Let’s talk about LIFE. Ugh, that four-letter word. But life happens, and we can’t do anything about it, it impacts us, affects us, and stresses us out.
My life is pretty ordinary. I’m married, I have a daughter, a dog and a cat. I work (outside of the home), I volunteer (A LOT) and so on and so on. You get it right? You probably have a similar life, things that take up your time, your thoughts, and your heart.
In addition to my ordinary life, I have an aging parent, for whom I (and my husband) are primary care givers. That means that while my mother lives in her own apartment, I go over every morning to make sure she takes her medications and has breakfast and then I “pop in” on my way home to make sure she eats supper (which I’ve made). I take her shopping, to her hair appointments, do her banking etc. When I am away or unable to, my husband does it (he’s pretty amazing, I’ll tell you about him sometime).
My mother has, to quote her doctor, memory deficits. NOT Alzheimer’s, but likely some form of dementia (although I can’t express enough how much I hate to use that word, so I don’t). She also has mobility issues. But she is almost 90 so the fact that she can still climb the stairs in her building as opposed to using the elevator, makes her mobility not a huge deal to either of us. As for her memory, her short term is essentially gone, but ask her about something that happened 30 years ago, and she can tell you who all was there, what they were wearing and every other detail of the event.
Two years ago, she moved from our hometown to be closer to my family, so we could make sure she is looked after. We were very lucky, she was able to get a apartment, only one block away. We were able to get her a doctor almost immediately (it took almost 5 years and a trip to the ER before I was able to get a family doctor). But, as we expected, the time has come, where we have had to re-evaluate her current living situation and make some decisions.
I used to pick her up once a week and take her to my house to do her laundry. She has a laundry room in her building but if she was able to take her laundry down, she would only forget about it once she got back to her apartment. So she would come to my house and do her laundry, and if she forgot it was there, I could finish it. But even that is getting difficult for her, so now I pick it up, do it and take it back to her.
She will tell you that she eats 3 meals a day, she can’t tell you what they were but she swears she has eaten. She’s not is lying or covering up, she really believes that she has. At first, I would make meals for her and take them over for her to reheat. Until the day I found one in the oven from the day before or maybe two days before. Then there was the day I arrived and found only the dirty dishes from the night before and am fairly certain she hadn’t eaten at all the day. So I started counting the dirty dishes every day and “popping” in after work to heat up her dinner.
We have quite a little afternoon ritual when I “pop” in. I arrive after work, make her a rum & 7 (she LOVES her rum & 7), make myself a cup of tea, we watch Dr Phil or Family Feud, I make her a second rum & 7, and at 5:30, I can heat up her dinner and she will eat it. I know it sounds like I am negotiating with a child but it works for us and if it gets the job done, I’ll play the game.
So why then, if we have such a good routine going, are my hubby and I looking to change it? If it isn’t broke don’t fix it, right? But these visits can take up to 45 minutes in the morning and an hour in the afternoon.
Plus, we’ve had a few incidents recently that is really driving our decision.
On one of my morning visits, I knocked on her door but she didn’t answer. That has happened before, I usually get there before she gets up or she is up in the bathroom, so I let myself in. Usually she will hear the door and call out, but this particular morning she didn’t, it actually took several minutes to wake her. My heart was beating out of my chest, I was terrified.
Then a few weeks ago, she had a little tumble. Nothing serious but she did hit her head on the side table.
And finally, she has taken to unplugging her Lifeline and taking the call box to the bedroom when she goes to bed. There are two issues with this. One of course is that the Lifeline isn’t plugged in so she doesn’t have this emergency service if she needs it. But really more importantly, when she unplugs the Lifeline, she is also unplugging her phone, because it is plugged into the Lifeline. So then, she has neither Lifeline nor the phone.
My husband worries that having her here 24/7 will be stressful for me because I will not have any “time off”. But I love my mother, we have always been very close and it was my idea for her to move here. I would do anything for her. And I contend that having her live with us, where I know she will eat and be looked after is far less stressful than allowing her to live on her own and not know what I am going to find every time I go over. For me, it was a no brainer, she is moving in.
So stay tuned, Days with Doreen, is going to be a different kind of journey, but in the end, I know it will be one I will look back on and cherish.
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