Tag: caregiver

A Year in Our Lives

CattLeave a comment

Wow! I was sure when I came back here, I was going to see that it’s been a year or more since I last posted…what a surprise it was to see that it’s only been about 8 months. There have been an huge number of really significant things that have happened.

It’s incredible to believe that just 8 months ago, our lives were “normal”, a little complicated, but still “normal”. It all started around the end of August or beginning of September. Ma’s health started to decline more quickly, and her memory was getting worse. After the third call in 10 days, I was getting really tired of getting tear filled, panicked calls from Ma saying that she broke the toilet (she forgot how to flush), the house is flooding (left the tap on while she was outside for 10 hours), the TV won’t work (got switched to a different channel and she couldn’t put it back or the other time when she was trying to turn it on with the volume button) or my absolute favorite one, the phone is broken. Yes, you read that right, she CALLED me, on the only phone she had, to tell me that the phone was broken. Yeah! I know… that one’s right up there with her telling people, IN ENGLISH, that she can’t speak English.

The final straw came when she called me to tell me that there was water all over the basement because she had physically turned the tap in the kitchen, to a different position. We weren’t home when this call came, we were 8 hours away up north. Thank the heavens above for Bob. He went over and had a look around. Yes, there was water all over the basement, but that was because the hose from the central air has mysteriously jumped out of the laundry room sink, and was now draining directly onto the floor. Moving the tap in the kitchen had absolutely nothing to do with the water in the basement.

When we got home from up north, B and I went over for a visit, and I told her she needs to make a choice between two options. Either she goes to a nursing home or we sell both her house and mine and buy a new one together so I can take care of her full time. Visibly upset, she asked me if there were any other choices. My simple reply was that she could die, but she wasn’t allowed to do that until she emptied all the junk out of her house! (Now, you have to understand that the relationship I have with my grandparents, saying that kind of thing is totally normal and usually laughed about. And she laughed this time too.) With some mumbled swearing, she finally replied and told me to sell the houses and so began the hurricane that would last until the end of the year and beyond.

Ma had lived in that house for 43 years. That’s A LOT of time to collect and gather things, so before I even thought about calling Tracy (the real estate agent), we set to emptying as much out of there as we could. We figured maybe 3 or 4 runs to the dump and a few runs to the thrift store, and the house would basically be empty. How wrong we were!!!

I started packing and purging the next day and after two weeks of working everyday, there was a huge pile of boxes, but you couldn’t tell where everything had come from because there still wasn’t an empty space in the house. The fact that Ma was “helping” was really slowing me down too, and she wanted to keep everything. I kept telling here that she can’t keep everything because we are putting two houses together into one house and I would actually like to be able to keep some of my things too. She just couldn’t wrap her head around that, and so I resorted to getting rid of things sneakily when she wasn’t in the room. Yet, by the middle of September, other than the pile of boxes and one empty closet, you couldn’t tell I had done a single thing. Even still, I called Ms. Tracy up and told her to come and have a peak at the two houses to tell me what she thinks they can sell for, and then to help us find a new one.

**Side note here: Tracy has been my real estate agent from the time I moved out on my own when Ryan and I separated, and every purchase and sale since. When searching for the house that we were now going to be selling, that poor woman had to have travelled around every nook and cranny of Southern Ontario, looking at every house that was within my very limited budget. We ended up viewing over 100 houses before I finally gave up and bought the one I did. She sure earned her money that time. So, when I called her in September, I’m sure she was trying to find a way out of having to look at all the houses in Ontario with me again, and I’m surprised she was willing to take us on a clients.**

After discussing what we would list the houses for, and deciding that we were going to go ahead, we set up times for photos to be taken and the sign to be put up. In the meantime, I found a house that we thought would fit our needs, so we went up to see it. That house was located in Arnprior, Ontario, had a granny suite in the basement, sitting on 60 acres of land, and a good $100K below what we were willing to spend, so we went to see it.

Straight away when we got there, Bill and I had a funny feeling about that place, something wasn’t right. The first thing we noticed was that the driveway had a sliding gate across it, topped with barbed wire along with a private property/no trespassing sign. There was only a single house across the road from it and no other neighbors for at least a kilometer in any direction. Ok, that can be explained away. But that was just the beginning!!

We went inside…the tiny part of the basement that wasn’t the granny suite, was full of decorated and fully setup aquariums and terrariums…but they were empty. Where are all the snakes and other critters that were supposed to be in there? Next we went to look at the granny suite, what we saw, I would in no way, shape or form, call a granny suite. It was tiny, unfinished and just not habitable…I wouldn’t even let my dogs down there!! Seeing that, we were pretty sure that we were going to be passing on the house, but decided to look at the main floor and the property anyway.

