Instead of embedding a music video, this time I’m including a brief interview with Sir Tom Stoppard.
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Mom fell out of bed and I had to call an ambulance.
Mom’s OK. She didn’t go to the hospital.
It was the Tuesday of Simchat Torah and I had just finished leading a discussion group for my synagogue in Madison. I went downstairs to check on her after my event and discovered her on the floor of her bedroom. He head was wedged between the bed and the bedside table. I was able to extricate her and get her into a seated position, but unable to get her to her feet or back into bed. She kept asking for me to call the EMTs and I was ignoring her, but I finally decided I couldn’t deal with the situation on my own, so I relented and called for an ambulance.
Two of the nicest EMTs I ever met arrived and they got Mom to her feet and then back into her bed. I had to sign a release that we didn’t want to go to the hospital after we received the required warnings from them. And then they drove off into the night.
The next morning, Mom didn’t remember a thing.
Of course, this misadventure made me wonder if I’m getting any closer to putting Mom into a nursing home. Then, I remember some recent news I’ve read.
First, some news about Covid in nursing homes:
Next, the rise of an unstoppable fungus in nursing homes:
Then, the use of chemical straitjackets in nursing homes:
The Other News.
The other big news here is actually something that happened down in Texas. My aunt, Mom’s younger sister, who lives in a nursing home and was vaccinated, tested positive for the virus and was sent off to quarantine. She was asymptomatic. She took two more tests and both of those were negative so we may never know what actually happened and, as long as she’s healthy, might not care. It was a tense ten day experience for all involved.
Elsewhere, closer to home, a friend of mine in Fayetteville reports that her five-year-old grandson tested positive and we don’t know about his younger brother yet. She also was the first person I heard from about people around here taking horse meds to ward off the virus.
Next Steps.
The last time Mom and I visited her neurologist, I asked him directly about when I should start looking for a place for Mom when I can’t take care of her. He said I should do that right away. I asked the question not because I have any plans for Mom going into a nursing home, but just… you know, theoretically.
When I got to Arkansas in September 2020, the pandemic was going strong and any thoughts I had about finding Mom a place to stay were blown away by the curse of the virus. I certainly wasn’t going to put Mom in a home then and I’m certainly not going to do it now.
In one of her most cogent moments, I asked her if she’d like living in a nursing home and she said, “I’d rather die.” And I believed her.
Mom’s second husband was in a memory care facility for about ten years. Mom visited him all day long every day he was there. While he was there, he suffered from recurring urinary tract infections from not having his pull-up changed frequently enough and was sexually molested.
I would have to be one heartless son of a bitch to put my Mom in a home and I’m not that guy. My plan is to keep her here until the very end. May that day be far away.
Afterwards, I’ll sell everything, buy an Airstream and a truck to tow it and go to Texas to be with my aunt, my mother’s younger sister, who’s in an assisted living facility now and doesn’t have any kin to look after her. And after that? Who knows. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to LA and I’ve never been there for pleasure, always business, and I’d like to see Venice Beach and the Guggenheim. Conversely, it’s been a long time since I’ve been to NYC and there are some relationships there I’d like to mend. And I wouldn’t mind being back there for a long visit. And there’s a group of people in Madison I’d like to see again. And there are a couple of people very dear to me who live in the City by the Bay and I’d like to see them too. So many choices.
I have no idea and am open to suggestions.
Down The Rabbit Hole.
One afternoon, Mom was teary. She was silently crying. It was time for her meds so I doled them out and threw in a whole Xanax for her, thinking that it might supply some relief. Her neurologist has told me that giving Mom Xanax before she goes to bed can be tricky as it might increase confusion and create a situation where she might fall. But nevertheless I was confident I had made the right choice for Mom.
I fed Mom dinner and we watched the Hallmark channel. Her eyes started drooping and I suggested it was time for both of us to go to bed. It was around 6.30p. And so we did. I went up to my rooms to read and listen to the radio
Around 8p, Mom called me down from upstairs. She said she needed some help. So I descended the fourteen steps from my bedroom suite to the main floor and found her in her chair at the kitchen table.
“Where’s Bob? You and I had dinner and he didn’t eat with us,” she said.
Bob is Mom’s late husband who spent the final 10 years of his life in a memory care unit of a nursing home.
“Bob’s passed, Mom.”
“When?”
“About five years ago.”
“How did I get here, then?” she asked. “I thought Bob and I drove here together.”
“In September a year ago, I picked you up from the hospital in Fort Smith and drove us back to your home in Alma.”
“But then how did I get to your house?”
And so, we continued down the rabbit hole we’ve explored so thoroughly before. Mom insists that she wants to go home because this place, where we live now, isn’t her home. She wants to go home. She believes she is visiting me and it’s time for her to continue her visits by going home and then visit her sister in Texas.
“Mom, Margaret Ann (her sister) is living in a nursing home because she can’t take care of herself anymore. Other than a motel, there’s no place for us to stay.”
“I know I’m being an imposition on you and your family and it’s time for me to leave. And I don’t appreciate how your wife is ignoring me.”
“Mom, it’s just you and me in the house. I’ve been divorced for more than five years now.”
“What do you do?”
“I take care of you. I fix you coffee and toast in the morning. I give you your morning meds. I fix you lunch. I pay the bills and take care of the property as much as I can. I get you books from the library. I do the laundry. I have phone calls with my friends. I attend synagogue with my computer. I give you your evening meds. We watch CNN and the Hallmark channel. I read a lot. We listen to the radio. I play chess on my computer. That’s what I do.”
“But what about your life you had before? Did you just give that all up?”
“Yes. I gave it all up to help take care of you.”
“That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.”
“That’s the way it worked out.”
“Why you?”
“I’m the best there is. I have certain skills that are useful. And I love you.”
“I want to go home.”
“This is your home. You’ve lived here for more than thirty years. You own it outright. You lived here with George Rodney Johnson and with Bob Bays. And you’ve lived here by yourself until I moved in thirteen months ago. Now we live together.”
There was a recent article in the NYTimes (one of my primary sources of information and opinion for the past 40 years) about caring for family members with dementia. In the article, one quote caught my attention: “No one ever wins a fight with someone who had dementia.” Okay. I get that, but somewhere inside I believe she’s owed the truth. I don’t want to feed into her delusions and try to keep track of various storylines we develop on the fly.
So, I Don’t Know How The All Winds Up.
There are other things going on in my life right now. I’m continuing to take classes. I’m playing more chess. I’m solving more crosswords and sudoku. I’m reading, of course. But I want to get this wrapped up and shipped.
Good bye for now, chevra. Please include Mom and me in your prayers.
Yours,
Brian.