Imagine that you are the primary family caregiver for a loved one with dementia in your home. You have no time to yourself while in the house so how can you possibly find the time to leave your loved one alone to complete some pressing errands?
But you do leave the house and you do leave your loved one alone at home, because you haven’t figured out how to get someone else to do those errands for you, or you don’t know how to secure someone else to watch your loved one while you do the errands. I favor the latter option because a 24/7 caregiver absolutely must get out of the house and feed her soul while crossing items off her To Do list.
I went to Staples office supply store yesterday to pick up three items for my writing quest: a new thumb drive that I can trust to store my magnificent masterpiece of a manuscript; a new mouse pad because my right wrist and hand have worn out the previous one; and a ream of lined filler paper for taking notes and drafting new ideas.
Because it is currently back-to-school shopping time, Staples was crazy-busy yesterday. The checkout line was very long and directly behind me was a young mother with a shopping cart filled with supplies for her two school-aged children. An older woman with two items asked if she could please go ahead of her because she had a sick husband at home; the young mother graciously agreed to let her do so. When it was my turn at the register, I turned to the older woman and asked her to go ahead of me to which she responded, “Oh thank you so much, you see I have a situation at home and I need to get back quickly.”
Have any of you been there – done that?
Do you know someone who has?
The following advice goes to those of you who know someone in a similar predicament as the woman at the Staples store: be the respite that person needs. Don’t wait for them to ask for help – they won’t ask you; you must make the first move. Put yourself in that someone’s shoes and imagine racing through your errands, all the while freaking out wondering what’s going on in the house while you’re away: the person with dementia wandering away from the house or falling down in or around the house, turning on the stove or running the water without turning either off, or letting someone inside the house who should not be inside the house.
Now it’s your turn: imagine the worst-case scenario and apply it to this situation.
Boomers need help dealing with their parents’ ‘stuff’ | Business & Technology | The Seattle Times. The attached article by Sacramento Bee reporter, Claudia Buck, provides sage and practical advice for those who are downsizing a parent’s belongings when said parents move into a senior housing environment, and for those who are dispersing the parental belongings after their death. Please read Ms. Buck’s article; it contains extremely useful information.
The following list gleaned from the article provides a few suggestions worth your consideration:
When you set out to eliminate stuff from a residence, don’t get rid of the memories in the process. Once you’ve dispensed with the goods, you’ll never get them back again. My mother died in her sleep – no one in the family expected it or prepared for it. After the funeral event had passed and my brother and sister had returned to Washington and California, I remained to help my father with a massive downsize of his house. There were obvious sentimental items that were boxed up for later, but for the most part, we stuffed large Hefty bags with items and placed them into two piles: donation-worthy, and garbage. Not a bad idea, actually, but we didn’t pause long enough to properly discern what should have been kept. With both parents now deceased, us three adult kids have far too few tactile sentimental items in our possession.
Creating a shadowbox of the most precious mementos. Having read the attached article, I’ve decided to create a shadowbox of the few items remaining from my parents’ lives so I can reminisce at the sight of them. One thing is for certain: containers full of sentimental nick nacks stacked in a closet do not honor a memory.
If you absolutely know that some of the nicer items will not be enjoyed by your household, give them away or donate them so others can. Look at it this way, your and your parents’ legacies will live on in the lives of others. Not a bad consolation if I do say so myself.
My family in the 70s. I no longer have that red dress but I do have those earrings my mom is wearing.
If at all possible, prior to any parent’s death, document the items that are meaningful to each family member. You’ll be glad you did. Within three months of my mother’s death, my father moved into an independent living senior community taking with him the bare necessities of furniture and kitchen items, as well as the aforementioned sentimental items that he and I had boxed up earlier. As he aged, he wisely decided that the next time each of us kids visited him, we would designate which items we would most like to inherit at his passing. Dad documented our wishes, and when he died all I had to do was retrieve the list from his files and distribute that which us three kids were interested in. Sure, conflicts can arise, but a little give and take go a long way towards preserving the value of each memory.
Speaking of taking steps in advance, what about you? Do you have clothing you haven’t worn in more than a year and probably won’t wear in the years to come? How about household items for which you have duplicates? Is there any chance whatsoever that over the years you’ve acquired items that could be re-purposed, donated, or tossed?
I’d say with 100% confidence that you have belongings that you no longer use or need.
Donating to charity is very commendable because it’s always a good thing to provide for those who don’t have the means.
And just think of all the room you’ll gain in your closets once you’ve successfully downsized your life by adding to the lives of others.
Don’t take selfies in Auschwitz | Opinion | The Seattle Times by Leonard Pitts, Jr. One would think that it is not necessary to publish rules or guidelines as to when or where it is inappropriate to immortalize your grinning mug via a selfie, but Mr. Pitts clearly indicates that such guidelines are necessary. His column, attached above, tells the story of an Alabama teenage girl who took a “sunshine smile” selfie at the place that has been memorialized as the largest concentration and death camp in the world: Auschwitz, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau. (After much fanfare over social media and elsewhere, this young lady defended her action by stating that it was meant to honor her father – on the anniversary of his death – because he passed his love of World War II history on to her.)
Keep in mind, Mr. Pitts’ column is an Opinion piece.
I happen to agree with him.
It is my opinion that it is not appropriate to take a stupid-ass smiling, self-absorbed, thumbs up, V cooties sign above someone else’s head, sticking-out-your tongue selfie or photograph in the following incidents and/or places (this is just a partial list):
Auschwitz: a place where 1.1 million humans were tortured and murdered;
9/11 Memorial: where nearly 3,000 human beings were killed by terrorists;
Vietnam Veterans Memorial: where names of the dead – 58,286 as of Memorial Day 2013 – are memorialized, 1,200 of which are designated as MIAs, POWs, and others;
At scenes of destruction such as someone’s neighborhood post hurricane or burning into non-existence from a forest fire (your selfie of non-involvement documenting your presence there is disrespectful to those who have lost everything);
At evolving crime scenes, such as the one that took place outside of a New Jersey McDonald’s restaurant (Mr. Pitts wrote an Opinion piece on that incident as well, see attached link, to which I also agreed) where one female employee beat up another female employee and while no one intervened to stop the violence, they did take photos and videos and oohed and ahhed at the unfolding action; and finally,
It is not appropriate to take a selfie in front of a corpse peacefully laid to rest in a coffin at a viewing service.
Which begs the question: did this Alabama teenager take a selfie in front of her father’s open casket (if a casket was used and if it was open)? I would bet that she did not. Why? Because it would be disrespectful, distasteful, and inappropriate. But I have a confession to make. My family is somewhat guilty of the latter.
My mother died on September 24, 1994 leaving my father a widow. Within 24-hours of her death, I and my two siblings arrived from out-of-state to support dad and help him with the numerous required tasks leading up to the funeral. Mom was cremated.
Because the entire family was present at the church funeral, including my sister-in-law and my adult daughter, someone suggested that we all stand around the urn (which sat on a table surrounded by six dozen pink roses at the front of the church) and have our picture taken.
At the conclusion of the service, our photo was taken. It is a very awkward photo, evidenced by the strained smiles on our faces. The inner dialogue went something like this, “Someone is taking a photo; you’re always supposed to smile for a photo; ergo, here’s my smile.”
Mom’s urn, placed in 1994. Dad’s urn placed in 2007.