The main floor was nice, newly redone except for the bathroom fan that didn’t work. The kitchen was modern, bright, and bigger than the one we had, but not big enough. That’s when we noticed a wasp. That happens, no big deal right? It’s the end of summer and it’s starting to get chilly, so they’re looking for somewhere to live. One little yellow jacket is not a deal breaker….but his two or three dozen buddies are!!!! Tracey was even taking pictures to show the listing agent because this was completely unacceptable. At this point, we KNEW that we weren’t just walking away from this property, we were going to RUN away from it. But just for shits and giggles, we went to look around outside.

We wanted to see the big shop and the apple and pear orchards that were talked about in the listing. Turns out, the shop was indeed large, but one strong sneeze and it would have fallen down around you. The apple and pear orchards? Two trees of each…that’s what they were calling an orchard. Out we went through the barbed wire fence and we didn’t so much as look in our rearview mirrors at that place.

We were disappointed, but we knew we weren’t going to be able to find what we were looking for, easily. I wasn’t worried though, the houses were not listed yet, and we were fully expecting it to take a couple weeks for them to sell because of their condition, so I lots of time to look and find something that was perfect. The following week or so was spent with me scouring the MLS website, trying to find THE house. If you recall, this is when the housing market started to slow down, resulting in far fewer houses being put up for sale. I looked and looked, used all different search words, raised the maximum price we were willing to pay…everything, and nothing was coming up.

That weekend (Sept. 16-17), the pictures and videos were taken, asking prices and closing dates were decided on, and contracts were signed. Both houses were set to go live on the MLS site on Sept. 21. Now I was starting to get a bit anxious that were going to end up homeless somehow.

Monday morning had me sitting at the computer again, looking at all the same houses that I’d already seen and hoping that something new would pop up. I got frustrated that it was all just the same things I’d looked at 42 times already, so I pushed the mouse away angrily and stood up. That’s when I realized that moving the mouse somehow made the map on the screen zoom out and show more areas of Ontario, areas that we weren’t looking at…and there was a picture of a house, I had to look at that house.

The picture made me think of a chalet, with the dark brown trim and white walls. I started looking at the pictures, and liked what I saw. I REALLY liked what I saw. I sent a screenshot of the location dot to B, no info about the house or anything, just where it was, and asked him if it was too far from where we wanted to be. He looked at the map, and replied simply, depends on the house. I messaged Tracy right away and set up a viewing for that Saturday September 24. Since we were going to be driving that far, Tracy found 3 more houses that she thought might work and we made appointments to view them as well.

Wednesday morning, September 21 arrived and both houses were scheduled to have a number of viewings already on that very first day.

And that’s when everything went crazy!!

Stay tuned for part 2, where you will wonder how I didn’t completely lose my mind!!

The houses went up for sale on Sept 21.

When The Rolls Are Reversed….part 2

CattLeave a comment

Just hours before Pa passed away, I was talking to him, trying to reassure him that everything would be ok. I knew that he would be worried about Ma, he’d told me before when he was in the hospital, to make sure she wasn’t lonely and that she was safe. So I told him, I said he didn’t need to worry, I would take care of Ma and keep her safe and not lonely. He was no longer conscious at this point, but he was very restless and moving around, once I told him that I would take care of her, he calmed down and stopped moving. A few hours later, he passed away.

Now, I’m gonna be real with you folks here, Ma and Pa had been married just over 69 years when he died. They had a great marriage, cared immensely for each other and had been through all kinds of things together including WWII and immigrating not once, but twice within a single year, with a 10 year old son in tow. From the time I was young, we (mom, dad, me, my sister when she was old enough) all knew that when one of them died the other would be close behind. And that would be especially true if Ma died first.

With that thought in mind, we were prepared for Ma to follow fairly quickly, so I even put off taking care of some of the financial things, so that I could complete it all at once, instead of having to pay lawyers twice. My sister even came to Ontario a couple weeks after Pa passed away, thinking that it would be the last time that she saw Ma alive too. Well, lo and behold, Christmas rolls around and Ma is still living her best life. She actually came to my house for Christmas dinner with all four of my kids, the step-kid and the man…her head was spinning with the chaos, but she loved it!

For a 91 year old lady, Ma is super healthy. She only takes one little anti-depressant and Tylenol for her back pain. She does have pretty bad scoliosis, but that pain is what she takes the Tylenol for. She has a hard time getting around now, but she still manages, though I wish she would stop going up and down the two flights of stairs in her home multiple times a day. Yes, you read that right, she still lives on her own, in the home she’s been in for 40+ years. She refuses to have help other than me or her neighbors Bob and Linda. Those two are a God send for me as well. As much as I would like to be, I can’t always be there for her, so Bob and Linda are very generous at picking up my slack. The other wonderful help I have is Meals On Wheels. If you don’t know what that is, look it up, but basically it’s a bunch of volunteers that cook, prepare, package and deliver meals to people. The people who get them pay for the meals, but it’s a very low cost. Ma gets these meals Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. In my opinion, the meals are small, but Ma is rarely ever able to eat a whole one, she does eat the soup every day though. That woman loves her soup.

