2015-01/24 –

Changes were coming. They were difficult ones. Mother Nature had rained down on me with all her fury and pushed some major decision-making. The snow kept coming. It was overwhelming. I lived at the sea where the weather was more temperate and the snowfall was minimal. This particular month was the worst my area had seen in decades. 

I drive an old car and could not get down to the nursing home. It was just not safe. I had a friend who lived closer to where the nursing home was, though, who had offered me a room. We had a still budding relationship and I don’t think either of us were ready to move on to the living together stage, but there were not many choices.

I was going to have to say good bye to my idyllic life by the sea. I was going to have to say good bye to waking up to the seagulls crooning at the harbor right outside my windows. I was going to have to say good bye to weekly dinners with my son who had just moved out two months before that.  I was going to have to say good bye to the photo studio I had worked so hard to build. I was going to have to say good bye to two businesses there and I was going to have to say good bye to so many friends I loved dearly.

It was simply too hard to get to the nursing home, though. My mother deserved to have a loved one with her on a consistent basis. I was the only one to do it so I needed to swallow my pain, ignore my breaking heart and move on to a life in the city. The decision was not one that came easily. It came with many tears and many hours of soul-searching. 

I called the nursing home the night before to be sure she was ok and they assured me that she was. The next morning I called again. I had told them that she wouldn’t eat much for breakfast except toast, and even then only if orange marmalade was on it.

They told me she had slept well and that she had woken up early that morning. They had decided to let her help distribute drinks to all the residents before breakfast, which she apparently loved doing. Then at breakfast time she actually ate pancakes. I was amazed.

After doing much research I had opted not to go and visit today. I did want to go and see her, but I needed to give her space and time to settle into the routine there and realize that was her home now. It was very hard.

I walked up the steps to a small foyer then through the door into what I assume is considered a lobby. There was a haphazard sort of living room area to my right and a television. There was a nurses station ahead past a bank of elevators. And there were two offices on my left. A short older woman from one of those offices came out to greet me. She was expecting me and asked if I wanted to sit down so she could go over the details about their program. 

I spoke with her at length about my mother and asked countless questions about the facility and their services. I asked about the quality of life for residents there. I asked about security for the residents, since my mother had a wander risk. I was assured that they had the capability of monitoring her and that it would be no problem. 

She introduced me to the director of the nursing home. We talked a little, then they took me on a tour of the facility. They showed me a community room downstairs where they hold their larger events. They showed me where the kitchen was down there also. Then we briefly looked at the second floor, but that was not where my mother would be placed because of the wander risk. 

We then went up to the third floor. To the right of the elevators was the common room. There were tables set up was well as a full kitchen. It looked a lot like a home would. On the other side of the common room was a living room with couches and chairs. There was also a TV and a video player. 

It was much nicer than the places I had looked at so far.  We walked down the hall then and they showed me the rooms. The rooms were all doubles and triples so there would be two or three residents in the room. The rooms had adjustable beds, night stands, a bureau for each resident and a closet area for each resident. 

The hospital was putting extreme pressure on me and refused to keep my mom beyond 24 hours. There were no other nursing home options available to her because I would need Medicare/Medicaid to pay for it since she had no long term care coverage. I made the difficult decision to register my mother as a resident. I gave them all her information, filled out many forms, and through it all I was in a daze. It was so surreal. This could not be happening. How was this happening? How did I end up being responsible for the rest of my mother’s life? I somehow got through the rest of the process, and they assured me that they would handle transfer to the nursing home. I needed to do more paperwork at the hospital but then she would be cleared to come to the nursing home the next day. 

I left the nursing home in a stupor. I don’t even remember walking to my car, don’t remember opening the door or getting inside. What I do remember is dropping my head down onto the steering wheel, tears pouring down my face, my body racking with sobs. I stayed like that, right there in the parking lot. I do not know how long I was there. I don’t know if anyone walked by and saw me. I only knew that in an instant my whole life had changed and I was an emotional mess.

Somehow I gathered myself together enough to drive myself home. When I got home I was still in a stupor, still not functioning, I was going through the motions, but I wasn’t all there. I was not okay. I had made a choice, though, and I had to put one foot in front of the other, had to go to the hospital in the morning and finish the arrangements. 

