyway, you get the picture.

Over all he was a great caregiver, and I think I will keep him.