But dad wasn’t smiling. He just lost his bride of forty-seven years; what’s to smile about? He stands there with an exhausted and grim look on his face, his left hand touching the top of mom’s urn: one last connection with her before the undertaker removes the container for appropriate storage.
I’m not showing you that funeral-day family photo because there’s no reason why you need to see that private family moment. More importantly, that photo op just didn’t feel right to me.
Maybe that’s a pretty good barometer from which to gauge the appropriateness or not of our actions.
Attached is a very worthwhile read by blogger, Kathie Ritchie. The article includes her suggestions as well as those of caregiver adviser, Marie Marley. (Note: the links provided for Marie Marley appear to be broken, but Kathie includes Ms. Marley’s input within the body of her own blog article, making the content easily readable.)
Painting courtesy of Mary Riesche Studios
Additional articles that will provide information and suggestions to non-caregivers on how they can help their neighbor, co-worker, besieged family member:
The above will give you more than enough material to provide readers with helpful suggestions. If you don’t take the time to read the attached articles – and I sincerely hope you do – I’ll leave you with one suggestion that I hope you do follow:
If a caregiver doesn’t ask for help while on his or her caregiving journey, don’t assume they aren’t in need of your assistance. Offer specific assistance to them; don’t force them to come up with a suggestion on how you can help.
Examples: “I have some individual frozen leftover meals I’d like to bring over for your household, what’s a good time for me to drop them off?” or “I’m headed to the grocery store, what can I pick up for you?” or “It may sound crazy, but I enjoy working in the yard. I’ve completed my Spring yard cleanup, I’d like to come over and help you with yours.”
“My God, this is horrible; someone should really do something!”
That someone is you and me.
from “The Colors and Letters of Jen Elek and Jeremy Bert” (Seattle)
In the attached article from today’s Seattle Times newspaper, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, Leonard Pitts Jr., poses a question that all of us should readily be able to answer. If you see someone in need of help, do you wait for someone else to do the right thing, or do you step in? Do you need to look to other people, watching the same emergency situation as you, to receive the correct “cue” as to what is required of you? No, each of us should assume that if I don’t help this person, no one else will. That’s what Martin Luther King Jr. encouraged us to do when, during one of his speeches, he relayed the story of the Good Samaritan from the Bible.
Pardon my paraphrase, but his message went something like this:
When I happen upon someone in obvious need of assistance, instead of hesitating and wondering what will happen to me if I render assistance, I should be asking myself, “What will happen to this person if I don’t stop and help?”
Some needs are obvious as detailed in one of the stories in Mr. Pitts’ article: Just outside of a New Jersey McDonald’s restaurant, a female McDonald’s worker was savagely beaten by a co-worker who was upset because the other woman gossiped about her. During the beating, no one stepped in to help. While the crowd exclaimed over what they saw – and even took photos and videos of the beating – the only person who came to this victim’s aide was her two-year old son who did what he could to get the mean woman off of his mommy. Not one person at this McDonald’s eatery called 911. I encourage you to read Mr. Pitts’ account to learn the outcome of this story.
Some needs aren’t as evident: in the heat of a summer’s day, you see an elderly man walking down the street when you leave the house to do some errands, and on your return trip a couple hours later, this same elderly man is sitting on a boulder at the side of the road – a bewildered look upon his face. That’s when you need to trust your gut. You say to yourself, “This isn’t right. This guy must be lost and most certainly could be dehydrated,” and so you pull over the car. I wrote an article last summer on this very subject matter, Trust your gut!, resultant from an experience that reinforced my belief that if something feels wrong, it is wrong.
Whether a need is obvious or not-so-obvious, you’re the someone who needs to step up to meet that need. Life is too precious to be an apathetic bystander.
R.B. Bailey Jr.’s blog comes close to being a one-size fits all website because of its inclusion of multi-facted and varied postings that attract the viewing needs of a broad population.
Check out and follow his blog as I started doing just the other day.
I hope you’ll visit – and even follow – his site. It deserves to be in your Favorites folder.
Two years ago today, my sister-in-law died from Alzheimer’s disease.
Four and a half years post diagnosis, Nancy Satterberg Desonier was liberated from the cognitive chains that stifled her creative and loving essence, and dramatically shut down her stately and classic physical body.
Another thing happened on July 4, 2012: Nancy’s caregiver husband, my brother Don Desonier, lost his bride of almost 25 years. Don didn’t feel liberated – he would have gladly continued on his wife’s disease journey as the supportive and attentive husband that he was – but he could celebrate the fact that this devastating disease was done robbing he and Nancy of a quality-filled life, and he could take comfort in the fact that his wife’s suffering had come to an end.
I celebrate Nancy today and the thousands upon thousands like her whose lives were cut short by Alzheimer’s and other dementia.
I also celebrate my brother Don and all the caregivers who provided loving support to a loved one who has passed from this disease. You are a hero to many, and you are a hero to me.
Alzheimer’s Foundation of America Teens (AFA Teens) brings hope that is sorely lacking from the Alzheimer’s medical community. The younger generation is doing something that many of us older adults are not: bringing more awareness to a disease that most of us have been exposed to, either peripherally or specifically. “AFA Teens, founded by a teenager, seeks to mobilize teenagers nationwide to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s disease, and to engage, educate, and support teens and their families.”
My family in the 70s. My dad died from Alzheimer’s, as did my brother’s wife.
As adults, we are affected because the person with the disease is our spouse, partner, sibling, or older relative. But what about the cousins, nephews and nieces, children, and grandchildren out there? Children and teenagers are also exposed to this disease. The challenges faced by teens who are actively involved with these relatives – living close enough to have frequent interaction with them – are challenges that adults have a hard time grasping.
“How come Pappy doesn’t recognize me any more?” “Why does mom always forget the things that are important to me – like my birthday!” That’s right; some teenagers have mothers or fathers with early-onset disease. What should be one of the most exciting times in their young lives is instead spent as a co-caregiver with their other parent. (I addressed this unfortunate family dynamic in my article, Alzheimer’s Heartache: young family members adjusting to a grandparent or parent with dementia.)
I strongly encourage you to visit the AFA Teens website. I know you will be encouraged by the efforts being made by these young advocates.
A NY Times article, When Advance Directives are Ignored, paints a frustrating picture of how and when the best laid plans can come to naught. I am an absolute, card-carrying advocate of Advance Healthcare Directives, also known as a Living Will. I am more concerned about people dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s while preparing their last healthcare wishes, than I am about what people want done – or not done – towards the end of their lives.
You see I couldn’t care less whether you wish to extend your life at all costs – allowing all heroic methods to be employed while on your death bed to take advantage of every second of life available to you – or you simply wish to be made comfortable with the usage of palliative measures while you transition from this life to the next. What does matter to me, however, is that you secure those wishes in a binding legal document while you’re still able to do so. (I am not a lawyer; I am a daughter whose mother and father gifted their three children by laying out their final wishes on paper years in advance of the end of their lives.)
I’ve written four articles addressing this topic in the past few years. I hope you will peruse them, especially if you’ve not yet taken steps to prepare for your exit from this life in the manner in which you choose.
The Longest Day. The attached article by Author, Ann Hedreen, can be found linked above, and you can find additional well-written articles on her blog The Restless Nest. Reader alert: Ms. Hedreen’s book, Her Beautiful Brain, will be released September of this year.
