Getting old

[marthe]

SHB: what a horrible way for your poor dad to go. It is sometimes a relatively benign event (break in femur) that can lead down such a dreadful path. I'm so grateful that my dad did not have to suffer those indignities before he died last year at age 91. He checked out just as soon as he heard that he was eligible for Medicaid (government assistance). I can remember the expression on his face as my sister, the one who dealt with finances and legal matters, explained that he was now impoverished enough to be able to have the state cover some of his nursing home expenses (we had to spend down his assets to make him eligible for Medicaid). The next morning he was gone. He wasn't having any of that. He'd worked hard all his life, had a good pension that was just short of covering his expenses at a nursing home. His health was good, though his short-term memory was failing a bit. Meanwhile, my mother (aged 84) is just marking time. Her health is stable for the moment until the next crisis, but she's not happy and can't pleased no matter what. My husband and I (both 61) worry about what will happen to us in 20 years time!

[salymap]

SHB I'm so sorry. I'd no idea your poor dad's last weeks/ days were as bad as that. After such a wonderful life that is tragic.

I am one of the 'frightened elderly' who worries about the future. bws saly x

[Stillhomewardbound]

Thanks Marth & Sally for your kind thoughts.

Of course, Dad's dliemna was far from unique. I think Clare Rayner, a former nurse and a great supporter of the NHS, had an eqaully challenging time of it. She had never recovered from intestinal surgery in May of 2010 and passed away the following October.

I was telling Dad's tale to a doctor acquaintance who rolled his eyes and said that he says to his older patients, 'your priority is to concentrate on getting better as quickly as you can, and away from this hospital not a moment too soon'.

The jolly thing about yourself though, Salymap, is how terrifically engaged you are. Your spirit seems to rise above matters commendably.

For me, my tonic is laughter. While I enjoy good health my morale can be fragile and it helps to be able to laugh at the world, I find.

Like, that dyslexic chap I met the other day from Yorkshire. The one with the cat flap on his head!

[Serial_Apologist]

Salymap - 80, going on 25

[salymap]

Thanks both, More like 81 going on 110 sometimes xx

[Mandryka]

This thread makes very sobering reading. Sympathy to all those affected.

I'm an only child, so should anything happen to my parents, I will be the decision-maker: not a role I feel up to, at the moment.

The root of the problem is that governments don't know what to do about the elderly: they cannot compel people to take out private pensions and - given the events of the last twenty-odd years, people have misgivings about taking pensions out, anyway.

I think by the time I am in my eighties, the State will be putting people down, in the way that animals are put down now: they'll only be put down on the consent of family, of course (and what a can of worms will be opened there), but it does seem the inevitable consequence of government/public inaction on what to do about the elderly.

Personally, I'd rather be dead than go into a home or be dependent on another person/people - particularly people I didn't know (ie, professional carers) - but that's my view from the vantage point of comparative youth; I don't know how I'll feel when I'm old and decrepit.

[Mary Chambers]

Personally, I'd rather be dead than go into a home or be dependent on another person/people - particularly people I didn't know (ie, professional carers) - but that's my view from the vantage point of comparative youth; I don't know how I'll feel when I'm old and decrepit.

I think most people feel like that, Mandryka, but there sometimes comes a point where there is no choice. At the moment I feel that I would not expect or want my children to look after me if I really couldn't cope - I mean needing help with bathing or dressing, rather than needing a bit of help with lightbulbs or shopping. It could ruin their lives. I've seen it happen.

[Mandryka]

I know what you mean, Mary. Caring for my grandfather drove my grandmother into an early grave (but I don't think she'd have had it any other way) and my whole family had a brusing time dealing with his descent into Alzheimers/senile dementia.

It's all horribly depressing, because we're all so powerless in the face of these problems.

[marthe]

Mary, it is indeed daunting to have to bathe and provide help with the toilet for one's parents. My husband always says that he'd rather be dead than have to undergo any of these indignities.

@Saly, your spirit and sense of humour is an inspiration to me.

[Serial_Apologist]

One is amazed to find reserves in oneself of what I suppose one can only call love under these circumstances. Having had to deal with my infirm father - a man I despised in many ways, this turned out to be true in my case.

@Saly, your spirit and sense of humour is an inspiration to me.

And to all of us.

[Petrushka]

My dear mother had vascular dementia dagnosed in April (on Mother's Day!) since when the deterioration has been appallingly rapid. The local hospital were utterly useless, messed up her medication and managed to lose her hearing aid (claim pending). Social Services have been fantastic (mostly) and have helped us get our mother into a home that can give her the care she needs. Alas, the violent episodes are beginning to get more frequent and prolonged so it's anyone's guess how things will pan out...

My brothers and sister have been told to push me over a cliff if I ever turn out like this.

[Anna]

I was very close to my great-aunt. Her husband developed Alzheimers and eventually had to go into a local nursing home as aunt couldn't cope and their middle-aged son (who still lived with them) was in full-time employment. She visited him every afternoon, to sit with and to talk to him. This continued for 5 years until he died. She said to me that it was the cruellest illness ever and broke her heart because when she visited he asked who she was and when she replied it's Kitty, your wife he repeatedly said he had no wife and who was she? She never gave up on him, she said how could she, after 60 years, not think that the man she loved so much could not come out from behind that facade and remember her? She did say that he seemed perfectly happy in his own world and he was very well cared for by the staff.

I suppose one good thing came out of it. Their middle-aged son (who we had always assumed was gay but not out of the closet because of shock to mum and dad) fell in love and married the manager of the nursing home. Aunt Kitty lived on for a few years but she didn't like the new wife very much for taking her son from her and taking over the kitchen!

I'm sure I don't know how I could have coped with my mum going that way (dad died when I was 17) and it's not, I think, an odd thing to say but I'm glad she died unexpectedly, in apparently good health so we always remember her as she was not what she might have become. But you don't stop loving if a person alters so dramatically as Kitty's husband did do you - even if it becomes harder to love them?

[marthe]

Anna, how sad for your Great Aunt Kitty. I remember my grandmother telling how she went back to Belgium from the US after the war to visit her father whom she hadn't seen in nearly twenty years. At that time Bon Papa T. was 97 and had what was probably advanced Alzheimers, though they didn't call it that at the time. My grandmother was heartbroken because her father didn't know who she was. He was very polite, called her "Madame" and showed her about his house (her childhood home). Shortly after my grandmother returned to the States, her father died. He'd lived a long life and had survived two wars.

[salymap]

Anna, sorry about your story too. A couple I worked with 50-60 years ago are similarly affected. The wife developed Alzheimers and is in a 'home'. Her husband, who loved music, is now profoundly deaf so has even lost the consolation of that. He visits his wife every day but she doesn't remember him at all.

Surely one of the cruellist situations for anyone.

[Mary Chambers]

I heard recently from an old school friend, who told me that a mutual friend of ours from childhood, now 70 years old, has for some years been suffering from something called Frontal Lobe Dementia. She was the liveliest, cleverest girl I remember, great fun. Now she can't walk, talk or recognise any of her family - not her husband, children or grandchildren. Horrific and almost unbelievable. Sorry to be so gloomy, but it shocked me deeply.

I do think, though, that we should be careful when dealing with people who appear not to recognise familiar faces. The fact that they can't communicate recognition doesn't necessarily mean they aren't aware who people are. If you know anyone like this, keep visiting and keep talking. You never know what is registering.