This morning I'm welcoming back...
...Patty McNally Doherty of the Unforgettable Fund, which, I suppose, is a way of welcoming back myself, since she's been away because I've been away. Although my journals have been far from popular or noticeable on the web, I've managed to attract the most thoughtful, informed and literate of readers/commenters. Patty's comments are often like a sub-journal.
    Lately she's left two, both of which I want to mention.
    I was reminded of the third to last paragraph in the first comment after watching the PBS special Caring for Your Parents late last night. It wasn't boring, by the way, although I'm not sure if my mother would agree with me, were she to view it. It contained some moments that grabbed me, and a bit of reality (although, not particularly bravely represented reality) which I appreciated. As the program closed, though, I was left with a familiar feeling of having been treated to yet another whitewashing of caregiving for elderly parents. Yes, the program mentioned a divorce brought about by extremely difficult caregiving circumstances. Yes it touched on the inherent difficulties of the lives of caregivers. Yes, it attempted to address solutions to problems, although, frankly, the solutions were the same as I'd heard before and all centered around vague talk of "plans" and "communication". Yes, it featured the liberal mention of "transformative moments", spoken so often that I began to take offense at the obvious buzz word quality of the phrase. Jesus, people, is is possible for us to do anything without attaching a sound byte to it????
    Here's Patty's paragraph, repeated for ease of access:

Writing, especially the blogs of Mike, Bert, Deb, Mona and you, scratch the all-is-well patina, and they scratch it hard enough, to give a real and accurate view of just what it's like under the surface. All is not well. All is as far from well as all can be.

    Here's the thing. I didn't see the caregivers and care recipients of whom I know in the program: I didn't see Bert's family and her dad or Deb and her mom or Patty's family and her dad or Mike's family and their parents or Karma's family and her mom and grandmother, Mona's family and her dad or Rosa, her husband and her mother or Paula's family and her parents or Bailey and her mom, Annes' family and her Mom, nor did I see any of the contributors to the caregiving area of Daily Strength (profound apologies to anyone I've missed). I didn't see My Chandler Friend and her Dad; nor our former yard man, who is my mother's age and took care of his wife during her final months; nor our next door neighbor who cared for his wife as she declined out of life. I didn't see my dear Prescott friend who, with her husband, took care of her mother during her final years and continues to regale me with stories of that time. I didn't see my mom and me.
    I saw peripheral bits and pieces of this and that family and situation; but, somehow, I wasn't able to glimpse any cores. Readers, Patty's comment reminds me to mention, if you want the scoop on caregiving for anyone, elderly or otherwise, you need to pay attention to caregivers through their own filters. If you're a caregiver, you need to tell your story in your own way, through your personal medium. The one point the program did make, once, is that this isn't something that won't affect you. If it hasn't yet, it will. If you're doing it and you have a moment, here and there, talk honestly to someone else about it. If you aren't doing it yet, listen with an open mind and heart to someone who is. If it's not a part of your present world, I guarantee you, it's on your horizon in some form.

    I'm mentioning Patty's second comment because it underlines the dilemma we, in this country, at least, and I suspect on a wider global scale, face in regard to Medicine. My mother, too, as is true of Patty's brother, is alive today in part because of modern medicine. Although her strong will and spirit have something to do with it, as does her connection to me, and although the miracles medicine has produced on her behalf are much smaller than those which have seen to it that Patty's brother is alive and definitely kicking, without those small miracles my mother would be a memory. I like, though, how Patty characterizes the phase of floating that seizes those of us who care for those who survive due to Medicine's embrace (and, I suspect, probably also seizes those who are in that embrace). Sometimes, you just have to let go and float, maybe because you're too tired to continue the ruthless monitoring that seems necessary, maybe because the monitoring no longer makes sense...maybe because the monitoring seems to be getting in the way of the ability to allow someone to simply life her or his life. That's why we ALL need to be involved in what Medicine is doing to our loved ones and ourselves. At any moment, some of us are going to have to float. This increases the importance of those of us who have the energy to stroke, when we do.

    Mom was down, then up, then down again, last night. She's comfortably abed, at the moment, but I'll be awakening her soon. The days previous to yesterday's shot were fraught with my obsessive observations of the hourly variance in the color of her lips and fingernails based on her ingestion of iron pills. I was pleasantly surprised to discover, last night and this morning, that they have taken on a uniform and what I hope to be a fairly permanent color. I'm trying to rein in my expectations. I'm not altogether successful. It's been a long time, though, since I've been the victim of disappointment due to expectations not realized. I've become easy when it comes to quickly adjusting expectations.
    In the meantime, we still have a book to crack today, a couple of promising movies to watch and I've placed the paint kits in plain view to see if they excite any possibilities.
    Whatever. I'm ready for anything, even the least of possibilities.
    Later.
- posted by Gail Rae @ 11:03   email  this post