22 replies to this topic

[themartianchick]

Hi, Pam! I look forward to reading your posts. I am somewhat familiar with households that have outside help coming and going. I have a disabled nephew living next door and he has two nurses that visit each day. While it can be somewhat invasive, it also can become the excuse for all of the stuff that you store in order to be prepared. My brother inlaw cares for his son and only works part time, so money is tight. No one is surprised that he keeps extra boxes of Depends around. It only makes sense as it can be difficult taking his son out into the weather to run to the store. Let me be clear...he does not prep as we do, but he never wants to be without something that he might need for his son.

So he has a deep freezer so he can store discounted meat from the grocery store. He keeps a lot of canned applesauce on hand for administering meds to his son. Now those Depends boxes are mighty useful camouflage... You can hide them in plain sight and no one would ever guess that they contained something other than adult diapers. They can be re-taped with shipping tape and the nurses would just think that he had a good supply of incontinence supplies. Of course, if they were in my house, they'd be full of jarred spaghetti sauce and other canned goods!

[mom2one]

I like the reuse of the Depends boxes. DS has big boxes from his 'britches' and his suction catheters. I'm going to have start keeping them - that will save me $$ too as I was taking them to the recycling center. Woo Hoo!!

[CrabGrassAcres]

Hi Pam!

Can you get your hands on a Kill-a-watt meter? You plug it into the wall and then plug your appliance into the meter and it tells you how much power the appliance needs. Once you have that info, you can start planning for alternate power supplies.

My daughter thankfully, doesn't require special equipment. She is ambulatory, can spoon feed herself, potties, but with frequent accidents so needs pull up diapers. She does not get her food or drink for herself and is nearly nonverbal with minimal understanding of language. My greatest worries are if we must evac due to fire or tornado. She doesn't move fast, ever, and I'm not sure we could get out since I no longer drive due to vision problems. She is on a special diet as well which is the main reason I cook and bake everything from scratch. I also have to produce milk, eggs and dairy for her since she reacts to most commercially produced items.

Wondering if it might be possible to work your son up to longer periods without the ventilator?