Caring for Aging Parents

Those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to keep our parents well into their golden years will eventually have to deal with caring for them, one way or another. In our case, it became our responsibility to care for my husband's parents when our children were small, and then two decades later to care for mine.

My husband's father was 55 and his mother 43 when my husband was born. So by the time we married, they were already at the point of needing quite a lot of help. We had his mother in our house, flat on her back and unable to even lift her head when our first child was two years old. His father came over often and tried to help what he could, but considering his advanced age, there was little he could do. Fortunately, she did recover to some extent after that.

At other times, when my husband got off work, he would pick his mother up-literally-and bring her to our house to spend the night, and then take her home the next morning. We had a woman hired to stay with her during the day, but could find no dependable person to stay nights with her. She wanted to stay at home and we did our best to help her do so.

Most of us never want to put our parents in a nursing home, but often there is no choice. Eventually, is spite of our best efforts, we had no choice but to move his mother into one. I had injured my back lifting on her, so was unable for a while even to care for my children as I needed to. When my husband's sister took their mother home with her, his sister's back was out within two weeks. So there was no choice but to put his mother in a nursing home. After getting her settled in the nursing home, both my husband and his sister came back to our house and wept.

Their mother had her mind made up that she wouldn't like it, and she never did. Several times we were able to find competent help to stay with her, and she was able to return home for a few weeks. But none of her helpers was able to care for her for long. She just required more lifting than most people were capable of doing.

We learned some unpleasant facts about nursing homes right away. One thing we learned was that patients ("residents") who had family to drop in unexpectedly from time to time fared much better than those who didn't. I remember going to the nursing home around 9:00 p.m. one night and hearing some of the poor bedridden patients crying and begging for water. All the workers in the nursing home were sitting around drinking coffee and ignoring their cries. I found it hard to understand why they couldn't stagger their break times instead of all leaving the floor at the same time. I went to a couple of rooms and gave the pleading patients a drink of water. But when one strangled, I decided I shouldn't be doing it for fear of one having real problems I wasn't prepared to deal with.

I know there are many devoted employees in many nursing homes. But there are also some in every situation who are just there for the pay. In order to be sure our parents are cared for properly, we need to be there often and not always at set times.

We also learned that when we had a parent confined in the hospital, one of us needed to stay there around the clock. My parents often cared for our kids when I sat up at the hospital with one of my husband's parents during the day while he was at work. We learned that in too many instances, both in hospitals and nursing homes, call lights go unanswered indefinitely.

My mother-in-law passed away in October of 1973, and my father-in-law exactly six weeks later.

In the 1980's and 1990's, my parents reached the point where they needed more help than before. By then our children were grown, which was a blessing, due to the time required to care for my parents. My mother's mind started slipping, and eventually she reached the point where she couldn't be left unattended even at home. She often ran away, trying to "go home." My disabled, bachelor brother was still at home, and it fell his lot to try to keep up with her.

My dad was told he had only about 20% of his heart function left, so he was unable to do anything that required any strength or effort. After four consecutive bouts of pneumonia in as many months, and losing 100 pounds, he became virtually helpless.

I was working at a full-time job by then, which made it difficult for me to do as much as I wanted to for my parents. Every Saturday I would cook and prepare TV dinners for their freezer, enough to run them for a week. Every day after work I would go by their house, give them their baths, heat up their food, etc. I would spoon feed Mother, as she didn't eat otherwise. Then I would bathe her, tuck her into bed, and kiss her goodnight. It became a ritual that we both seemed to find satisfying.

Eventually, after Mother could no longer recognize her family members and continued to run away, Daddy decided there was no choice but to put her in a nursing home. It was a hard decision for us all, but she seemed to be as well satisfied there as at home. Then I felt pulled in three directions. I usually checked on her on my lunchtime, then went by to see about Daddy after work, and finally went home to prepare the evening meal for my husband.

After my dad's fourth bout with pneumonia in as many months, I made arrangements to bring him to our home to care for him when he was released from the hospital. My boss agreed to allow me to work half days, and we planned to hire someone to stay with my dad during that time. But when his doctor learned of my plans, he refused to release him from the hospital unless he would agree to enter a nursing home. The doctor insisted I couldn't take care of him by myself, and he was probably right. But it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, as my dad's mind was good and he knew where he was going.

