Someday I'm Gonna Be Old

And when I am, I hope the people around me are patient and kind.

Because I'm gonna be cranky and forgetful and sometimes hard to live with.

Yes- VERY different from how I am now. Shut up.

So Joe's mom Edna wanted to go see her brother Grady, since he's getting old and may die soon (her words) Grady is a few years YOUNGER than Edna. I had told Edna that when she moved here I would take her back to Oklahoma whenever she wanted to see family and friends. Last year we attended her baby sister's funeral.

So I thought we'd leave last Monday, drive to Lawton where Grady is, see Grady, stay the night in Lawton, drive to OKC to see her niece, her old neighbor and her best friend, stay in OKC Tuesday night and then come home Wednesday. Everything she wanted to accomplish and in a time frame that wouldn't kill us both.

Edna didn't want to stay two nights away from home. She said all she really wanted was to see Grady, stay one night and come home.

The day I was gonna make the reservations I double checked with Edna. Yes. One night.

But

As long as we were up there, we could see Pam, Billie and Edna (Yep- Edna's best friend is also Edna. I will be referring to her hereafter as E2).

So I made reservations for OKC for Tuesday night.

We left on Tuesday morning and it was farther to Lawton than I remembered. We didn't get to the VA Home till almost 5pm. Grady was wonderfully surprised and happy to see us. We stayed about an hour and then headed to OKC; just under 2 hours NE of Lawton.

Tuesday night we tried contacting Pam, Billie and E2- an exercise we'd been participating in for several days with no success. Where the hell could these people be? Pam works and Billie and E2 are almost as old as Edna and just as car-less.

Edna resigned herself to not seeing Pam (the niece) but still wanted to see Billie and E2.

Billie was easy. I KNOW where Edna used to live, so finding her neighbor was a piece of cake.

While Edna was getting dressed I had a brainstorm- in my briefcase I still had her current phone bill- that would have E2's phone number on it!

But only if she had called E2 during the last month, which she hadn't.

Then I had a brainsprinkle (smaller and less impressive than a storm)- Edna had her phone and address book with her- that's where all the non-answered numbers were. I could simply punch in E2's address and the magic i-phone would bring us right there.

"Edna- you have E2's address, right?"
"Yes. At home".

Frustrated but still patient and calm I asked Edna how we were supposed to find E2 with no address. "She's my best friend- of course I know where she lives".

OK. Fine. I asked her where she lives.

"I don't know- she just moved last year- when you took me to visit her after Wanda's funeral that was the first time I'd been there. Don't YOU remember how to get there?"

No. No I didn't remember how to get to a place I'd been once before a year ago. Sue me.

Digging as deep as I could into my moth-infested memory banks, I remembered that we took RT 66 into Yukon and went through downtown before turning left. The only thing I remembered after that was E2 lives across the street from the school and said all that out loud.

"No, she doesn't".

"Edna? I sat in the car and called in my work order last time and watched the kids come out of school. Yes, she does."

"Well, she's my best friend- I should know what her house is across the street from".

We saw Billie without incident. She has a new phone number, so that's why we couldn't get a hold of her.

I told Edna we would drive around Yukon looking for E2 for a little while, but if it got too late we needed to just go home. She agreed.

So we drove down Rt. 66 into Yukon, through downtown and then I turned left. Randomly. Drove around and around block after block and had just decided that we needed to head home when I turned a corner and said, "There's E2's house".

"Where?"

"Right there- across the street from the school and I'm 100% sure it's her house".

"Why?"

"Because E2 is standing on the porch".

"Where?"

E2 was just getting home from a few days at her daughter's, so that's why we couldn't get a hold of HER.

So they had a great visit and we headed home, getting there 36 hours and just shy of 800 miles after when we left the day before.

I love Edna. She's funny and smart and great company. She's had some terrible times and some great times, and is both optimistic and pragmatic about everything up to and including death.

My life is much richer for having her in it.

I stopped to see Edna Thursday- the day after we got home.

She was a little confused (she gets that way when she's tired, but screw it- so do I) and said, "I remember we stayed in OKC for a night but where did we stay the second night in Anadarko?" (Anadarko is between Lawton and OKC and where she grew up).

I went back through our itinerary- we left Tuesday. "Yes."

Drove to see Grady and then on to OKC where we stayed in the hotel Tuesday night. "Yes."

Saw Billie and E2 Wednesday morning. "Yes."

Drove home Wednesday afternoon/evening. "Yes".

*pause*

"So we did all that in only one night?"

"Yep".

*pause*

"Well, no wonder I feel like shit! I don't know why we didn't stay two nights- you usually plan things better than that."

When I get old I wanna be just like Edna.

And I hope the people around me are patient and kind.



Edna and Grady

Book Review- "The Good Caregiver" by Robert L. Kane, MD

Back in September we were at a family crossroads.

Our family already consisted of Ward, Alec and myself and 3 1/2 years ago we 'adopted' Joe who's a retired snowbird from Montana.

Back in July, Joe was supposed to go visit his mom in Oklahoma City when he announced he'd have to wait. Mom had fallen and was hospitalized and had told him to not come see her till she was out. Mom is in her early 90's.

Joe calmly filled his plate and sat down to eat- unaware of the changing tides. I knew at that moment that Edna was coming here.