What was your longest day like?
Was it long, because it was fun-filled and absolutely fabulous, or was it long because the day was crammed with the most difficult and stressful experiences of your life?
Caregivers: you are heroes to all who understand the job that you’ve taken on as carers for your loved ones. You live the 36-hour day with all of its burdens and insurmountable challenges, while across the United States there’s much discussion – even controversy – over raising the minimum wage. In contrast, there you are earning no wage but working harder than you’ve ever worked before.
Loved ones with Alzheimer’s or other dementia: your disease-controlled days might seem to have no beginning or end; you go about your day trying to fulfill its challenges while perhaps being at the stage in your disease where you are still able to feel the frustrations of not grasping the how-to of tasks that prior to your diagnosis required no complex thought processes on your part.
Those who have yet to be intimately involved in the above-mentioned roles: look around you – you won’t have to look far – and then on this year’s longest day, Saturday, June 21st, do what you can to help the co-worker or neighbor who desperately needs your help but doesn’t know how to ask for it, or is too ashamed to admit that they can’t do it all.
When you offer help, please don’t leave it open-ended. Instead of saying to your neighbor, “Hi yah, Joe. Be sure to call me if you need anything,” be more specific so it’s easier for Joe to accept your offer, “Joe, when I get out my lawnmower this weekend, I’d love to swing by your place and take care of your lawn so you won’t have to.” Or how about, “Yah know, we’re always making more food than we can eat at our house so we just freeze the leftovers for another time. Can I come by later this week and give you a week’s worth of meals so you don’t have to concern yourself with what to fix for dinner?”
And then keep it up because your neighbor or co-worker’s life isn’t going to get any easier. Keep offering tangible ways in which to provide assistance and you’ll go a long way towards making the longest day – which is every day in the life of a caregiver – a bit easier to tackle.
That’s how our household’s latest project presented itself – at least from the outset.
My husband and I live in a rural suburb of Redmond, Washington. Because we’re rural, a sewer system is not feasible, so all the houses in our area have a septic system: septic and pump tanks fairly close to the house, a drainfield as far away as possible from the house. Our house’s system was installed in 1989 – the drainfield recently failed – and now it has to be replaced.
Maple tree before …
Dilemma: A 50 year old multi-trunked Maple needed to come down, as did a few Alders and a Cottonwood. Trees have roots, and those roots gravitate towards moisture, regardless of the source. We so wanted to keep those trees, but one cannot live without a septic/sewer system so we had to do what we had to do.
Maple after.
Monday and Tuesday of this week saw the professionals doing the deed, with my husband and I, and our neighbor Bob, taking on the task of turning a pile of tree trunks into logs suitable for a fireplace. Our neighbors Bob and Patty use a lot of firewood and our other neighbors, Irma and Larry, do as well. Rather than have the tree professionals remove the massive trunks, we wanted to be able to “recycle” it and providing it to our neighbors is what we wanted to do.
I’ll admit that my hubby and I have been under lots of pressure since we discovered the drainfield failure back in April. And now having a pile of wood that needed to be reduced to logs in less than seven days’ time freaked us out – okay, it freaked me out – but freak out or not, it sure looked like an insurmountable task, and a painful one at that.
It’s not insurmountable any more, but it’s still painful.
Just as is needed for every large task with which we are confronted – whether a complicated office project, a weight loss plan, or what have you – if you break it down into manageable steps, the project will be completed. That’s what we did, and as of the end of yesterday, what was insurmountable now appears to be doable.
Erin and my hubby; Summer 2013
Yesterday, my daughter Erin came to the house at around four o’clock after teaching her Junior Achievement class in Seattle. My hubby came home shortly thereafter and within two sweaty and painful hours: Jerry had made a dent in the pile of wood by cutting it into manageable logs and Erin and I had hauled multiple wheelbarrows full of small and HUGE logs to various locations where wood needed to be distributed. Now the remaining task actually seems palatable. An aside: that daughter of mine is such a stud – you should have seen the massive logs she lifted off the ground and tossed into the wheelbarrow. Ugh. One thing for sure is that all bodies involved in this project have not needed to do any extra workouts this week!
The moral of the story: when presented with a large task, allow yourself to freak out, then calm down, break the task into smaller chunks, and get to it. That’s what we did and I just know that eventually – but before the drainfield system is installed the beginning of next week – we will have made those massive trunks into usable logs, and all will be well.
Forced faith is not faith | Opinion | The Seattle Times. The syndicated columnist, Leonard Pitts Jr., has proven yet again how fabulously he writes. His writing can only attain that quality, however, if what he writes comes from a sense of justice, compassion, and truth. Therefore, hands down – his writing is fabulous.
The title for this blog piece comes from Mr. Pitts’ article where he quotes Martin Luther King’s definition of faith as being, “taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” The columnist says that given what the Sudanese Parliament has done by imposing the death penalty on one of its citizens who wouldn’t disavow her faith, “faith has less to do with hope and assurance and the courage to take steps in the dark, than with justifying just this kind of theological bullying.”
This story centers around choosing one religion over another. My writing on this story does not pit Christianity against Islam, (or vice versa) rather, it’s a story showing a conflict between two religions that very well might end horrifically. It’s a dramatic story because the “guilty” party, Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, a mother of two who married a Christian man, will receive 100 lashes and then she will be killed after her youngest child has been weaned – nothing short of outrageous and barbaric.
Can you require/force someone to have faith?
Can you require/force someone to love you?
Mr. Pitts asks:
Can faith ever truly be faith if it is imposed by force of law or threat of violence? Is faith faith if it is not freely chosen? If someone swore at gunpoint that she loved you, would you believe her?
Faith can move mountains; religion can’t. (Painting by artist, Mary Riesche)
The Sudanese Parliament has no concept of what faith is. Again, I’m not talking about Islam in general, I’m talking about the actions of the Sudanese Parliament. Its members are simply trying to force this 27-year old woman to leave her Christian religion and follow their religion, Islam. They are proving that they are a bunch of fearful wimps – so afraid are they of any religion that differs from theirs. But we all know the truth: the strongest person represented in this travesty is Meriam Yehya Ibrahim. She’s not holding on to her religion, she’s holding on to her faith.
Bullies are weaklings in disguise whose only weapon is to assert a strength they will never have.
A May 15, 2014 New York Times article, Alzheimer’s, a Neglected Epidemic by Ginia Bellafante, provides a keen look at a fatal disease that many still assume is one that only other people get. Maybe my coworker a few cubicles away from me or the neighbors down the street will have to deal with some sort of dementia, but not our household – right? You wish. Alzheimer’s is a world-wide epidemic and it’s knocking on your front door.
In 2010, Alzheimer’s was the underlying cause in 500,000 deaths in the United States.
Let’s look at another epidemic with horrific fatality totals. Remember the AIDS crisis? As of the year 2010, in thirty years’ time, AIDS was responsible for 636,000 deaths in the U.S. And yet Alzheimer’s – a very unpopular disease that is erroneously characterized as just an old person’s disease – racked up almost that many deaths in just one year.
Alzheimer’s isn’t just for geezers any more.
That’s the title of one of the chapters in my manuscript – a work of fiction that centers on the lives – patients and their family caregivers – affected by Alzheimer’s or other dementia. A couple of my characters are in their 80s but there are three characters ranging in age from early 40s to mid 60s whose disease journey began when they were no longer considered young – but definitely not considered old.
