Nothing Is Easy When It Comes to Eldercare

This highly depressing article about a father dying in an expensive nursing home is necessary, and difficult, to read in full:

"This indifferent care belied the promises of the establishment’s website, which portrayed a warm and engaging environment where caregivers chatted with residents and offered companionship and comfort: 'Your care team is always on hand to help – as little or as much as you need.'”

Instead, Cindy had to visit for hours every day to help Dad, trying to prod administrators and overworked staff to give him more of the promised care for which we were paying dearly, but without making so much fuss that they’d evict him. She was stressed, and we were all heartbroken that aside from family visits, Dad was spending his last days lonely, helpless and bored, at the mercy of a company that seemed to be doing more warehousing than care."

There's nothing easy about taking care of an elderly loved one.  Throw dementia into the mix, and you're eternally dealing with options ranging from bad to not-quite-as-bad.

We eventually moved my dad out of a nursing home and into a house with me.  We had private nurses coming in during the day, but then the issue was helping him in the middle of the night.  His internal clock regarding day and night was just gone.

I thought I'd have more to say about the whole experience but just documenting different stories like this one seems like the best path forward.

To reiterate, our family had resources in no small part due to my dad having worked (very hard!) for the Federal Government for over 30 years.  It was still a bruising experience for all of us before he passed at 93.

Sad Sad News

It looks like Gene Hackman spent a week wandering around his house after his wife died.  Then he also died.

Me and my sister know all too much about this dementia stuff.  If you have an elderly relative, please check in daily!

Endings And Beginnings

Trip Shakespeare, "Snow Days," although Maryland looks like it won't get a White Christmas this year

I lost my mom when I was 17, one month before I graduated from high school.  Ovarian cancer was the final cause, but there were some complicating and complicated factors leading up to it including a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis.  She was 51.

Losing my dad at 94 this past November, it really feels like the other end of the telescope.  My mom was far too young and had far too much left to do, professionally speaking.  My sister and I needed her, like all children need their parents, and it probably made her feel guilty that she couldn't give more from her own deathbed, to somehow reach out and protect us from life, from ourselves, forever.

Maybe Dad was ready to go.  He died not long after I went to work that morning, and my sister had been spending a lot of time here but needed to go home for a bit.  One of the nurses says that's why he went when he did, he wouldn't leave if his children were around him, wouldn't want to trouble them.  Again, even in death, how can I make things easier for my kids?  Just pass as quietly as possible, make the rockiest of mountains a little bit smoother for them, for others.

So many parts of his body and mind were failing him.  Every trip to the bathroom became a potential drama.  There were days me and my sister or one of our wonderful nurses could hold his hand and watch a classic Western movie and laugh.  There were days were he would lash out at anyone around him.  Partly it was dementia.  Partly it was frustration with a body and a brain, almost a hundred years on Earth, that wouldn't work properly any longer, that wouldn't take direction as intended.

I'm having Christmas Eve dinner with my sister and her boyfriend.  We have plans for New Year's as well.  Tomorrow, Christmas Day, I'll take a long walk then come home and play with my cats, maybe watch a movie, maybe read a book.  If I'm being honest, a bit of laundry and kitchen cleaning would probably be a good idea as well, the simple acts of keeping things going in my own life.

I've been talking to my mom more than usual lately.  She was much more of a holiday person than my dad.  Even she thinks Christmas decorations going up right after Halloween are tacky, water down the whole thing a bit.  I'm talking to my dad a lot, almost daily.  I'll see a news story that I think he'd like to hear and make a mental note to tell him when I get home, where I'll sit down with him for his lunch or dinner and we'll just talk, or I'll just talk, and we'll have all the time in the world to share a joke.

I miss them both so much.  It hurts.  Talking to them helps a bit.  Thinking of them too, at their strongest and best.  We'll go forward together into a kinder year, I'm sure of it.