I sent Joe to Oklahoma City the next day and told him I'd be there by suppertime to help him figure out the maze that is the medical system, which I did and then left him there to help his mom for a few weeks upon her discharge.

She had medicare-approved home health care for a few more weeks after that but then she decided she'd be better off not living on her own anymore. She said she'd just have to move into the nursing home.

Her apartment was part of a big "Wheel of Decline" complex- a ginormous Baptist church in the center, with spokes radiating around it-

-an ant farm warren of independent living apartments where she was residing- all senior citizens but no help whatsoever with medicines or shopping or cleaning or laundry. Once the residents reach the point Edna was at there is

-the nursing home. No private rooms, no cooking allowed, very few personal items accepted. As you become more disabled you move to

-the critical care wing. Dementia patients are there, including Edna's sister Wanda. We visited Wanda and it was horrifyingly depressing. Finally, the last slice of this end of life pie is

-the cemetery.

Seriously- it's actually set up that way.

Once Edna came home from the hospital I started calling her every evening to be sure she was OK, and managed to talk her into a visit to Texas. Just a visit. I told her if she liked it here we'd love to have her move here- there were many options that were exactly the same as in Oklahoma City- senior apartments, assisted living, nursing homes...with the benefit that her son would be right here and could visit her EVERY DAY instead of every other month.

*or*

She could set up a little house here on our land- we already had our house and Joe's house here- what's one more?

So she came to visit. Just to visit. For a week. She evicted Joe to his camper and moved into his cabin. For a week.

After 2 weeks she said, "I think I like it here".

Joe said, "That's great, mom".

She said, "This little cabin will be just fine- you can live in your camper, right?"

Joe said, "................" and fainted dead away.

Over the next week or so I took Edna to see little "Park Model" homes- not mobile homes, they're built just like a site-built home with real wood trim, super-insulated and drywall- just stout and really attractive little houses. Once we sat down and figured out that she could pay cash for one with the money a nursing home would require for 6 MONTHS, she was sold.

Fast forward to September.

Ward, Alec and I were in Denton for Alec's weekly Future Problem Solvers' meeting at the library and Ward and I were perusing the books on the shelf.

I came across "The Good Caregiver", leafed through it during the hour we were there, went home and ordered it on Amazon.

Oh, it goes into the very real issues that need to be considered and realized in caring for an elderly person- personal issues, safety issues, time issues, caregiver burnout issues. And it does an excellent job of that, asking hard questions of the care givers and would-be caregivers and giving a lot of good advice and directives for everything from finances to home safety.

But here's the thing.

I thought I knew the medical field and how to deal with insurance and hospitals and whatnot because of everything we'd been through with Ward.

I do.

For cancer and heart stuff.

For age-related issues? Not so much.

I had no idea how genuinely fucked up the options for the elderly are in this country.

How expensive care is, how little Medicare covers (spoiler alert- NONE), and how the majority of our older people- already feeling weak and powerless- have to spend every single dime they have and then HOPE they get accepted to Medicaid and then PRAY that the nursing home they are in takes it.

The author is a doctor, so the book comes from a medical perspective BUT he also was in charge of his own mother's elder care and so it comes from a caregiver's perspective. As a doctor and a son he's also very aware and very vocal regarding how totally broken the current medical system is- how many holes are in the social safety net for older people, how little actual clout there is to protect them- groups like AARP are geared towards marketing advocating to HEALTHY active older people- people who look and act like they're 40...but with silver hair.

The golfing/shopping/cruising population.

Remember back when my family had that little 6 week long incident at MD Anderson that almost killed Ward? I couldn't understand why the records keeping was (at their own admittance) so wildly stone-agedly cumbersome, there was NO (at their own admittance) communication between departments in the same stinking building and other things that people should've been screaming about from the rooftops.

Then it hit me- when people leave the cancer hospital, no matter the outcome, the family members are so exhausted and relieved/grieving that they don't look back. For their own sanity, they CAN'T look back.

Now I know that our elderly fall in the same category. From the book-

"Once an older person dies, the family usually tries to put the whole unpleasant experience behind them. Apart from disease-based organizations (like the Alzheimer's Association), long-term care has never attracted a sustained group of supporters willing to work to improve the situation."

Edna jumped ship from the "Wheel of Decline" and is busy every day in her own kitchen, doing her own laundry, tending her roses and vegetables, and caring for The Biteys and her baby...Joe. She and I do Girl's Day Out every Saturday, and I try to sit and visit a spell with her at least every other day. In a family filled with boys, having Edna here makes me feel less...outnumbered.

Instead of one of those "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up" gadgets, we have a baby monitor set up on top of her fridge and I turn it on when we go to bed and turn it off when I hear the Biteys dancing around because she's up and making coffee...and breakfast.

Joe is doing a fabulous job keeping track of her medications- something that was confusing to her with sometimes very negative results- and he has coffee with her every morning and checks in on her several times a day. He does the bulk of her errands and shopping and they are both benefiting from spending very important time together- time they haven't had in about 50 years.

One day I mentioned something about Edna to the owner at our feed store and he said, "You sure are doing angel's work- you'll be getting your reward in Heaven".

I told him emphatically, "NO- my reward is right here and right now- her name is Edna".

Edna and Joey working in her garden.