Settle in with a coffee. This is one big blog entry. I apologize in advance.
Hokay….. the first week of our holiday was just incredible! My husband and I (courtesy of my brother and his fiancee coming from Wpg to look after my Dad) toodled down to Canmore/Banff/Kananaskis/Kootenay/Yoho etc to hike like crazy (which we SO did) and to just enjoy our time alone together. Amazing.
Then our daughter and daughter-in-law brought my Dad out to the mountains to join us. He was not pleased to leave Edmonton and come out to Canmore (weird) but he did it.
The next 2 days with “the girls” and Dad went really well. No, we could not walk at pace or nearly as far as we had the week previous, but we had literally purchased a walker thingy locally for him in Canmore so he could join us on hikes….ish. It worked!….ish. We loved having the girls come up even if it was brief. The girls always bring us much joy.
But when our girls left, he couldn’t figure out what was happening. He wondered repeatedly if he lived in Canmore or Edmonton. He wondered repeatedly if he should move himself to Winnipeg when we – my husband and I – would “leave for Edmonton”. He wondered about how to move all the furniture from the Canmore condo we were in, to either Edmonton or Winnipeg. He got up in the middle of the night and entered our (my husband and mine) bedroom to ask where he was and what we were doing there and where did he live….. Etc, etc, etc. It was stressful. Hugely stressful. He had no clue that we were looking after him and had been for the past 6 or so years. He had no clue that he has lived in Edmonton for the past 36 years. He simply thought he should move and couldn’t remember living with us. It hurt. I know it shouldn’t have hurt but it did. Dementia hurts. We seriously considered going home.
We also found out that both his big toes were again suffering from ingrown toenail pain. So we took him to a local Canmore doctor (great experience!) and he gave us a prescription for a week of antibiotics and scheduled us for toenail removal the next week. Done and done. Plus of course, Dad’s biopsy on a mole behind his ear had us looking after that every morning and evening as well. (it’s stage 0 cancer – um, what?) Not to worry, we’re on it and all the doc visits it will require. Wait until he checks my Dad’s back….!
Then, our dear and fab friends from Ontario arrived. We drove to Calgary to pick them up. Dad has known them for many many years and yet he was unsure of what they looked like. But he knew them when they arrived! (of course, we talked them up, recounted many stories and showed him a ton of pictures) And they were as fab as I have told you!
We rented a wheelchair and pretty much gave up on the walker. It worked and we managed to see a lot of the mountains together. We spent every evening in our condo relaxing, reminiscing, eating together and and having a few drinks. It was so lovely!
Okay, he only showered twice in two weeks and I couldn’t figure out how to get him to change his underwear or socks on a daily basis there but despite his initial reluctance (and some hallucinations), he had a great time and very much enjoyed their (our Ontario friends) company. He spoke of his love and admiration of them on our drive home.
BUT….and it’s huge plus life altering in ways which I did not see coming….AHS has now told us that we will never be able to put him in a home and we will never be allowed any more care giver hours and that we will never meet the quota of caregiver hours that is necessary for him to even be put on the wait list for a long term care home.
And so, our future has changed dramatically.
Who retires? My husband? Or me? Or both of us? How do we look after him? How do we even have money to look after him and then later for us for our own retirement? We’re completely at a loss. AHS is not keen to help. In fact, there is no way to proceed with AHS. They’ve made that clear. So what do we do? We’re at a crossroads in our life. Both earlier and unexpected. We didn’t realize that our provincial government would be doing this to people. We just didn’t see it coming. We placed my mother in a care facility within 3 months of having a doctor sign many forms….but that was 7 years ago. AHS has actually gotten worse and hey, it was really hard to deal with them back then!
And yet, my tears are for those who do not have an advocate. For those who cannot see a way forward. For those who simply need a little help. For those who end up on the street. For those who end up in a hospital with no support system.
My anger though is for all of us. Why can we (the government) not treat our elderly properly? Why do we as a society allow our own governments to treat all of us this way?
It’s all a lot to swallow and very hard to understand. But it’s also a “first world” problem. I am aware. I’m trying to come to grips with the loss of our way of life which is now coming for my husband and myself all too soon.
But before I stray too far into self pity, I am looking forward to starting all 3 choirs in September. The songs (amazing songs) are all perfect for the stories…yes, plural! Stories! And I have Perils to look forward to – looming fast! We’ll see how many shows I can bring my Dad to….I’m hoping all 5 that I plan to attend. And finally, my daughter has a Halloween show in the works that is already blowing my socks off! Yup, they’re already in rehearsal and it’s just so fun and so clever and so entertaining. I think my Dad will not understand it but will definitely like a lot of the music making and the songs!
July has been an interesting month.