What will it take to push people out of denial and into activism?
In the New York Times article linked above, AIDS activist, Peter Staley, is quoted as saying, “The hidden blessing of H.I.V was that it hit a community, my community, a community of mostly gay men. We had a base of organizing that came out of Stonewall.” [1969 demonstrations by members of the gay community in response to a police raid at Stonewall Inn, in Greenwich Village.] And then he goes on to say, “Alzheimer’s hits old people. There is no real organized community beyond AARP.”
I’m not happy with Mr. Staley’s characterization of Alzheimer’s as an old person’s disease because it perpetuates a myth that is simply not entirely true. But I fully back his advice to all of us:
How does a large, affected community get the country to care? It means playing a strong inside game: These family members need to organize effectively; they need to find their allies in Congress; they need to show up with sick people in front of key members of health communities.
Right on.
Alzheimer’s struck my dad in his mid-80s and my sister-in-law in her early 60s – both now deceased.
If you have been bitten by a dog you’re in good company. I read the following statistics in the May 16, 2014 issue of the Seattle Times newspaper:
In 2013, 4.5 million Americans were bitten by dogs in the United States;
The above total includes more than 2 million children and almost 5,600 U.S Postal Service employees.
Gee, statistics for 2014 will include me in the number of Americans bitten in the United States. I seem to have greater potential for becoming part of those statistics than making a name for myself as a published author.
Future Margarita rewards for when my manuscript gets picked up.
The title for this article is my shameless attempt to keep my novel-writing in the forefront of everyone’s minds.
I’m pretty excited however – not by the dog bite episode of May 7th – but by the status of my manuscript. I’ve almost finished reading it through – for the zillion’th time – and thus far I’m pleased with the cohesiveness of the storyline. I’m still making edits in grammar and punctuation – semi-colons and hyphens/dashes are really stymieing me – but I’m hoping if I do my very best, a copy editor will do the rest. I am 100% certain that an agent will want to represent a book that throws a personal and touching spotlight on those who are living with Alzheimer’s and dementia. There’s not an agent or publisher out there who hasn’t been affected by this disease – either peripherally or specifically.
Please stay tuned as I will be providing updates in an effort to keep me on my toes, keep me honest, and get this d@*#mn book published.
My next door neighbors, Irma and Larry, epitomize what being neighborly is all about. You can look at a previous post of mine to see what bad neighbors look like.
Today’s post provides a contrast.
In my rural Redmond neighborhood we don’t always see our neighbors face to face: some of the houses are set back from the street, and others are simply enveloped in the natural evergreen landscaping common to the area.
After last week’s neighborhood dog bite I made certain that my immediate neighbors were made aware of the vicious dogs’ location and I gave them a thumbnail sketch of what transpired. This past Friday afternoon my husband and I were just wrapping up a mini-walk and as we approached Irma and Larry’s driveway, Irma greeted us and invited us into their house for a visit. What awaited us was a beautiful bouquet of flowers harvested from their backyard.
Lilacs & Azaleas gracing my finished manuscript
Equally as precious as the flowers was the concern that both of my neighbors expressed for my doggy mishap. These same neighbors came to my aid several years ago after I had undergone major surgery. I assured my husband that he could return to work after staying home with me for several days and he reluctantly agreed to do so. A couple hours into my day I was in excruciating pain. My hubby was over an hour’s drive away, but Irma and Larry were next door. I sent them an SOS and Irma came over to stay with me while her husband drove down to the neighborhood pharmacy for a newly prescribed medicine that would make my day a better one. After Larry delivered the medication, Irma remained at my side until my daughter, Erin, arrived for her scheduled mommy-sitting visit at Noon that day.
The point is, good neighbors drop everything and attend to the needs of someone else. Irma and Larry have done that time and again for this household. It is my hope that I can catch up to their generosity and bless them as much as they have blessed me.
Regardless of the industry you represent your goal must always be to deliver the best customer experience.
I have read and viewed many advertisements in which a company assures a future customer that their goal is to deliver the best customer service to each and every customer they serve. This is a very commendable goal in my eyes – a goal that must be reached by every provider of products and/or services. Whether I am a passenger on a multi-level cruise ship or a seaport’s rickety party boat;
Photo credit: Rob Owen-Wahl
whether I dine at a casual eatery or a popular Michelin 3-star restaurant; whether I am a guest at a Residence Inn or a resident at a senior citizen housing community, you must provide me with the best customer experience you can muster.
A couple months ago, I commented on a LinkedIn article that discussed one particular goal that should be considered by long-term care (LTC) providers, e.g., senior housing, assisted living, and memory care owners and operators. The particular goal stated in that article was to fill the buildings, attain high census, or as some industry leaders describe as putting “heads in the beds.”
My comment to this article centered on my work as a long-term care ombudsman (advocate for residents living in long-term care facilities). I explained that when a new General Manager was hired for any of the facilities to which I was assigned, I made a point of meeting her or him to explain my role as a resident advocate and to get to know a bit about this new person who was now in charge of 50 to 100 or more residents.
I asked one particular newbie what he felt was the greatest challenge as the new General Manager for this particular independent/assisted living community. “Fill up the apartments.” I suggested that a more appropriate goal might be to retain the residents he already has. I explained that retaining residents most likely means that he and his staff are doing the right thing in delivering the best care and customer service experience to each of his residents.
Retaining the residents he already has equates to fewer additional apartments to fill;
Retaining the residents he already has means satisfied residents who say great things about the building thereby attracting additional friends/acquaintances as future residents;
Family members of happy residents in LTC means happy adult children who will also spread the good news to others;
It stands to reason, therefore, that satisfied current residents are the best tool a manager can maintain in his marketing tool chest.
Dining room at my dad’s memory care facility.
I have retired from working in long-term care housing and from my advocacy work as a certified LTC ombudsman. I know first hand the pressure that employees experience each and every month to report the right numbers to the corporate office. The suits want the bottom line, baby, and if you can’t deliver the numbers they want and need, you’re outta there! (Just like all the losing pitchers the Seattle Mariners have gone through in the past ten years or so.)
I’m not saying that the Suits are only concerned about profit, but I will say that perhaps their focus needs to center more on the delivery of exceptional care for those who are entrusting the Suits with the lives of mom, dad, spouse/significant other, or sibling. Those family members want to be able to sleep at night knowing that their loved one is receiving the best care possible, the most nutritious meals known to man, and that their loved one is living in a safe environment staffed by employees who care.
All you have to to is deliver the best customer experience. Do that and the bottom line will take care of itself.
If you are a responsible dog owner who maintains control of your animal and does not allow it to leave your property without being under the control of a leash, you don’t need to read any further.
If your dog or dogs routinely leave your property and have access to any person walking near your property, then please pay attention to what I have to say.
I was bitten by a dog yesterday.
My neighborhood walking area.
I live in rural Redmond, Washington, a beautiful area providing many scenic areas for residential walks. Many dogs live in my rural neighborhood, and some of their owners have given these dogs carte blanche to freely run around the neighborhood – a neighborhood that has many children I might add. But I digress. Said carte-blanche-provided dogs don’t feel compelled to limit their pooping activity to their owner’s property, therefore when they roam the streets of my neighborhood and feel the urge to purge they do so and because they don’t have opposable thumbs they do not clean up their poop. Disgusting for those of us who enjoy walking through the neighborhood. But again, I digress.
