Normally I give a brief introduction the the posts I share on this blog. This one however is so captivating from the moment you start reading that an introduction would be a total waste
This was first posted on April 14, 2015 by Author and Speaker Pamela Foster.
Yesterday I checked Jack into a nursing home. For the first
time in the twenty-five years, I cannot care for him and keep him safe.
Through all of our adventures together – scuba diving,
backpack travel around Asia, dragging a trailer the length of Mexico and
parking it under a grass-roofed palapa on the beach, moving to the Republic of
Panama with two giant service dogs strapped to our wrists, riding out a
hurricane in a cement block room in the Yucatan – through it all, Jack has
bulled and laughed and maneuvered his way through some damn tough spots.
This time is different.
He can no longer bull his way past the effects of the stroke
he had four years ago.
Laughing in the face of tremors and dizziness and chronic
falls does not save him from the pain of the impact.
His maneuvering cannot stop the creep of dementia.
Six months ago he fell for the thirteenth time in a few
months, banged up his entire right side, bruised his knee, ankle, and ribs, and
tore his rotator cuff. Everything healed, more or less, except the shoulder.
Finally overcome by the constant pain, he agreed to go in
and allow the surgeon to stitch and bind and do his best to repair the damage
to the tendon and joint.
At 320 pounds, Jack is almost twice my size. His left side
never recovered fully from the stroke and he has limited use of his hand and
arm. The stroke took his gag reflex causing him to cough and aspirate liquid
and requiring him to eat slowly and carefully. His legs, which were the most
affected by that landmine he stepped on outside Danang in ’65, can no longer
lift him from a sitting or reclining position. He uses his right arm to get up
and down from a chair or bed.
All of these challenges meant that, after the rotator cuff
surgery, with his right arm strapped to his chest, there was no way I could
care for him at home. It took a very long time to convince the VA that this was
true. But with the help of several good people within the Fayetteville VA
system, those in charge finally looked away from their computer screens and saw
Jack. Bureaucrats and social workers agreed that he could not possibly go home
to be cared for during recovery by one crazy-assed woman who loves him madly
but is still, only one woman.
So, yesterday, after his surgery, the nurses helped me get
him loaded in the car and I drove him thirty minutes up the mountain and
checked him into the VA approved nursing home. He will be there about five
weeks – until he regains the use of his right hand and arm.
I found the home to be a perfectly nice place. As long as I
didn’t allow myself empathy for the old folks sleeping in wheelchairs with
their mouths hanging open, or staring blankly at walls, or calling out to me as
I hurried past with a sleep apnea machine under my arm, medical paraphernalia
slung over my shoulder, and the five sets of clothing marked with the name of
the man who is my husband dragging behind me in the suitcase that has seen better
adventures.
I have had a few moments of grief in my life. Few people get
to be my age without knowing the pain of losing someone or something dear to
them. Kissing Jack good-bye and leaving him in the care of strangers is
certainly right up there in the top two or three. It was all I could do not to
go back in and load him up and bring him home. Even knowing I could not care
for him the way he needs while recovering, even understanding that trying to do
so would be dangerous to him and to me – still it was difficult to drive away.
I got a call from him this morning saying they tried to put
him on a liquid diet. He managed to get himself to the administrator and she
arranged for him to have sausage and eggs for breakfast. The old guy in the bed
next to him keeps the room too hot so they are moving Jack to another room. And
my dear husband has bribed one of the nurses to bring him a milkshake when she
comes back from lunch.
I think he’s going to weather this latest adventure just
fine.
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