I sit at my mother’s dining room table while she relaxes in her overstuffed recliner channel surfing after struggling to put in her eye drops. She usually has me do it but this time did it on her own and says she’s getting better at it. It’s just one of the many things she has had to deal with, an assortment of medical maladies and breakdowns that have occurred pretty much after she hit the age of 70. She’s 76 now.
Dad went down hill in a different but not uncommon way. He was finally diagnosed 4 years ago with something called Louie Body’s Disease. It has aspects of Dementia with symptoms of Palsy, Parkinson and nerve damage through out his body.
Think of it like this – your driving in a very deep fog. You have to concentrate and focus all your attention on keeping control of the car. You can’t see more than a few feet in front of you and although you can answer some questions and hold a limited conversation, if you have too many questions or noise or attention placed upon you at once it becomes an over load and you’ll drive off the road and crash.
It started at least 12 years ago we think with his depression. He was, at one time, a computer engineer in a high position of authority and had many, many people under his charge. He is a very intelligent man and used his brain daily in both his job and in his encounters with family and friends.
Dad didn’t have any hobbies. All he had was his work and family. When he retired and the kids were out of the house, his ride down the slippery slope into his private abyss became apparent. His depression got so bad he wouldn’t even get out of bed in the morning.
The doctors tried a variety of cocktails without ever really knowing what was truly wrong with him which is fairly common in depression cases. The culmination of treatments came when he checked himself into the hospital on Thanksgiving weekend for electric shock therapy. This was considered the last line of defense for chronic depression cases. The interesting thing about it was that the first thing they did in prepping him for treatment was to take him completely off all his psychotropic medications, which had the amazing effect of actually giving him back some sense of himself.
We visited Dad the day before he was to be subjected to the brain frying currents. As we walked into his room we were the ones in shock. There was my father, dressed neatly, standing erect and acting completely alert. Gone was that foggy look in his eyes we had become accustom to seeing. His bottom lip wasn’t hanging down creating a collection of drool that would drip incisively onto his t-shirt and he had a aura of energy about him that I have not seen in almost 5 years.
He also acted extremely pissed.
It was as if once they stopped the drugs his “doctor” had been giving him it reversed his depression. The medication prescribed to help his condition had actually made it worse and once he got off them he got better. Not healed but at least him wasn’t a walking, hulking catatonic shadow of the man he once was.
I had been against the drugs for depression and fought with my mom and brothers but that’s another story. Suffice it to say that he went on with his shock treatment which had limited if any affect and after a while they decided to move out of the house they had lived in for almost 30 years since arriving to California, bought a nice little mobile home in the next town over and settled in with the rest of the retirees.
It didnt’ take long for him to fall further away and after about a year at the mobile home park his doctor came upon his last diagnosis. He gave us the grave news that Dad had only a short time to live. The condition was fatal and we should think in terms of blocks of time, perhaps 3 or 6 months left. I remember asking if it was the Louie Body’s that would cause his death and was told “no” that like a lot of Dementia cases it’s usually a secondary infection like a flu that will do him in.
“How are his internal organs? ” I asked.
“Does he suffer from Diabetes or high blood pressure or malnutrition or anything like that?”
“No.” was the answer. So I bet the doctor that his conclusion was wrong. I bet that Dad was going to last longer than anyone expected. I was right.
Thank god my youngest brother makes a lot of money because he’s been the one that has footed the bill for Dad’s care.and has helped mom financially as well. The rest of us do what we can but unlike him we have kids of our own. Dad’s in a nice home with room the clock care. He doesn’t have any health issues per say except of course for the disease. He can walk with assistance and a walker but mostly he wants to either eat or go to bed and dream of his wife.
Mom has had bad knees and finally had her left one replaced. That was difficult but she had been recovering well until one day she slipped in her kitchen, fell and broke her hip. That had to be replaced. The hip, not the kitchen.
So now she is bionic on her left side and will need to have her right knee replaced sometime soon. She hasn’t traveled on a plane in sometime and at this rate it will be interesting to see how many bells and whistles she will set off at the airport.
Observing my parent’s decline has made me think of my own.
I’ve spent my life trying to stay in shape and have bounced up and down the scale never becoming obese but definitely gaining more weight than I, or my doctor, wanted. And even though I would be considered to be in good health I never really think about how old I am.
Until I have to get out of bed in the morning.
Joints, skin, bowels and back all come together and go out it seems at the same time or in close proximity of each other. I realize I must do some form of exercise everyday or I’ll rust up. Stretching has become more important and the need to do more cardio is evident.
I hate running. I look like the last rhino in a line of animals headed for the watering hole with the need to have my own greens-man following behind me to replace the divots I kick up as I trudge through the park. I try to find other ways like hitting the heavy bag and StairMaster. Slowly I make progress and lose some poundage. The hard part is keeping the weight off.
Ice cream is my nemesis.
We know each other too well.
My parents never did the whole exercise thing although Dad used to go to the gym when he was younger but that stopped after he hit 60. I don’t think I ever want to stop. I enjoy it and I know, seeing my folks as they are, that I need it. The thought of turning to rust creates visions of myself as the Tin Man, standing in the field, motionless and stiff.
Oil Can! Oil Can!
I know at 51 I’m not an old man but seeing kids in the mall who range in age from 19 to 30 makes me feel older. Mentally we never go beyond the age of high school or perhaps college. We may mature physically but not really emotionally. What we liked and disliked in school stays pretty much the same. We may acquire new tastes and hopefully wisdom, usually through experience, but in essence in our heads we haven’t changed.
I understand now what I didn’t get when I was twenty and saw some guy in his forties or fifties looking at the young girls. Were they being dirty old men for having thoughts, never to be acted upon about girls half their age? Because we don’t call guys of the same age as the girls they pick up on as dirty men. They may be horny but that comes with the territory.
We don’t see ourselves as the age we are at. When we’re younger we thing we’re older. When we get older in body our self image doesn’t age.
One thing I do notice as I get older. I can lose my train of thought and babble. Blogging helps, kinda.
