Elder care: When it's not warm and fuzzy

And yet, loving the elderly and finding resolution with your past isn't always warm and fuzzy.


Dad rejected my question of more trees at his farm; where I saw planting for a future hope he saw more work.  I'll grant him that - he's 87 and he is tired.  After feeling sad for a time, I have to choose to redirect that hope and not harbor hard feelings.  At 87 and 43, life is too short for minor resentments.  I'll move ahead and find different dreams.

I cleaned the gutters on his two story house this week; two stories up on an extension ladder in the cold and I didn't do them right.  Meticulous and persnickity to a fault; he does not understand when things are not done his way, even when he is unable to still do them himself.  With that, I have to shrug my shoulders and redraw a few boundary lines.  I'll allow him to be himself, but won't dance to his drumbeat of hyper-perfection.  Life is too short for that, too.

As always, love and loving action are a choice.  Our love and wanting the best for someone are not dependent upon how we feel; nor are they dependent upon how the individual acts or responds.  A little time, a little space, a little fortitude, a little kindness, a bit of forgiveness - and we'll be back in the swing of our relationship again.  The bonds of love and family run deeper than small resentments.

The Woodpile

My mama was born in 1937.  She was a farm girl, born the unexpected twin and placed in a dresser drawer because poor Violet and Elcie didn't have a place to put her.

She was a farm girl, so her childhood memories include a tiny runt piglet she and her sister raised in a box behind the cookstove.  They kept Tiny inside and bottle fed him as long as their mama would let them, then Tiny moved out to the barnlot where he eventually became a massive hog.   In my imaginings, my mama could have written Charlotte's Web.  I never ask what happened to Tiny, because I'm afraid to.  My Grandpa was a practical man, and I suspect Tiny became bacon.

My mama (and dad too) are unique; anachronisms in this modern age.  They have in many ways chosen to stay in their time frame, they find comfort and connectivity and health there.  My brothers and sister and I know this; this is why we battle to keep them here, at their (non-working) farm for this time, for as long as we can.  We won't be able to do it forever, but for now it is a gift to them and also to our children.  Once this era is over, it does not return, and we and our children still have valuable lessons to learn from them.

Take, for instance, a conversation between my mother and I right before a fine Thanksgiving supper of leftover turkey sandwiches:

We were standing outside looking over her woodpile, which incidentally, stands right next to their outhouse.

(How many people in America can write these words about their parents?  At times I am embarrassed of this, times I don't want this difficult responsibility, but the older I get the more I understand that I am standing at the edge of what is a passing time.  That does not mean that I think the end is near, for I have children yet to raise; but the time and place my parents came from is barely still here.  I'm glad to offer my children a dramatic alternative to facebook; they get to see and be a part of another world, a different time.  The outhouse itself deserves a post; it has been an insider's joke, a family memory.  My father does nothing by the book - the outhouse is carpeted wall to wall.  Even at 87 years of age my father takes himself outside in the middle of the winter to use the "facilities."   He insists that the children use it too; they are modern little wimps, but much more compliant than their mother.)

So, mom and I circle the woodpile, discussing the merits of the different types of wood, deciding which row to carry from next.  Four of my children dance around us (the 9, 7,5 and 3 year olds,) ready to help Grandma carry wood.

Mama loves a well-stacked woodpile, one that won't topple over on you in the dead of winter when you're scrambling for a good log that will burn for hours.  My sister is the best stacker; I'm always too haphazard.  I just want to get the job done.  Mama jabs her finger at a particular log, pointing out that this is just the type she will need.  It's a hardwood, properly seasoned, and it will provide a nice, long, steady heat.

I grew up this way, but I'm still amazed at my mothers organic knowledge.  She just *knows* things systemically, from doing them for a lifetime.  She doesn't know Lady Gaga (wait, I take that back.  She does, and she's appalled....) but she knows things.

She knows about every plant and tree, about when the forsythia and dogwood will bloom, and how many weeks of cold weather will come after that.  She doesn't observe the weather, she feels it.  What to do with each type of flower bulb, how to save every seed.  She doesn't have to think about it, and I wonder, how many daughters are having discussions today with their mothers about the virtues of various logs in the woodpile and which type of wood to burn for differing uses (heating vs. cooking, for instance,) and how best to stack a woodpile on Thanksgiving day?  It's strange, I'll admit, but I'm glad to receive it and to offer it to my children while they scamper nearby.  There are many things I can not give them, ways that I fail them regularly, but my husband and I give them this for this time.  To gain insight and natural wisdom like this, in an era where natural knowledge has largely been forgotten?  Priceless and worth the extra work it takes to gain it, we think.

