| |
No
Place for Sissies by
Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal | |
My
husband and I were at the store yesterday evening picking up some things for his
parents. Normally they would have been with us, but because we’d had a long day
of doctor’s appointments and it was their dinner time, we’d left them at their
Assisted Living with some hamburgers and strawberry milkshakes and ran out to
the store without them.
As we left the checkout lane with one bag filled
with cookies, candy, apple sauce and orange juice and another with disposable
underpants I started giggling. Mike looked at me quizzically, “What?” he asked.
“Well, I was just wondering if the cashier was trying to figure out which
one of us was incontinent and which one needed to be tested for diabetes.”
But it was really only funny for a minute. Bette Davis is famously quoted as saying,
“Old age ain’t no place for sissies.” And that is surely so. But I’m here to tell
you, if you haven’t had the dubious pleasure of discovering it for yourself, that
taking care of elderly parents is no picnic either. And it is an experience that
more and more of us are going to be sharing as the years pass.
According
to the National Center for Health Statistics – because there is nothing like some
hot, juicy statistics to get the blood pumping – in 1950 there were 3.9 million
people in the United States 75 years old and older. In 2000 there were 16.6 million.
In 2005 there were 18.2 million people 75 years old and older. An estimated 4.5
million of those folks have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, which further
complicates things.
All of those 18.2 million people need to go the doctor,
buy new shoes, visit family, have meals which are not only hot and nutritious
but meals that they are willing to eat, and clean clothes, and help with whatever
activities of daily living they need help with, and for these things they need
not only the help of professional care-givers, but of family members as well.
That’s where we come in, those of us who comprise the tail-end of the Baby Boomers.
Just as we usher the last child out the door and into the future we find ourselves
re-welcoming our parents into our lives in a new and often difficult way. We are
faced with the dilemma of parents who cannot safely live on their own anymore,
who cannot safely drive, who are not able to make the decisions for themselves
that they once made. We are faced with a double edged sword – we have the responsibility
to care for our aged parents while still respecting them as adults with the adult
need to participate in decisions such as where to live and what to do. And the
fact of the matter is that it is very, very hard.
When you are taking
care of your children it is well within accepted boundaries to tell them, “No,
you have to wear the brown shoes, you have to take a bath now, you have to finish
your carrots before you get some pie.” But just try telling your mother-in-law
or your father or your Uncle Fred those things. Yesterday I put my mother-in-law’s
shoes on her for her trip to the doctor. She didn’t like those shoes and took
them off. I reminded her that because her feet were swollen those were the only
shoes that fit right now and put them back on her. She reminded me that she didn’t
like those shoes and took them off. I reminded her that it is January and she
has to wear shoes when she goes out and put them on her. She reminded me that
she didn’t like those shoes. My father-in-law hollered in from the other room,
“Just put the durned shoes on,” which reminded her of quite a few things she needed
to say to him. And at that point, what are you going to do? You can’t threaten
your in-laws with a spat on the butt. You can’t put them in the corner to think
about their behavior for as many minutes as they are old. You can’t sit them down
on a “time out” stool. None of that goes over so well with grown people.
What’s the answer? I don’t know. I just kept putting her shoes back on, trying
to distract her with the promise of an outing, trying to hurry her, trying to
ignore the advise I was getting from Grandpa (but in a nice way) until we were
finally out the door, down the hall and halfway to the car. At which point she
reminded me that she didn’t like those shoes and started to take them off.
It
was a long, long day and by the time it was over I had gritted my teeth so hard
and for such an extended period of time that I felt like I had lockjaw. Don’t
get me wrong. I love my in-laws very much. I am happy to be able to help them
whenever and however I can help. And frankly, Alzheimer’s Disease has improved
my relationship with my mother-in-law a lot because one of the things she has
forgotten is that she never liked me and that I was destined to ruin her son’s
life. When she and I are out we actually have a pretty good time together. In
between trying to get her to keep her seatbelt and her shoes on. But that doesn’t
make it easy. And the bad news for our kids is that there are more of us than
there are of our parents. So just as we taught them by example when they were
little, we have to trust that they are learning by example how to care for elderly
relatives. We have to trust our futures to them and trust that we have shown them
how to be patient, kind and loving.
© Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal
"The Girl Detective's Theory of Everything"
January 9, 2009 Column
Related Topics: Texas
Escapes Online Magazine | Columns | |
|
|
