Message #34

[whitesatin]

Both of my parents are elderly and in very poor health.  I brought them from Ohio to California to be close to me so I could keep an eye on them and see to their needs.



Not wanting to put them into a nursing home, I have rented a house for them for eight months.  It is in a gated senior community for persons aged 55 and older.



I do not get any paid sick days.  Over the last several years, I have used most of my vacation time in order to care for my parents.  To complicate things, there is a "point system" at my work where we accumulate points every time we have an absence.  The point system runs on a rolling calendar year. Unfortunately, I have had to take time off to care for parents when I had no vacation time left.  Last year, I was given a verbal warning, which was very humiliating.  If you accumulate 12 points, you can be fired.



I have worked for this company for 13+ years and have hardly missed any days.  My boss understands completely and has no problem if I miss work.  It's HR that has this need to reinforce this rule without taking the circumstances into consideration.



Monday, I left work to take Mom to the doctor.  Tuesday, I had to take her for lab tests and pick up groceries.  Yesterday, I had to stop and pick up some more groceries that my Mom called me at work and asked me to get.  I delivered their groceries and had to shave my Dad's face because his electric razor is broken and I have a new one on order that hasn't arrived yet.  Then my Mom told me that there were three prescriptions at the pharmacy I had to pick up and three more that she had that needed to be filled.



I commute at least three hours per day, work full-time and have a husband at home.  Mom fell down in the bathroom and hit her head on Saturday. She's had nine back surgeries, has aplastic anemia, bladder problems, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, asthma, arthritis and has great difficulty walking.  She gets dizzy spells.  Dad has Alzheimer's, has had multiple mini-strokes, has trouble walking and sometimes has problems with incontinence.



They lived with me for most of the year last year.   Went back to Ohio for 4 months.  Husband doesn't want them living with us anymore.  What a Soap Opera.  Sorry this got so long.



I can see that I am going to probably need to take time off here and there and want to be prepared for what to expect.  I do work for a good company.  I have asked HR to send me information on what I need to know and what I need to do.  It looks like there are a lot of variables from company to company from the responses I've seen so far.



My company employs 300+ employees, so I am eligible.  I appreciate all of your responses.  Thanks for listening, nothing in life ever prepares you for all of this.  You TAA members are the BEST!



WhiteSatin    (Trying to keep smiling in Northern California)