From buds to blooms to withering stems we are like flowers and reach the end.

The more I live the more I see the parallels of patterns between living things. Birth, growth, aging, is all a progression. But how does one face the end and all of its transitions? How do we roll with it, observe it in another person and accept it? How can one not be anxious as each day brings change and adjustment?

In an earlier post I spoke of this when observing my husband and the sudden, subtle changes he has been displaying. For a bit, with the help of an aide, things seemed to be in a rhythmic progression to betterment, however, when the aide would leave, so would my sanity: I was left with nineteen hours of bathroom issues, cleaning, and dealing with a weak person who was a fall risk. For a week he was free of falls and then he was not. A nurse came to visit him last Friday to check him as he had had a fall a day or two before. There was the “CLUNK” followed by  “I’m alright!” and I would find my husband on the floor after having missed a chair or the bed or from just plain weakness. These incidents occur with the aid of a cane or a walker: you can have all the support of devices in the world, but if your body is not working properly, they do no good.

And so came Saturday. I worked with my friends to clean out my mother’s apartment. The aide stayed for an extra hour. I was feeling better, I was “done” with the worry about the contents and the fear of the risk to go back during a Covid surge.

There is no aide on Sundays. During the night I sleep for short periods between hubby getting up to go the bathroom. I am semi-awake with my heart in my mouth and I get up to bring him back to bed. There have been bed wetting episodes even with, well, men’s protective underwear. A far cry from the days of youth. The social worker from my mother’s residence sent me home with a huge bag of stuff left behind by former, now gone residents of the building. “Try this. Insert that.” I try not to think about who may have left these things behind and why they no longer need them.

Huzzah! Well, that seemed to work, I may have hit on a solution! An insert into those pull-ups!

Then this happened:

In my half-stupor of needing more sleep and dozing off at 7:30 am, hubby got up  to go to the bathroom which is but a couple of feet from his side of the bed.

For some reason I reached for the cordless phone and it crashed to the floor in its cradle. At the same time there was another crash and a clunk. Hubby was about six feet away from the bathroom; he was on the other side of the room, opposite the bathroom. He had hit his head on the edge of a dresser and was bleeding on the carpet. Lying on his side.

“What happened!?” He didn’t know. He didn’t respond, initially, he was in a stupor. I ran for a towel and remember my own head spinning: Do I brush my teeth, do I go to the bathroom? What do I do first?

I called 911.

In a few minutes there were about seven huge firemen in gear in my bedroom. Hubby was questioned and knew his name but was not himself: He has not been “himself” for about six months.

They got him to the bed. “This, gentlemen, is what forty-four years of marriage looks like.” They turned away as I changed his Depends.

EMS arrived and before long I pulled myself together and was in the back of an ambulance. Again. Having had the eleven hour experience in September with the ER at New York Presbyterian in Manhattan, we decided to stay in Queens, which seemed, initially, on a Sunday morning, calm.

Within a couple of hours, the room began to fill and beds were situated perpendicular to the two shared beds between curtains. There are no chairs for people who accompany the patients, and a four hour “visitation” limit. They stapled hubby’s head closed and put him on the list for admission. The frequent falls had to be addressed.

Three days later, he was still in the ER. Forty-five people at that time were waiting for a bed. Hubby never got one.

I was offered five rehabilitation facilities; I put the word out, got input from a friend who knew one well as she not only had two relatives in the nursing home upstairs, but has two medical professionals in her family who recommended it. He was accepted there and arrived late Wednesday night. For all the fuss and refusal at the notion, he likes it. The food is good (Kosher) the staff is attentive and he has twenty-four hour care. I was able to sleep for the first time in months. Though he keeps asking about coming home, I tell him it is his vacation and he should enjoy it.

We will probably get more hours of service from an aide. I can see a large decline in communication: the person who was once the bombastic center of any group, is slower in speaking and processing with memory loss. He misses small details. He eats very slowly. Both his eyeglasses have been misplaced. He doesn’t know how he got to the exercise room. All this is very worrisome. It is the progression of a mysterious disorder. People contact me all the time: “Look into Lewey Body Dementia!” “Look into Muscular Dystrophy!” “Look into PSP!” I can’t even look into the mirror and recognize myself. I just hope for a few hours of calm sleep and no anxiety attacks.

In the days of Covid, everything is exacerbated, frightening if not terrifying. Everyone I speak to from friends to strangers on the phone, is going through something, many are going through something major: we are all spinning in a strange orbit, we can feel that this is the time of major change.

It’s all part of the great progression into the unknown.

Photos: ©s.kalish
iPhone 11 ProMax

📌The series starts here:
Part 1: And The Band Played On … a mother’s life, a daughter’s journey

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