How has aging come to this? in Daydreaming on the Porch

This past Thursday, a funeral was held for the grandmother of a friend’s son-in-law. Although I didn’t know her, I was affected by her passing for a number of reasons, all having to do with how she spent her last two months.

This well-liked and vibrant woman was 87, and her daughter had been taking care of her in her home for a number of years. Unfortunately, she started to decline physically and mentally rather rapidly during the past year. I feel sure the pandemic had a lot to do with this.

The daughter, who is 65, had no help taking care of her mother. Although her mother had long term-care insurance, inexplicably, the daughter wouldn’t hire anyone or get help. I simply cannot understand this. Things got worse and worse and she and her son and daughter-in-law finally realized they would have to find a nursing home or memory care facility. The daughter couldn’t take it anymore. I can understad this, but I can’t fathom why they didnt get help when tbey had the means to hire caregivers. Some people evidently want to do it all by themselves, with sad and even tragic end results.

Having taken care of my mother in her home for ten years as her dementia and diabetes grew worse, I know for a fact that I could not have done it without the help of our dedicated home aides who I hired and who worked for us for some years. They became like family. We were very fortunate.

The daughter and her family found a new Alzheimer’s and dementia care facility her mother that is supposedly state of the art. But the grandmother would have nothing of it. From the first day there she rebelled. She wouldn’t eat and she slapped some of the staff. She ended up in the emergency room and hospital twice in the course of a month. The ER doctors told the family he didn’t see how she would last the first night there.

She did, but shortly after that I heard she was in a Hospice facility. It was a very rapid end. She obviously didn’t want to live any longer. She died there two days later.

I know only the bare bones facts of this whole situation, but my own experience with caregiving allows me to surmise what might have been going on.

My view is that the grandmother had slways wanted to die at home. I don’t see how anyone could choose to die in a hospital or nursing home, and from what I kbow about nursing homes, it’s worse than you can imagine. They are severely short staffed, pay workers little and in many cases are profit-making corporate ventures where the bottom line is controlling expenses so hat shareholders of the corporate stock get amply compensated, often to the detriment of residents in their care. Sadly this what care for a great many elderly persons in this country has cone to.

I think the grandmother, even with her dementia, realized what was happening to her.

This, according to one writer who visited a nursing home, is what you are likely to find in these “homes” of last resort:

…I’m finding it hard to put into words how sad and upset this visit made me. Don’t get me wrong, the facility is spotlessly clean, the staff seemed nice and the place was decorated in an old fashioned décor which I’m sure people put time and energy into.

However, even in this top-rated facility, there were people in wheelchairs lined up in a row left to stare a blank wall. For those people not lined up against the wall, they were placed/parked in front of a TV which was not on. In essence, they were bodies to be taken in and out of bed, fed, showered and tended to when necessary…

My mother, if placed in a memory care facility, would have reacted similarly to the grandmother, I believe. Every time I think about what it would have been like if she was lined ip against a wall in her wheelchair staring into space, I shudder and I tremble.

Please, to anyone reading this, do cerything in your power to keep a loved one at home when they are aged and infirm and suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s. I know it’s not possible in many cases. But it’s a national scandal that nursing homes can cost up to $100,000 a year. Family members should be compensated for the many hundreds of hours spent caregiving, sacrificing jobs, livelihoods, and their emotional and psychological well being in the process.

I don’t know what will happen to me. I know I did my best for Mom. She was in her bedroom at home when she passed away. She had Hospice care until the end. She was at last released from the prison of dementia and is now a free and soaring soul.

Last updated December 13, 2021