Ma has always loved working outside in her yard or garden. I remember when I was small, she would get so tanned that it completely changed her appearance. Pa would get angry cause she just wouldn’t come in the house. That has not changed. She is still outside all day, but at least I have convinced her to wear a hat and drink water. In the warm months, when it’s not raining, I know not to expect her to answer the phone or to call me. She’s often outside from 8am or 9am until passed dark. She told me more than once, that she loves being outside so much, and she’s out there doing her work, nothing hurts, she’s not sad or lonely and she feels like a young girl. So I figure, let her be outside all she wants. When it’s those super hot days, Bob usually goes over to chase her inside for a while so she doesn’t turn into a raisin, but she’ll sneak back out after a little while. I think having her own yard and garden is one of the main reasons that she won’t even think about going to a nursing home.

For the last year and a half, or more, I have been trying to convince her that we should sell both houses (hers and mine) and buy one together that has a little apartment for her, so she can feel like she’s on her own still. I even told her, I would make sure that the place has a ugly yard and garden and she could play out there all day, every day. She still won’t go for it. I don’t know how many different ways I’ve tried to explain to her how much easier it would be for me, and how much safer it would be for her, but she just doesn’t seem to understand or doesn’t care. I’m not the caregiver in my family, that’s my sister. I’m the one you come to when you need repairs, or things taken care of. My sister is the one that will hug you, take care of you and feed you. Ma really needs someone like my sister taking care of her and if we had a house together, at least that would be a little easier because I’d be around her all the time.

I have no desire to “put her in a home”, but I’m not going to be able to care for her alone for much longer. Even though I’m not there everyday like I would like to be, it’s still a stressful thing to be a caregiver and it does take a toll on a person after a while. I’ve tried to find a Hungarian speaking PSW, but they just don’t seem to exist. Oh yeah, did I mention that Ma thinks she doesn’t know how to speak English? Ya, so she can’t speak English, but she talks just fine with Bob and Linda, the Meals on Wheels people, and even with the doctor when I finally got her to go. So really, I think if I could find a PSW that speaks clear English with no accent, Ma would be fine, but she doesn’t believe me.

Not knowing how to do things…AKA forgetting how to do simple tasks. This is another thing that is really starting to worry me. First it was the microwave that she couldn’t work, so she uses the stove to warm things up. I’ve worried for a while, even before Pa died, that she was going to forget about the stove and burn the house down, and now it’s even worse. Next is the washer and dryer. For a while, I had to keep resetting the washer to the proper settings because she would change it, now she just leaves it alone and so can do her own washing. The dryer on the other hand, she doesn’t remember how to work, and I haven’t see one like her since I was a little kid, and I don’t remember the setting either. She only know how to switch the TV on and off, if it happens to get changed from the weather channel, she’s in a panic and saying she’s broken the TV. The latest one was the telephone, she says she doesn’t know how to answer it or how to make it call out, but I’m calling bull on that one because she called me last night to ask for lettuce. Now, I suppose that it could come and go, the remembering, but she’s always been really bad for saying she was stupid and didn’t know how to do things, so I’m thinking some of it is just her saying it out of habit.

I’m not sure if I said this before or not, but when a family is expecting a new baby, there are many resources on how to learn to care for them, how to help them develop, when to call the doctor even. Why is there nothing like that for adults that teaches us how to care for our aging parents? Even an online forum would be helpful. If you happen to know of any resources either online or in Ontario, Canada, please leave a message in the comments.

For now, I’ll just chug along with the rolls reversed.

When The Rolls Are Reversed

CattLeave a comment

Growing up, I was very lucky to have my paternal grandparents (Ma & Pa), living right next door to me. Whenever my parents couldn’t take care of me, and lots of times when they could, I was with Ma and Pa. They taught me everything, from how to ride a bike to how to drive a car; how to plant a garden and shingle a roof; how to paint and how to build things out of wood; and they tried, boy did they ever try, to teach me how to cook and bake…that one didn’t work out so well. But they made me the person I am today and I’m very very grateful to them.

Shortly after I was born, Ma ruptured a couple disks in her back and was put on permanent disability, she was just 48 years old. When it was time for my mom to go back to work after maternity leave, which at that time was only 6 months, Ma was there to take care of me during the day. Pa was still working as a machinist at this time, and when I was older, he would always tell me stories about the one “dirty foreman”. Pa looked forward with great anticipation for when he could retire, so he would be home with Ma and I more.