Every day on my lunch hour I went to the nursing home to check on my parents. I spent more time with Daddy than with Mother because he knew me and required more care than she did, as she was bedfast by then. He disliked being bathed by the nurses, so I asked permission from the head nurse to take him to the shower and do it myself. She said he was my dad and I could do as I pleased. From then on, I bathed him, changed his bed, and fed him his lunch every day, and cut his hair and nails when needed. I also learned that if I didn't do it, it usually didn't get done.

At the time, there was a wonderful head nurse working at the nursing home, who was a great comfort to us. One day she said Mother was disturbing her roommates, and asked permission to move her to another room. I gave my consent, but when I went by the next day at noon, I found Mother in a different room, lying with a pillow over her head. The other woman in the room sang, off-key, at the top of her lungs, all day long. Mother had the best hearing of any older person I ever knew, and I knew that even in her state of mind, it must have been torture for her. I took a headache within 5 minutes of entering the room. So I asked the head nurse to move her again, either back where she had been or into another room, and she complied.

I learned from experience to tell when Daddy was likely to have a bladder infection, a cold, pneumonia, or other problems. The head nurse checked on him every day, but if I suspected a problem, all I had to do was ask and she would check him over, or take a urine sample and have it checked for infection.

When that nurse left, things were never the same again. It was a constant battle to get help when my dad needed it. I eventually found that I could go to an LPN who worked there and she would check him out when the new head nurse was off duty.

Daddy was always getting out of bed and frequently slipped and fell on the slippery floor. I bought him socks with rubber on the soles in hopes that would keep him from falling. But the socks would get turned around so the rubber was on top of the foot, and therefore useless. He broke his nose, cut his head, but felt it was essential to maintain what independence and dignity he had left. I frequently followed the ambulance to the hospital to get his cuts sewed up.

One morning he told me that the head nurse had decided to put him in restraints the night before. He proudly recounted how many nurses he had fought off, as well as kicking the head nurse into the wall. I went to the head nurse's desk and told her I would gladly sign a release form so that if Daddy fell again, the nursing home wouldn't have to worry about our suing them, but I insisted he was not to be restrained. We felt that if he were restrained, considering his strong will and personality, he would have a heart attack. Fortunately, he was never seriously injured in a fall.

Once when Daddy was in the hospital, we were told he would not survive. Yet they continued to draw blood every four hours, which anyone could tell was torture for him. Finally his veins collapsed and they started drawing blood from his ankle. After being up for three nights straight with no sleep and watching him suffer, I finally lost it and demanded that the blood-letting be stopped immediately. I was surprised to find that I had the power to stop it. When it was stopped, he soon improved enough to leave the hospital.

Another time, a nurse brought a trainee into his room and gave the boy instructions to draw blood from Daddy. "If you can get it from Earl, you can get it from anybody," she said. I stood across the room and watched for a couple of minutes while the boy poked needles into my poor father's bruised arm, then finally I could take no more. I walked across the room to his bed and apparently the nurse took my demeanor as a warning, as she took over and drew the blood herself. "It is a teaching hospital, after all," she said. I mentally kicked myself for allowing a novice to touch him in the first place.

Another time, my brother was feeding my dad, who was virtually blind and had an IV in the back of his right hand. A nurse came in and scolded both him and my dad, saying Daddy needed to feed himself. My usually docile brother continued feeding my dad and ignored the woman. We learned that you just have to stand your ground in such cases.

We always loved our parents and always wanted to care for them at home. But that became impossible to do. Even so, we never failed to do the best we could for them. We lost Mother in 1994 and Daddy in 1997, and we still miss them.

Our parent's last years were the hardest we've ever gone through, but we are so thankful we were able to be there when they needed us. The things we learned from caring for them were that you can do things you never thought you could, and you have the power to put a stop to things you disapprove of being done to your parents. You just have to be willing to rock the boat as much as necessary to accomplish your purpose, even if that goes against the grain with you. After all, our parents did whatever was necessary for our best interest. Do we owe them any less?