Need I say more?
These same dogs whose owners disobey the local leash law have full access to any child, adult or older adult person they come across. Now to the point of my story. I am a prolific walker and there is no street in my rural neighborhood that I have not traveled. Yesterday afternoon I was minding my own business, enjoying a break in the rainy weather by taking a walk, when I turned onto 272nd Avenue NE, Redmond, WA 98053, when half-way down the block my walk was interrupted by two white-haired maltese-like dogs running out of their human’s property directly into my path. My normal modis operandi in these instances is to tell the dog “No! No!” or words to that effect, and casually continue on my way.
Not this time. These two dogs stayed at my heels, not letting me proceed on my own, bearing their teeth, barking like there was no tomorrow, and in a progressive show of defiance, one of them jumped up and bit me on the back of my left calf. Okay, now I’m mad. I’m screaming at these dogs to get away so I can leave the area, and they’re not buying it. Where’s their human? I guess the human was yelling for her dogs, although I couldn’t hear her over their barking, because one of them ran back onto the human’s property, leaving the other dog to continue on its terroristic rant at my expense. (Perhaps said dog has “small dog syndrome”?) Anyway, I was going to use my pepper spray on the remaining mutt but it was acting so vicious, I feared I would only aggravate the situation.
I finally heard a female human’s voice calling the remaining hairy terrorist, and that dog ran back onto the owner’s property. At this point I am approximately 25 feet way from the gravel driveway and did not see the human, nor did I want to exchange conversational pleasantries. I feared that if I walked back to the foot of the driveway to confront the human, her maltese-like dogs would consider me a threat and demand a pound of flesh from me. Instead I yelled, “Your dog bit me!” to which she replied, “Sorry.” She did not walk off her property to the street to see if I was okay. I walked slowly away, looking back to see if she would do so, and she did not.
The balance of my day: at the advice of my doctor’s office when I called to tell them about my dog bite – 3 puncture wounds on my calf, drawing blood – I drove to the nearest hospital emergency room to receive any treatment the ER physician deemed necessary. Fortunately no stitches were required and because there have been no confirmed rabies cases reported in King County – the county in which I live – in the past 30 years, there was no need for preventative rabies treatment. The physician did prescribe an antibiotic, however, should the dog bite become infected.
Come on people! Be responsible dog owners!
You owe it to the general public, and you owe it to your animals, to be responsible. To their animals you ask? Of course, because a complaint such as I filed with Animal Control, including photos of the injured leg, will initiate an investigation that might result in your dog or dogs to be removed from your house.
Bottom line: If you love Fluffy, you must protect Fluffy and all with whom he may come in contact.
My sister, Mary, has been an artist since she could hold a crayon and a water color brush in her hand. Without giving away her age, I’ll just say that she’s been an artist for quite a few years because she is close in age to myself.
Mary in her garage studio
This article honors the consistency and commitment that my sister has exercised in her quest to maintain and hone her talent. Her husband was in the United States Navy when she married him, a career that deposited the two of them and their ever growing family, all over the United States and the world. She could have put down her sketching pencils, acrylics, and oils and figured that until the kids are grown up and out of the house, she wouldn’t have time for her artistic endeavors. But she didn’t. She managed her family single-handedly – and excellently I might add – while her husband was away at sea, never neglecting her family nor the craft that she loves so much.
Mary has been so diligent on this artistic journey, that I can only recall one time when she could not work on her craft. Mary broke her right wrist falling down in front of a grocery store near her Vacaville, California neighborhood several years ago, and as happens after we cross a certain age threshold, bones break easier and take longer to heal. But my sister was only sidelined for as long as absolutely necessary while she completed her physical therapy regimen and then – almost as good as new – she again took up the tools of her craft to pour her heart, soul, and energy into each piece.
And now that my sister and her husband are retired – and their five children are all grown and the number of grandchildren has recently increased to six – Mary continues to pick up the tools that she discovered as a youngster, and consistently makes efforts to expand her talents.
The artist in April 2014 at one of many craft fairs she attends through the year.
Now this is where you come in. I strongly encourage you to visit Mary Riesche Studiosso that you can get to know a bit more about this artistic family member of mine, and while you’re at it, browse a sampling of her current inventory of pieces that are for sale. She loves what she does so much, and is so committed to what she loves to do, she will even create a custom piece to fit your home, business, or organization’s needs.
Do yourself a favor, browse the Mary Riesche Studios website, and then contact the artist to discern how her talent can benefit your personal or commercial environment.
Sue Monk Kidd, author of numerous books including the New York Times best seller (for two years) The Secret Life of Bees, was a recent guest on Oprah Winfrey’s show, Super Soul Sunday. The description of the show indicated that the author would be talking about her true calling as a writer. That got my attention, because I’m trying my darnedest to be a writer. Correction: I am a writer, I’m just not an author yet.
Perhaps you’re asking, “Do I have to have a calling?”
No, you don’t. I can only speak for myself when I say that I’ve known that I’ve had a calling for most of my adult life. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I had one. I always seemed to be searching for the right project/job on which to spend my time. As an employee, and as a volunteer, I did my work superbly, always trying to be the best version of myself – and for the most part, I was.
But something was missing. I always felt that I hadn’t latched on to what I was called to do. I can describe how that felt by using Sue Monk Kidd’s experience when she switched from being a nurse to being a full-time writer. For her own reasons, Sue Monk Kidd felt “out of alignment” and she didn’t feel she was “in a place of belonging” as a nurse. She also described the time before she answered her calling as having “homesickness for (her) your home.” Then she made the decision to be a writer and this is how she felt, “there is no place as alive as when you’re on the edge of becoming” what you were meant to be.
Exactly.
Household garage sale to raise funds for the Alzheimer’s Association.
And she added that it takes lots of courage to get there – to activate the calling that you know is yours. Several years ago I found my niche – working with the elderly. For six and a half years, I worked in the senior housing industry. For five years after that, I volunteered as an Alzheimer’s Association caregiver support group facilitator, and another five years as a Certified Long-term Care Ombudsman for the State of Washington. Good stuff, and it felt right, and it was. But I had yet to use that wealth of experience in what I would define as my calling.
Confession: I’m a fairly decent writer.
Now hold on there, Irene, shouldn’t a calling be something at which you excel, some sort of skill that you’ve honed to perfection? In my case, the answer is no. Sue Monk Kidd validates what I mean. She said there are three things you need to be a writer: 1) have something to say; 2) have the ability to say it; and 3) have the courage to say it at all.
Ergo, I am qualified.
I believe in what I’m doing.
I am one and a half years into writing my first novel. It focuses on the lives of a group of adults who have Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia and the loved ones who are their caregivers. Woo hoo! All the work I’ve done in the past ten-plus years can be used in my calling! I excelled at all of those tasks, and some day I will excel at getting my manuscript published.
Some agent and some publisher out there wants to sign what I have to offer, and I believe that my degree of writing ability won’t get in the way of them doing so.
Have no fear all you agents and publishers who might have just read that last sentence. I am doing my best and I’m working hard at my craft. I’m not of the opinion that just because I feel I’ve found my calling I can just haphazardly go about my writing, not working as diligently as I have in the past.
I’m taking this calling seriously because the subject matter is a serious and personal one to me.