So we watch and learn another lesson, balancing the old and the passing with the young and the emerging.  Mama stands at the woodpile, handing each child a carefully chosen log to carry to me, where I will stack it underneath the overhang of the shed.  It's just a few steps from her kitchen door.  We make short work of a job that would take many trips for mama, and the kids laugh and run all the way, happy to be useful and to see their work stack up.  They will enjoy pressing their backs to the woodstove on their winter visits to Grandma and Grandpa's farm.

Thanksgiving Remembrances - 2011

We had a really great Thanksgiving day.  It was just my mom and dad, Jeff and I, and the six youngest kids.  We spent the day at the farm.  I don't think we saw another vehicle all day - it's just that quiet and isolated.  Our oldest three children drove themselves up to Minnesota to visit Jeff's side of the family for the week.  The boys had a college break.

My parent's place sits inside the rim of an ancient and extinct volcano.  We literally go over a river (Wabash) and thru the woods (Shawnee National Forest) and then drive the rim of an old volcano to reach Grandmother's house.  The irony does not escape us, and someone usually sings this song as we approach their place.

The day was cloudy and the air filled with mist, but rather than dreary it felt almost magical.  The kids alternated between running up and down (and sometimes rolling) down the pasture and racing in to fling their boots in the corner by Grandma's cookstove in order to warm their hands on the woodstove.

We carried wood to keep them warm until Christmas, and hung their string of old-fashioned (with the large, bright bulbs) Christmas lights, put up the tree and did the last of the yard work until spring.

Mom baked the turkey and made the rolls, and I brought the pumpkin pies (from our own pumpkins) and stuffing.  After dinner we picked the turkey clean together and set the bones to simmer into broth on the woodstove.    We never lived close before this, so it has taken awhile - but mom and I have finally found an easy peace in our relationship.  We respect each other; I think she likes me (which is different than loves me) and finally *might* trust me to raise her grandchildren properly.  Julia played aggravation with Grandpa.  He forgot his hearing aid, so the conversation died out after awhile.

When it was time for the baby to take his nap, I stood swaying with him in the cabin's "pink room."  (Mom always calls specific rooms by the color of their carpet and bedspread.) Gabe tucked his head on my shoulder, into my neck - just so - same as every time.  He cuddled in and draped his arms around my arms; he patted me as I sang to him while the misty grey from the window invaded the room.

I am struck by the thought that although this is so familiar, and I do this every day, he is already 13 months old and very soon I won't be able to stand and hold him and rock him this same exact way.

I look around me, and see the pictures of other little boys who once slept in this room.  On the headboard, there's an 8x10 of a little boy who became a daddy a few months ago - I held his beautiful baby in my arms.  Right beside that, is the picture of another baby boy.  He's a Marine now, just arrived home from Afghanistan yesterday, in fact.

Daddy and Mama's little cabin, old, in need of updating.  Nothing special, really, but packed overflowing with memories.  Dad and I gutted this room and redid it, back when I was 12 or so.  I know every layer. 

On the shelves, on the walls, everywhere, remembrances.  Here, thru my ugly cattail oil painting, I am still alive as a seventh grader.  I keep telling mom to throw it out, she grins and refuses.  Dad's great-granddad lives on thru the steamer trunk that sits at the foot of the bed.  My brothers and sisters grin out their grade-school selves from tiny metal frames, Dad's black-and white teenaged years sit casually on an end-table in a straining, decrepit photo album.  A perpetual calendar from 1983 graces the wall.  (Two types of calendars never get taken down at my parents' places:  Those too pretty to take down and those featuring Ronald Reagan.)

I first slept side by side with my husband here in this room.  Two college students, too poor for any other honeymoon, this was our fine hotel.  (Well, he was a college student.  I had graduated two weeks before.  We dined on fried catfish and frog legs the next day on a bluff overlooking the Ohio River.)

