Today, dear internet reader, I’m feeling a bit like a wrung sponge. This entire situation is just making me tired. (If you do not know which situation I am referring to you can click here, and here, and here to catch up.) Things just aren’t going well with our old people at the moment, and to add stress on top of stress things aren’t going well at home right now either.
Several weeks ago my uncle fell off a ladder and broke his ankle, which means that while he isn’t completely helpless he does need a little looking after. Well…his wife is in Pittsburgh and his adult daughter lives on the other side of town which means that this duty falls largely on his not-really-responsible-yet son. Then there is my father, whom I love very much, but who gets a little lost when my mom isn’t around. There are things that he just can’t seem to handle on his own and I really worry about him at times.
My mother called me last night to give me an update on the situation (which I’ll discuss in a minute) but mostly just to talk. She said that she misses me, she misses dad, and that she would really just rather be at home. My mom can be a strong person, but when it comes to medical situations she just can’t handle it. For example: when my father had his rotator cuff repaired it only took about forty five minutes for him to go from asleep under the anesthetic to ready to go home but my mom just couldn’t handle seeing him in that state. She turned green and almost fainted. So I hauled her out of the recovery room and had the nurse explain everything to me instead. (Turns out I’m great in an emergency.) My mom wears her worry very visibly and it takes a huge toll on her physically. My aunt, mom’s younger sister, attempts to hide her worry behind a tough exterior. She comes off as snippy, cold and uncaring. But she is good with medical emergencies, having been a volunteer EMT, and can hold together in a hospital setting much better than my mom can. But I worry about both of them because they have to help their parents make huge decisions.
My grandfather is going to require surgery to correct the problem that he went to the ER about last Wednesday. It isn’t going to happen immediately because he is still recovering from his last hospital stay…but it is going to happen. At this point he feels that the best course of action would be for my grandmother and he to move into an assisted living facility where they could have a little assistance with some day to day activities that are quickly becoming more than they can handle. (These are things like cooking, cleaning, and driving to doctor’s appointments.)
My grandmother is very resistant to this idea, wanting to stay in their home for as long as she physically can. (She want’s to see the flowers in their garden bloom one last time. I’ve known this woman my entire life and she is a seriously feisty, stubborn, and sometimes downright mean person…but that statement really shows a much more vulnerable side of her. It’s heartbreaking.) There are a few logistical problems with this, the main one being the construction of their home. My grandparents live in a very typical northern post war planned neighborhood. All the houses on their street come from the same set of three basic blueprints and all were built at the same time (late 1940s). The house is three stories; a finished basement, a main floor with a living room, dining room, and kitchen, and a ‘second floor’ with three bedrooms and the only bathroom. This means that getting to the bathroom or getting to bed at night requires a difficult climb up the stairs. Doing laundry requires several trips up and down two flights of stairs. And while this might not be a big deal for you and I this is serious work for two eighty-nine year olds. Oh, and did I mention that my grandfather has circulation problems and that there are days when he can’t actually feel his feet or legs?
The other option that has been suggested is contacting one of the several ‘in home care’ agencies recommended by the hospital and having a nice nurse come over every day to check up on them and make them meals, etc. But my grandmother really isn’t too happy with the idea of having ‘some stranger’ in her house every day.
The real dilemma is that my grandparent’s are both very independent people, and the idea of loosing that independence scares them in a way they can’t really understand. No one else in the family would dare to make this decision for them but many of the things said in conversations with my mother and my grandparents…how do I say this…there are times when they seem like lost children who just need a parent to pick them up and give them a hug. Do you understand what I’m trying to say? These are choices that are terrifying them and no one can make these closet monsters go away by simply turning on the bed-side light.
…things are falling apart.
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