My advice to you the reader? Do what you know you’re supposed to be doing, and do it well. Whether you label that as a calling or a job matters less than if you believe in what you’re doing and are committed to it.
Caring for a loved one is a full-time job, as one of my fellow bloggers clearly illustrates in the attached article. Please read her article, especially if you’re not quite aware of how full the carer’s day can be.
My father died of Alzheimer’s 10/13/2007. I’m on the left, then my hubby, then my brother.
There’s a reason why the book, The 36-Hour Day (now in its 6th edition) is so popular with health professionals and family caregivers. The subtitle for the book reads, A Family Guide to Caring for Persons with Alzheimer’s Disease, related Dementias, and Memory Loss. As the former caregiver for my father who died from Alzheimer’s in 2007, I can verify that whether you are providing hands-on care or managerial long-distance care for a loved one, your job never ends. A normal day is a relative term that changes with every day or hour – or as is sometimes the case – every minute.
My article, A normal day, caregiving style, throws a spotlight on how a patient’s and caregiver’s life changes once a diagnosis has been delivered. The concept of normal is an ever-changing paradigm where the sand on the beach shifts so much, one can barely hold herself upright.
I celebrate all caregivers who manage this extraordinary task so well, and so devotedly. You are a hero to many.
Treatable Conditions that Mimic Dementia – AARP. I am so pleased that AARP published this article about false positives for Alzheimer’s disease. Because of the high incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia, we have all become very sensitive to any abnormal cognitive challenges in our lives. A few people have said to me, “I keep losing my keys. I forget where I place them. Do I have Alzheimer’s?” I’m not a medical professional but I have been trained by several in the profession. Teepa Snow, one of America’s leading educators on dementia, had this response to that type of question, and I paraphrase:
If you forget where you’ve put down your keys, you may not have dementia. If you forget what they are or what they’re used for, you could very well have dementia.
Several years ago I underwent extensive neurological testing due to troubling cognitive symptoms. Turns out, the cause was a medication I was taking. Once I went off the med, I was 100% fine.
The attached AARP article provides possible reasons for cognitive abnormalities that are not Alzheimer’s disease: medication, urinary tract infection (UTI), diabetes, thyroid, and depression to name a few. That being the case, even if you forget what the car keys are for, you still may not have Alzheimer’s or other dementia.
In my attached article, Medications: harbinger of cognitive decline? I address just one of the causes for a false positive Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Please read that article, to be sure, but also read the attached piece by AARP. You deserve to have peace of mind by finding out if your symptoms, or those of a loved one, are reversible. And by all means, be bold enough to demand that your treating physician rule out all other possible conditions before putting you through the grueling neurological testing that many physicians prescribe as first steps, rather than the last resort when determining the cause of a patient’s cognitive decline.
I wrote an article on April 6, 2014, entitled, Same sex marriage: we don’t have to agree. In that article I emphasized how abusive and intolerant we have become with our opinions, and how exclusionary we are setting ourselves up to be. If you think about it, the impetus for our very strongly held opinions is that we want to be right. If we are right, then the other person or group must be wrong. Damn that feels good!
American journalist and author, Kathryn Shuulz, spoke at TED a couple years ago, and the title of her 17 minute talk was: On Being Wrong. What Ms. Shuulz has to say is well worth all of you allotting 17 minutes of your day to watch this attached video. The gist of her message is that it’s a very big problem to have the feeling of always being right, and she explains why.
To begin with, she asked some of the audience members this question:
How does it feel to be wrong?
Their answers were: dreadful, embarrassing, thumbs down. She thanked them for their answers and then told them that they actually provided answers to a different question, that question being:
How does it feel to realize that you’re wrong?
You see, being wrong doesn’t feel like anything. We go along our merry way believing something or stating something, fully convinced that what we’re saying is right, so we’re not feeling what it feels like to be wrong. It isn’t until we discover that our strongly held opinion or belief is actually wrong that the dreadfulness and embarrassment creep in.
Many of us were raised to realize the importance of not making mistakes, or if we missed that lesson, we rapidly learned in school – and then in our working careers – that making mistakes is a big fat no-no.
But what about the statement: we learn from our own mistakes?
I can honestly tell you that I’ve learned far more valuable lessons from falling flat on my face than I’ve learned standing up on a self-righteous pedestal. Being wrong or making mistakes is not a defect. It’s a fact of life. St. Augustine would say it proves that we’re alive:
A friend from college found me through Facebook the other day and we’ve spent a couple days catching up with each other via e-mail because it has been decades since we’ve communicated with each other. I told Angie about my work with the elder-care community and I also mentioned that I’m a contributing writer for Grandparents Day Magazine (an Australian online publication), I have my own blog, and I’m writing my first novel. “Irene, did you major in English at the University?” “Nope, I majored in French. I write not because I’m an exceptional writer, but because I have something to say.”
As is the case today.
Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times wrote another brilliant column in such a way as to make you say, “Hmmmm.” What I mean is that at least for me, he opened my eyes as to how demanding some of our opinions can be. For example:
Whether you support same-sex marriage or you don’t, you have the right to say how you feel about it.
Six years ago, Mozilla CEO, Brendan Eich contributed financially to Proposition 8 in California – a proposition that opposed gay marriage. It was discovered that he had done so, and the newly installed CEO was immediately ousted. He had, however, been with the company since the 1990s, and as Danny Westneat pointed out, “There was no evidence his views against legalizing gay marriage had any effect on his various jobs at the company, including his treatment of gay co-workers.”
Putting a more local perspective on this same subject, Washington State’s 2012 Referendum 74 that would allow same-sex marriage in our state, had 5,700 names on the anti-gay-marriage monetary contributor list, including those from Amazon, Starbucks, T-Mobile, F5 Networks, Microsoft, and Boeing, to name a few. Many others were opposed to the Referendum and financially contributed against it: medical professionals, public-school teachers, a school superintendent, and a couple college instructors. The measure passed, with the voters split 53.7% to 46.3% of valid votes placed.
Is this where we’re gonna place those who don’t believe the way we do?
Isn’t that grand? Everyone was allowed to vote which ever way they wanted; a fabulous example of the right to believe/speak the way you want through the democratic voting process. But do or say something that might give ones business a bad reputation in the eyes of the majority – or even the minority – then by God, you’ve gotta go.
Where do we draw the line?
Personally, I passionately voted the way I wanted to vote regarding Referendum 74, and although I might disagree with those who voted differently from me, I respected their right to vote which ever way they wanted.
In his article, Danny Westneat talked about the fanaticism that the Boy Scouts exhibited by ousting a gay Boy Scout leader because of who he is, not because of his work performance. But the columnist added that the same fanaticism was displayed when the Mozilla CEO was ousted for what he believes.
If we are now requiring everyone to believe the way we believe; think the way we think; or vote the way we vote, aren’t we exhibiting a radical intolerance that nullifies our right to believe and speak as our conscience leads us?
I hope I never live in a world where someone figuratively puts a gun to my head to force me to think, believe, or vote the way they want me to.
Anyone who knows me, knows that would really piss me off, and it should make you pretty darn angry as well.
What these two disasters and many like them have in common is that billions of us can say that they didn’t happen to us. I live in a suburb of Seattle, approximately 60 miles south of Oso, Washington – the town that was buried by a landslide that killed at least twenty four people as of this writing. This landslide didn’t physically happen to my town of Redmond, Washington, but it did happen to us.