2015-01/18 – 

That night I had a long talk with someone in my hometown who is a liaison for this sort of thing. There were many tears and much encouragement. I felt much better about things after our long talk.

The next morning I was armed with a list of nursing homes that would accept her and that had a bed available. There was a nursing home in the town where I lived, but in the interest of making visits easier for my stepdad’s family I tried to find a place closer to them. In hindsight, I should have followed my gut instead.

I was not prepared at all for what faced in in the next hours. The first place I saw looked ok on the outside. It was a brick building with a couple of floors and plenty of windows. I walked inside, and there was an odor in the air. I could not place what this odor was. I only knew it was unpleasant. I found my way to the reception desk where a woman who spoke with a heavy accent asked why I was there. I explained that I was there to tour the facility to possibly place my mother there. She told me to wait and then disappeared. I heard a lot of sounds in this odd smelling place, sounds of people moaning and groaning mostly and people talking sharply.

I leaned back against the chair rail and my hands were met with an unpleasant film of something. I am not sure to this day what that was. I found a hand sanitizer bottle on the desk and immediately used it. A portly woman came around the corner just then. She was in a business suit and had way too much perfume on and a considerable amount of makeup on her face. She introduced herself as the administrator. She guided me into her office and we had a chat. I told her my situation and she said that they did have a secure unit and would be happy to show me around. So we went on a tour.

The smell ebbed and flowed through the facility. People sat in wheelchairs in the hallways, some with their heads slumped over, seemingly asleep. We reached a far off area and she used a card to get through the door. And then we were in the ward where they would place my mother. The smell was stronger here. The people who walked around were slower. There was less chit chat. And all the staff that I heard speak were speaking in other languages I could not understand.

There were a few residents in front of a television. This was “activity time” for them. I did not notice anyone monitoring them there. She led me down a hall and showed me into a room that was vacant but had two residents living in it. She said this was a typical double room. Then she led me down the hall to the room they would place my mom in since it was the only room they had available at this time.

There was a stench wafting down the hall as we got there, one that made my eyes water. Inside the room it was dark. There were two windows but it seemed like they let in no light. There were four beds squeezed into the room. There was barely enough space to walk around. I didn’t know what to say. She was talking, saying things about a bureau and a clothes rack. She said something about feeding times and visit hours. I didn’t actually hear any of it, though. I was lost in a haze. I made some sort of excuse about needing to think it over, telling her I would be back in touch.

I hurried out of the facility. There were tears escaping my eyes as I rushed across the parking lot and as soon as I sat in my car I cried, I cried so hard, and it progressed to sobs, loud gut wrenching sobs. How could I EVER place my mother in the care of this place. This was awful. I felt so bad for every single resident there. I hoped that the next place would be better. 

The next place was not better. The place after that was not better either or even the place after that. I was discouraged, lost, destroyed. What was I going to do? The hospital insisted my mother be discharged the following day. There was one last place on my list. I had to try and give it a chance because at this point I did not have a backup plan. None of the places I looked at were places I could in good conscience leave my mother in the care of. They were horrendous at best.

2015-01/11 –

I would like to think what happened next was a surprise but some of it truly wasn’t. On the afternoon of  January 11, 2015 I received a phone call from my stepdad’s daughter-in-law. I will never forget that call, never forget the tears flowing freely from my eyes as she told me that my mother was in the hospital.

She went on to explain that they had gone in to check on my mom and stepdad on the 9th. When they got there, my mother was frantic, running around the house delirious, telling them she had to time for them, that her mother and grandmother (she called her Yiayia) were there and she couldn’t deal with them right now. She had to deal with “her” not wanting to get up off the floor. They looked over to see who “her” was and saw my stepdad, on the floor, barely breathing. 

My fears and worries of the past few months had all come true. They somehow got my mother and stepdad to the hospital by ambulance to be looked at. My stepdad was in really bad shape. His organs had started failing. the was severely dehydrated, his stats were really bad.

My mother was dehydrated as well but was still not herself, still in this other world of delirium. The hospital would not let me see her since visiting hours were over for the day so I had to wait till the next morning to see her. I wasn’t prepared. How could anyone be prepared. 

2014-12/30