Travel Well

 

My Dad passed away last week.  If you've been following this blog, you might remember that I moved back to America from South Korea in February of 2021 (COVID time!) to live with him and become his caregiver.

It was not easy, because one thing about being old (he was 92 at the time) is that you really come to hate being old.  Nobody wants to wear "adult undergarments."  Throw in a dementia diagnosis from about two years ago and yeah, it was hard on everybody.

Long story short, we moved him back here to Maryland to be closer to family.  He was also in a nursing home for about six months but eventually we decided to move him back into his own place, with me.

In the end, at the age of 94, it was a really nasty pneumonia that ended up taking him.  We had nursing care and lots of help from hospice, and this allowed him to fulfill at least one of his wishes -- to die at home, visited by his family, and kept company by my two rescue cats.

I'm still a bit tired more than anything.  I've got plenty to say about the good, the bad, and the ridiculous when it comes to elder care in America.  I quit my job a few weeks ago (which probably would have happened even without his illness).  I need to get back to a more regular exercise routine as the weather gets colder here in Frederick.  If I'm being honest, I just need to leave the house more and make some new friends.  There is still a lot of paperwork and, well, death stuff that needs to be handled, of course.

My dad was a scientist, a world-traveler, a lover of a good joke, and a glass of red wine.  He loved gardening and fishing.  Our relationship was never perfect, but over the past few years I think we both realized time and biology are generally not on anybody's side, not for long at least.  I think he lived as full a life as possible and made a difference professionally.  (Maybe in a later post I'll talk about how he was one of the first agricultural scientists to take organic farming seriously, in an era of high-input "miracle" fertilizers that would solve all our food problems forever.)

Mostly, I think me and my sister did our best.

None of This Is Easy

You might remember that I've been living with my Dad since February of 2021 as his primary caregiver.  We went to his doctor yesterday and got some information that's partly very bad and, in the strange logic of caregiving, very good as well, if only because it clarifies some things that were becoming more apparent to me and my sister over the past 12 months.  To have his doctor confirm what we already knew might not seem like a big deal, but going forward it's important.

It's tough.  We have good days and bad days together and, more often lately, a mixture of both.

You also might remember that I'm working part-time at the local Humane Society.  It's been fantastic, mostly, with the usual bumps and lumps that come with learning a new job.  The HR department offers some limited free counseling which I'm going to look into.  I don't lack for people I can talk to, but a little professional help might go a long way.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is by far the hardest damn thing I've ever done.  And on the one hand I'm proud of myself for having gotten this far, and on the other I'm still scared and stressed and terrified about what comes next.

Have I mentioned that when I do go in to work we're allowed to have pets in the office?  That throughout the day some random shelter dog gives me hand licks and nuzzles, or tries to jump onto my lap while I'm taking calls from the public?  And if that isn't enough in terms of what I need right now, it's certainly more than nothing?

Life As A List

One way to think about aging is that you've got this list of things you can do, that you're used to doing, and with the passing of every few months you check a few things off of the list -- too dangerous, too overwhelming, simply impossible.

Of course, older folks aren't stupid.  They realize when you've decided there are things they can't do by themselves any longer -- bathing, de-skinning chicken, pulling weeds around the yard, boiling some eggs.  It hurts to have further and more basic things constantly taken away.

My Dad had a really rough time at the grocery store yesterday.  I'm afraid "going shopping" might get crossed off the list soon.

Small Victories

This might sound crazy -- check that -- this very much sounds crazy, buy my Dad took his first actual shower in many years today.  After four days of brutal heat, I was able to talk him into a "cool" shower.

It went much better than I expected.  I helped him in and out, but he did pretty well on his own for the actual washing part.

He said it felt good.  I said he could do this whenever he wants to feel good and clean and refreshed.  He doesn't need to exist in "scarcity mode" if he doesn't want to.  (We run water off of a somewhat shallow well, but it's honestly not that expensive to have it re-filled when needed.)

It's also 10:45 in the morning and I'm exhausted.