The crash of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 took the lives of 239 people and affected thousands of people who lost one of the 239. This crash appears to have happened over the Indian Ocean, many, many miles away from where you and I live, and most of us can say that we weren’t connected to any of those victims, but we would be wrong, because that crash happened to you and me as well.
I don’t take comfort in the fact that so many of the disasters that occur in the world haven’t personally or physically happened to me. There is no distinct separation between me and those pointedly affected by the tragedy that has inserted itself into their lives; no safety shield between my location, and theirs. They are me, and I am them.
It is far too easy to sit comfortably at home and simply be grateful that such tragedies didn’t directly happen to me. You know that saying, “There but for the grace of God go I.” I think the intent of that statement is well-meaning but it must be said and felt purposefully so that we truly recognize that another misfortune, at another time, could be our own. All of us are vulnerable, and we are all connected. What happens elsewhere, happens to us.
The reason for this article is to express my hope that all of us, wherever and whomever we are, may more readily and clearly identify with all of humanity: the “them” or “they” to whom tragedies befall.
Empathy trumps distance, nationality, or circumstances.
Monica Guzman wrote a thought-provoking article in the Sunday Seattle Times, linked above, that I read in the print-edition of the local newspaper today. I enjoy reading the newspaper each morning; my husband reads the same newspaper in the evening – both times providing opportunities for daily ritualistic enjoyment. Ms. Guzman describes these occasions as “a world where paper is sweet, sweet, sanctuary.”
I’m certainly a technological user. I own a desktop computer, a laptop, a tablet (Kindle), and a smartphone. Because I’ve grown accustomed to the ease with which all of these devices are used, I have been guilty of the same snobbishness (read superiority) experienced by Ms. Guzman. I observe someone reading a bound paper book in a coffee shop, or on an airplane, and I think to myself, “Welcome to the 21st century people; how lame can you be?” But like Ms. Guzman, I’m also jealous.
If we compare paper to digital as media, one is smart, and the other is dumb. If we compare them as devices, “(P)aper’s purpose is simple. You look at it or you put something on it.” Digital media, however, has as many “purposes as infinite as the operations they perform.” But is that always a great thing? Take into consideration the columnist’s statement:
Next to the capabilities of digital, paper is dumb. But next to the tranquility of paper, digital is an assault. Alive with possibilities but full of demands. Always connected but never done. (Emphasis mine) Triggers, enablers, provocateurs.
When I finish reading a print-edition newspaper, I don’t leave it on my nightstand just in case updates come in during the night that I might need to read. Ditto with a hand-written letter I receive from a friend – she put down her thoughts on paper, I’ve read it and might even save it, but the letter is finite – unlike e-mails which leap out at us with each vibrating notification.
In days past, when I finished reading a particularly riveting paperback novel, I would close the back cover, hug the book to my chest, and glory in the connection that said book created in me. I might even mourn that I had finished the book. Give me more! When I finish reading a book on my Kindle Fire HDX, regardless of how fabulous a read, there’s no device hugging going on. Instead I’m instantly downloading another title to be at the ready for my next respite of reading time. One down, millions to go.
Convenient, yes, but I must say that before I entered the Kindle generation, I thoroughly enjoyed requesting books from my local King County library, knowing that it might be a few weeks before the title finally became available to me. How exciting it was, however, when I received an electronic notification that the book was now available for pick-up. I might even drop everything, stop what I was doing, and make an extra car trip just to grab hold of the much-anticipated title.
What an extraordinary pleasure that was.
I don’t bemoan my technological gadgets – they do make my life easier and I am certainly more tuned in to the latest updates in the news, good or bad. But I don’t want paper to go away. I cancelled my Newsweek print magazine prescription when they went to an all digital format in 2012. I don’t want to sit at my computer or gaze into my tablet to read a periodical. (Hear that Seattle Times? Keep printing!) But listen to this. Earlier this month Newsweek brought back their print edition. I sincerely hope this is an indication that print periodicals aren’t dead. I share the same sentiment provided by Ms. Guzman towards the end of her article:
Not long ago I was convinced paper was outdone. Outperformed. Beaten. It wasn’t a question of whether paper would die, but when. Now, I hope it sticks around long enough for us to know why we would want it to.
The New York Times article The Science of Older and Wiser by Phyllis Korkki, provides a scientific, yet personal, foray into the location of where wisdom resides.
The article also addresses levels of importance between the speed with which information is retrieved from one’s mind versus a life filled with meaning, contentment and acceptance. Speedy retrieval of information appears to belong to those who are younger than Baby Boomers while those who take longer to tap into a data-filled mind are us Baby Boomers or older for whom information retrieval falls second. Once that information is retrieved, however, it is used to gain insights and perspectives that form the basis for wise behavior and decisions.
Must everything in our lives function at breakneck speed? Consider these synonyms for fast, or quick:
speedy
swift
express
high-speed
immediate
expeditious
brisk
hasty (haste makes waste!)
from “The Colors and Letters of Jen Elek and Jeremy Bert” (Seattle-based artists)
We live in such a fast-paced world that we find ourselves snapping our fingers at how long it takes to make a cup of K-Cup (pod) coffee. We want it now! Now, I tell you! What’s taking so long? We will even pay extra when traveling by plane in order to use TSA’s faster Pre-Check security lane, and we’ll pay an annual subscription to Amazon.com to get free 2-day shipping for the plethora of things we purchase there.
But is faster always better than reflective contemplation?
Consider some definitions of wisdom provided in the above-attached article:
“True wisdom involves recognizing the negative both within and outside ourselves and trying to learn from it.” (Ursula M. Staudinger, The Berlin Wisdom Project);
Wisdom is characterized by a “reduction in self-centeredness.” (Monika Ardelt, associate sociology professor, Univ. of Florida, Gainseville);
If you are wise, “You’re not focusing so much on what you need and deserve, but on what you can contribute.” (Laura L. Carstensen, founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, California); and
An important sign of wisdom is generativity, which means “giving back without needing anything in return.” (Dr. Daniel Goleman, author of Focus and Emotional Intelligence, psychologist, science journalist.)
Given the descriptions for the word “fast” and the characterizations for the quality known as “wisdom”, what will your life’s main focus be as you graduate through the various stages of aging? Unless your later years involve being the fastest on the ski slopes, or the quickest person to complete the NY Times crossword puzzle, consider this element of successful aging: “(M)ost psychologists agree that if you define wisdom as maintaining positive well-being and kindness in the face of challenges, it is one of the most important qualities one can possess to age successfully.” (Phyllis Korkki, New York Times)
How readily do you bounce back when you’ve been cut off at the knees? when you’ve experienced a long streak of bad luck? when your hopes and dreams are just that: hopes, and dreams?
I am inspired to write this brief piece today because of an extraordinary act of resilience that I witness about this time each year.
Eleven years ago my daughter opened up a bridal party business that was very successful. She started the business in August 2003 and the Grand Opening of the store occurred in March of that same year. One of her vendors, a custom jewelry designer, sent her a live plant in celebration of her store’s opening. The sweet smelling floral plant was appropriately named, Bridal Veil (stephanotis floribunda).
