This was found in the more left than right wing paper, 'The Guardian:'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/06/care-expensive-deborah-orr
Ms Orr is one hundred per cent right (though I did find her essay a little convoluted); how we treat the young, the very old and the ill is how a society is judged. So, no matter how difficult it gets with the matriarch--and it does, forgive me--I can never forget she is a fellow human being, capable of mistakes, cares, and opinions just like everyone else. Yes, it is incredible she is 100 with her health and her marbles; but, it is also very difficult to take care of her in a society that constantly encourages her to be put into a hospital to wait out her days. I know my house is not much better, but my mother-in-law does get out, does see the world, does have choices over what she wants to eat (yes, she always wants to eat sugar and strawberries but it is her choice).
Perhaps, it is my anxiety; I do suffer from the effects of taking care of someone who does not like me; but I find I am waiting for some sort of endpoint. Isn't that awful? Even my husband, and it is his mother, finds things pulling on him. The routine of going out for lunch every single week doesn't sound like a chore, but it is; there is no choice in the matter for him; every Wednesday afternoon, he must take his mother out for lunch, rain or shine, plans or not. You get caught wondering what the matriarch must be thinking...it is a lot to demand of another person. He has been doing it for three years, every single week; though, I have little sympathy for him, I have been doing it for almost thirteen years. You know it is bad when you know the serving staff and their children by name at particular restaurants. But my point is when do we make the decision, because I think it must be a conscious choice, to become so demanding? My girlfriend--whose parents took care of her grandmother for 20 years--said her grandma would have died had she known how demanding she was. How could, or can, a fully functioning adult not know? Worse yet, when or why does it become so acceptable? I know my mother-in-law has lived a long and difficult life, but does that mean she is entitled to become selfish? Is age an excuse for selfishness? But, then, am I selfish for wishing this could end? I don't want the woman to die, but there are times when I don't want her here. And, yes, of course, I feel guilty. It is also underscored when people, who have not taken care of the elderly for extended periods of time, comment as though they know or think they could do better. For whatever I write or think, the matriarch is still here by her choice as much as my own (don't get into how ridiculous that sounds, I know I complain and it is very hypocritical but she is still here and not somewhere else).
Back to Ms Orr's essay....
If the old aren't taken care of, we forget our past; if the young are not cared for, we have no future; and, if the ill are left behind, we have no hope. Gosh, this is depressing.
A short word on the Matriarch and the Cat...
My mother-in-law sat out on the front porch in the sunny weather; when it got too hot, she decided to come it. I offered my arm.
I don't need your help. I can open the door on my own. I can do things on my own. Go away.
You try not to take things too personally; there are times, of course, it doesn't work.
I am only trying to help. Let me open the front door.
No, I can do it.
In goes the matriarch, out goes the cat.
Ooh, I let the cat out.
The cat is a house cat, but we let him out on a leash most days. It is not ideal, but we live in the country and it is for his protection; there are coyotes around and foxes and the odd wolf and they could eat him. They have been known to do so to other cats from the neighbourhood (laugh if you want, it is an honest concern).
An hour and a half later, my husband comes home and finds me wandering the neighbourhood looking for the cat. If we didn't have children, I would not have been so persistent. All I could think of was finding a half-eaten cat and my daughters crying their hearts out. So, I kept looking. And, the matriarch was on the front porch calling out for the cat:
Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Pumpkin
And, the neighbours are watching the matriarch on the front porch, trying to make out what she is saying. I don't know if she was choosing not to yell, if she couldn't yell, or if they just couldn't hear her but, when I came back, a fellow asked me what was wrong with my grandmother.
She's not my grandmother; she's my mother-in-law.
Well, she's been standing out there on the porch since you left talking to herself.
The cat runs into the house and the matriarch fails to notice and tells my husband I lost the cat. My husband closes the door and offers his mother a cup of tea.
No, I am going to bed. This too much for one day.
And, I come home and we all go in; the cat has rushed down to the basement because it so hot. I think to myself, it never, ever ends.
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It is a very, very sad thing to know that most of the very elderly people living in North American long care facilities, nursing homes, hospitals and hospices are kept alive thanks to the anticoagulant medication known as Coumadin, a derivative of Warfarin, which used to be used to kill rats. I say used to be used, because it is no longer used to kill rats because they have developed a resistance to it. The makers of Coumadin knows it will prolong the lives of the elderly, whether or not they are in good health; Physicians prescribing Coumadin to their elderly patients do so knowing it prolongs their lives. Your mother-in-law is very lucky to have you and your family. Billions of dollars are made prolonging the lives of elderly people who no longer care to be alive. A law should be passed to stop this horrible abuse of the elderly! So until patients build up a resistance to Warfarin and die, many millions of elderly people will ever so slowly rot away in one sort of facility or another, thanks to Coumadin.
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