Fun fact: I was born in Ontario to two English speaking parents, yet my first language was Hungarian. That tells you who I spent more time with in my early days.

The years came and went, and when I was about 12, my little sister was born. She too had the privilege of spending most of her time with Ma and Pa and as an added bonus, I was there too and I did my best to help raise her the way our grandparents had raised me. Luckily she did get the cooking and baking gene so her family doesn’t have to starve now!

More years passed, and I got married. In short order, we had our first baby, a big little boy. I had no idea what to do with this kid! All he did was cry and poop, I couldn’t get him to stop. When his father went back to work, I was even more lost as to what to do…well, there come Ma and Pa truckin’ over with food for me and arms to take the baby. Pa sat in the rocking chair for hours rocking that little boy. Ma cleaned and did dishes and fed me. I can tell you with 100% certainty, I NEVER would have made it through those times without their helping hands and hearts.

Not too much longer after that, along came another little baby boy. We moved into a new, slightly larger, place and Ma and Pa were again there helping. They took turns watching and playing with the little boys, then they’d switch and help me paint. It was right around this time, when baby #2 was about four months old, that we knew he was a different kind of little guy. Doctor and therapist appointments started, and again Ma and Pa were there to watch our bigger boy while I dealt with the smaller one. At this same time in our lives, tragedy struck, my father died. He was a pill popping, alcoholic and he committed suicide one day while mom was at work. Dad was Ma and Pa’s only child, so you can imagine they were devastated, but there was relief too.

A year later, my mom took my 12 year old little sister and moved 4 provinces away. I was heartbroken! That little girl meant the world to me and I would miss her with all my heart. It’s still my biggest regret that I didn’t fight my mother harder, to keep my sister with me.

More years passed and I had two more babies, both girls. I got older, the kids got older and Ma and Pa got older. They were always there for me. I spent hours on the phone with them each week and went to visit them every chance I had. They were slowing down, but they were still always doing something in the yard or the house, or at my place. They spent every minute they could with my kids. I soon realized that Ma and Pa weren’t just getting old, they had gotten old. Having myself and 4 rambunctious children come visit them was getting to be too much, so we trimmed back on the visits, but still saw them often.

My children are all pretty much grown now, they’re 15-20 years old. They work and have their own lives and I barely get to see them, so the visits to Ma and Pa pretty much stopped a few years ago. I still go all the time though.

February 2020, right at the beginning of what would become a world pandemic, I was shopping at Walmart when I got a phone call from the local hospital. I normally wouldn’t answer my phone in the store, but that day I did and it changed our lives forever.

The person on the other end of that call was a very patient and caring doctor. He was calling me because Pa had been admitted to hospital for what they thought was pneumonia. They did chest xrays and found that it wasn’t pneumonia, it was a very large mass in his right lung. Prior to calling me, the doctor spent hours in with my grandpa talking about choices and chances and what to do. Pa had it all decided, but he didn’t want the doctor or me to tell Ma what was going on. He wanted to do it himself. The doctor informed me that the mass was taking up most of Pa’s right lung and just from the xrays, they could tell it was a very aggressive tumor and it would take over very quickly. The doctor told Pa he only had a year at the most to live, but confided in me, that the chances of him making it even 6 more months were very very low. What a conversation to have in Walmart!!

The next day, Pa was discharged and I brought him home to Ma. It wasn’t until much later that I figured out that Pa had actually not told Ma what he was sick with and that it would kill him. In fact, I discovered this, and had to explain it all to her myself, just 3 days before he passed away.

Luckily, I had just quit my job a month before to go back to school. I was going to get my commercial drivers license like I had wanted to for so many years. Pa was so excited to see me driving a big rig, and I promised him that he would be the first to come for a ride with me. We were both more excited than a kid at Christmas.

Pa’s health took a very sudden and sharp turn for the worse. I spent hours each day on the phone with service providers, nurses, palliative care doctors, and hospice centers, but Pa wanted and we were determined to let him stay home for the rest of his time instead of being stuck somewhere where we couldn’t be with him. I organized PSWs and nurses, doctor and lab appointments, I did everything I could to help. After all, they did everything in their power to help me from the time I was born until I was well into adulthood.

Sadly, a little less than six weeks after that phone call in Walmart, Pa passed away. He was finally free of pain and distress, but it was only just beginning for us. Due to Covid and the world being shut down, my little sister never made it to Ontario to be able to say goodbye to him, and that will break her heart for the rest of her life. Pa never saw me get my CDL, and I never got to take him for that ride.

Little did I know, that the real hard days were still to come.

…to be continued…