I had the privilege of working at my daughter’s boutique from its inception, and then off and on when she needed extra help with the bridal parties. Approximately two weeks after her store’s opening, the Bridal Veil plant had come to its seasonal end so I took it home and planted it in my backyard, just underneath my kitchen window, cutting the greenery down to the dirt. And every year about this time, the Bridal Veil shoots break through the ground and seem to announce, “Spring is back and so am I.”
I am certain that you know people who have exhibited far more heroic and miraculous resilience than this silly plant’s arrival each year – so have I – but I still can’t help but be impressed and pleased, each and every year that it does. It has survived 100 degree (Fahrenheit) temperatures and 10 degree temps, not to mention a blanket of snow that manages to cover it when the snow starts falling around Washington State.
But each year, it comes back, and each year, I’m still surprised and as pleased as Punch! Definition: feeling great delight or pride.
Many of us would give up at the first degree of scorching heat and we certainly might throw in the towel when the snowflakes start to fly. I don’t want to be less resilient than the stephanotis floribunda.
And yet many drivers that are cognitively impaired are doing just that. Justin Runquist’s Seattle Times article, attached above, addresses the wave of aging drivers that has swept onto our roads. I’ll be the first to admit that dementia isn’t always the impairment associated with aging drivers. Sometimes medication side effects and/or slower response times – even without Alzheimer’s or dementia – can be the cause of accidents that can harm the driver, and anyone in his or her path.
In this article, however, I address the type of DUI that does involve dementia. As I mentioned in my two part series: Driving under the influence of dementia and Part 2 of that article, there are far too many news reports covering the risks of impaired driving – many of which end in disaster.
My dad (circa 1980’s) gave up his car keys shortly before being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
How can we possibly take comfort in denying that either ourselves or our loved ones should no longer get behind the wheel? This type of denial is dangerous but it is possible to get around the difficulties associated with this subject without alienating yourself or others.
For those of you who are still driving and who have considered even once that you shouldn’t be doing so – please read all the articles attached within this blog entry and then decide if you still feel comfortable driving a weapon that might kill you, or someone in your path. And for you adult children who have felt the same uncomfortableness surrounding your own parents’ driving skills – take heed and act before it’s too late.
Approaching The Final Destination. The attached article focuses on one caregiving journey that is coming to an end. Chris McClellan’s caregiving journey is coming to a close because his partner, TLO, is approaching his final destination. Recently, another blogger that I follow, who was the caregiver for her husband, Chuck, came to the end of her caregiving journey because Chuck approached, and reached, his final destination.
Each caregiver/blogger that I follow has said the same thing in almost the same words that echo how Chris describes the tenor of the day-to-day life of a caregiver: “I’ve come to realize that what I might think is a routine day, is totally off the charts by normal standards. I’m sure most family caregivers can get in touch with that.”
Whether a loved one needs care because of cancer, as in TLO’s case, or Alzheimer’s, as in Chuck’s case, the lives of both caregiver and patient are forever changed once a diagnosis is pronounced. The 10-15 minute medical consultation in an exam room or a doctor’s private office thrusts the recipients into the as-yet-unknown world of living with a terminal illness.
My father and my sister-in-law, both of whom died from Alzheimer’s.
My brother’s wife, Nancy, was diagnosed with mixed dementia when she was barely 65-years old. In the first article on my brother’s caregiving blog, he also characterizes diagnosis day as the day his life, and that of his wife, changed forever.
Normal becomes a shifting paradigm that can look different from month to month or moment to moment as a loved one’s disease progresses towards its final destination. Both caregiver and patient can’t recall – for one reason or another – what normal used to mean before the disease’s arrival in their lives. I know from personal experience with my father, that the caregiver truly can’t imagine life without caregiving – so all-consuming and life-changing is a fatal disease in ones life.
Normal? What does that mean? And in the midst of caregiving, you become aware that the only escape from this new and ever-changing normal is the death of the one for whom you provide care. What liberation! What freedom lies on the horizon!
No, that is not what the caregiver is thinking. He or she is focused on the here and now, because such focus is required in order to adjust to the shifting sands of normalcy.
But the end does come as it did with my father on October 13, 2007, with my sister-in-law on July 4, 2012, with Chuck in late February 2014, and as will happen with TLO once Chris and TLO’s journey comes to an end.
What we all would give for just one more day of abnormal normalcy with our loved ones.
But all journeys come to an end, and none of us would rob our loved ones of their final escape to a destination towards which their lives had been headed since their own personal diagnosis day.
Freedom from pain; freedom from physical and cognitive restrictions. Let it be.
Four and a half years post diagnosis, Nancy Satterberg Desonier was liberated from the cognitive chains that stifled her creative and loving essence, and dramatically shut down her stately and classic physical body.
Another thing happened on July 4, 2012: Nancy’s caregiver husband, my brother Don Desonier, lost his bride of almost 25 years. Don didn’t feel liberated – he would have gladly continued on his wife’s disease journey as the supportive and attentive husband that he was – but he could celebrate the fact that this devastating disease was done robbing he and Nancy of a quality-filled life, and he could take comfort in the fact that his wife’s suffering had come to an end.
You see I couldn’t care less whether you wish to extend your life at all costs – allowing all heroic methods to be employed while on your death bed to take advantage of every second of life available to you – or you simply wish to be made comfortable with the usage of palliative measures while you transition from this life to the next. What does matter to me, however, is that you secure those wishes in a binding legal document while you’re still able to do so. (I am not a lawyer; I am a daughter whose mother and father gifted their three children by laying out their final wishes on paper years in advance of the end of their lives.)
What was your longest day like?
When you offer help, please don’t leave it open-ended. Instead of saying to your neighbor, “Hi yah, Joe. Be sure to call me if you need anything,” be more specific so it’s easier for Joe to accept your offer, “Joe, when I get out my lawnmower this weekend, I’d love to swing by your place and take care of your lawn so you won’t have to.” Or how about, “Yah know, we’re always making more food than we can eat at our house so we just freeze the leftovers for another time. Can I come by later this week and give you a week’s worth of meals so you don’t have to concern yourself with what to fix for dinner?”
I have read and viewed many advertisements in which a company assures a future customer that their goal is to deliver the best customer service to each and every customer they serve. This is a very commendable goal in my eyes – a goal that must be reached by every provider of products and/or services. Whether I am a passenger on a multi-level cruise ship or a seaport’s rickety party boat;
My comment to this article centered on my work as a long-term care ombudsman (advocate for residents living in long-term care facilities). I explained that when a new General Manager was hired for any of the facilities to which I was assigned, I made a point of meeting her or him to explain my role as a resident advocate and to get to know a bit about this new person who was now in charge of 50 to 100 or more residents.
I wrote an article on April 6, 2014, entitled, Same sex marriage: we don’t have to agree. In that article I emphasized how abusive and intolerant we have become with our opinions, and how exclusionary we are setting ourselves up to be. If you think about it, the impetus for our very strongly held opinions is that we want to be right. If we are right, then the other person or group must be wrong. Damn that feels good!
Monica Guzman wrote a thought-provoking article in the Sunday Seattle Times, linked above, that I read in the print-edition of the local newspaper today. I enjoy reading the newspaper each morning; my husband reads the same newspaper in the evening – both times providing opportunities for daily ritualistic enjoyment. Ms. Guzman describes these occasions as “a world where paper is sweet, sweet, sanctuary.”
And every year about this time, the Bridal Veil shoots break through the ground and seem to announce, “Spring is back and so am I.”
Living: the ultimate team sport 