Last Friday was a good example of the chaos by which I presently find myself surrounded. Shauna had to drive her mom to her two doctor’s appointments, and I stayed at home to watch her father, who now requires constant supervision, especially during his frequent visits to the lavatory. While I was on “the dad shift” an installer from Sears finally showed up, a day late, to install our new cook top, after the previous installer flaked out and didn’t bother telling us he wasn’t coming. Then of course there were complications with the installation, as there always seem to be, and I had to make an executive decision to allow a modification which could potentially have ruined the existing countertop. Fun fact: installers used by big retailers like Sears will not always do cabinetry and countertop alterations in order to make an appliance fit, so make sure you cover this when you buy your appliance. While I was pleading with the installer to mangle our countertop with a reciprocating saw, in the two minutes during which I took my eyes off the video monitor, Dad Taylor had disappeared from view. I then ran down the hall to find he was trying to sneak in an unsupervised bathroom visit. Then, as I was attending to him, the phone rang, and it was a potential caregiver calling to schedule an interview. When we are over our heads as caregivers, sometimes we can‘t catch a break. As I mentioned in last week’s report, we were forced to dismiss a health care aid last week - our day shift caregiver - and that left us shorthanded. Incompetence is in my opinion a huge problem in geriatric care, and while the woman we fired did not physically abuse our parents, she was decidedly incompetent, and could have done (and almost did do) them harm by misrepresenting her capabilities. I don’t think we North Americans are doing a very good job of protecting our most at risk elders from substandard care. I also think elders are low on the food chain for medical care. Populations are expanding, people are living longer, many do not have the means to fund proper care, and many doctors are over-burdened … you can see why the aged might get swept under the bus. Once again I ask, what good are medical advances, if we increase the quantity of life without any quality?
One thing I have noticed, both with my parents, when they were near the ends of their lives, and now with the Taylors in their late eighties, is that old age seemed to jump them like a mugger in the dark. One day they were doing just fine, the next day they were overwhelmed, and in a cloud of denial so thick you could cut it with a knife. All four of my parents said the same thing: they said didn’t see it coming. Then comes the anger and depression, and guess who takes that heat? Dementia is only one of many ways old age gets ugly, and believe me, I have seen the ugly side of old age. Senility is a psychological minefield, and for the children, or for any inexperienced caregiver, it can be a real emotional kick in the ass. I only wish more people would talk about it. Learn from my mistakes, because believe me, I’ve made them all! There seems to be an unwritten taboo against discussing the mental decline of one’s loved ones, as if it’s some horrible family secret which, if revealed, will erase all the dignity and goodwill that loved one has earned in his or her long life. I never bought into that. My mom was as crazy (oh, how politically incorrect of me to say that) as she could be before she died, and I don’t mind talking about it. It doesn’t change the good and charitable woman she was. It wasn’t her at all, it was mental illness, but it was who she became. While it is hard not to take the whole thing personally, I could not do so and survive emotionally. In some indirect way, maybe this is why we have all these gun-toting lunatics floating around undetected among us. Not enough people are talking about it. There are a lot of mentally ill people out there, old and young. After the Newtown, Ct. shootings, which so appalled the entire world, I read a gripping article which began “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother.” It was written by the mother (not Lanza’s) of a violent, mentally ill child. She was becoming afraid of her uncontrollable child, and eloquently recounted the complicated hell she faces every day. Caught in the catch-22 of medical and law enforcement bureaucracy, she was pointing out how hard it is to know how to protect her child from harming himself or others around him. I made a comment in a recent report that the families of the mentally ill bear some responsibility for their bad behavior, but this woman made me realize how hard that can be. Her boy may not be on anybody’s radar until he acts out. The challenge is figuring out how to respond proactively rather than reactively.
Final notes. We can all breath a sigh of relief (he sneers sarcastically), because the NHL owners and players have reached an agreement, and will now play about 48 games to complete this truncated season. To rub salt into the wound, the geniuses (two of Canada’s media giants) who now own the Toronto Maple Leafs decided now would be a good time to fire Leafs GM Brian Burke. I don’t know if Burke was an effective manager, and much was made of the fact that he could not turn around the Leafs’ downward spiral in the 4 years since he took the reins, but I suspect that other forces conspired to scuttle this cursed team. One last time, for this season anyway, I proclaim my utter disgust. How one of the richest franchises in the NHL could so horribly fail to provide a suitable and competitive team for so many years is far beyond me … I mean Uranus is closer (and I’m not talking about Gary Bettman).
The other day I saw on the attention deficit disorder news channel that an asteroid is scheduled to pass close to earth in 2036 and may even make contact. Let’s see, that’s 23 years away, which makes me 80. That should be about right. Screw the nursing home, I’m going out with a bang. Divine intervention!
Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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