We brought our babies here.  All nine of our babies have been patted to sleep in the "pink room."  Our homes have changed, many times.  This room has not.   Some of those babies of mine are very near flying this nest.

I cried while holding Gabe close.  Nephews, nieces, sons and daughters - growing up, building their own lives, sometimes falling down, losing their way, then finding their way again, having their own babies and hopefully remembering the foundations that are always here for them.

And my parents, doing so well, but definitely growing older.  I wonder how long we will have them, and feel again the privilege of loving and caring for people - even when the days are long and the responsibilities hard and there seems to be more than can ever be accomplished.

And I turn it over to Jesus, crying into Him, because He's the only one who has seen it all, knows it all, understands it all.  He's seen every struggle, been a part of every joy.  He's known my parents from their childhoods; known me, Jeff, all of my siblings, all of these kids - from start to finish.  He knows our best selves and He knows our mess - and right there in the "pink room" I take a few minutes to turn us all over to Him.  Only He can take these lives, these years, and redeem them - turn them to good and life and glory.

God's love endures, it always stands, it always builds.  Love remembers, loves marks time, love sets a marker for memories. 

Tonight, once we were home and the kids were all asleep, I sent my father an email.  I asked him if we should think about planting some new shade trees in the yard - Maples or Tulips or Oaks.  I reminded him that this generation of children will grow up, and they wll need shade and limbs for their own children to climb and swing from.

Love always hopes,  love looks to the future.

The year that was: My father's surgery - part 3

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9 
Part 10 

I have really struggled with writing all of this down.  I know I've communicated that before, but it is still true.  I am not sure why it is so difficult.  It just feels like a burden I'm carrying and trust me, I've thought about forgetting the whole series and deleting it, not putting it here for others to read.  I've had to force myself to continue writing.


This was just such a horribly dark time; physically exhausting and mentally and emotionally solitary.  


I don't like being so honest, really.  Honest feels ugly, revealing.  Honest doesn't mean hopeless, it doesn't mean faithless.  Honest just means you're a real person.  If you are me, honest means that you are afraid that people will think you are just being a big baby.  I don't like to be depressing.


But is there a place for "honest?"  I think so, particularly when we are not trying to harm anyone and when we have waited to be certain that we are accurately representing what happened.

Sometimes grief over hard times just needs to be honestly shared.  We need for others to recognize and acknowledge our sadness, or the difficulties we have faced.


I learned so many new things along last year's journey - more than I could ever hope to find time to write down.  Some things were very good - which I allude to and which I will share more of.   Some things were brutal, though.  (I'm equally stunned by both.)


I've learned even more starkly how sensationalist we humans are.  There was plenty of compassion when my husband was sick.  When my parents were sick, though, and troubles were compounded upon troubles, those trials seemed more easily dismissed.  A sick husband or a sick baby tugs on the heartstrings.  Sick old people?  It usually elicits a yawn.  Most people won't even bother to read about it.    

Old age is lonely; but caring for the elderly is a lonely role too.  I encourage you - if you know someone who is a primary caregiver for an elderly person, speak and do kindness for them.  Pray for them.  Hold their hand and cry with them a little bit, if they seem to need it.  Don't forget them! 

There were little indignities along the way.  The lady and her rude gesture were one, the day of Dad's surgery revealed a few more.

I've been involved in the care of the elderly for many years now.  Let me simply say without over-dramatization or inflation that getting old can be a terribly lonely and isolating process.  It is difficult to get good hospital care for the elderly, particularly if they are unable to speak for themselves.  We have good medical coverage for our elderly in America, that is, the dollars have been allocated.  Dollars don't equal compassion, however. 

My parents have spent their lives in the pastorate.  My mother cared for her own father when he was dying of cancer and cared for her mother as she dwindled away due to Alzheimers.  Both of my parents have made hospital visitation and nursing home visits a priority.  Even now, my father will visit the "old people" at the nursing home.  Never mind that many of them are ten years younger than he is.

But they live in a very small town.  They don't have many young friends.  Many of my father's peers have +
+died.  If they have not passed on, they are not able to get around much.

I was worried that my mother would not have anyone to sit in the waiting room while she had surgery.  To avoid her sadness and disappointment were this to happen, I called her pastor and asked if he would be able to come pray with her before her surgery.  (Small congregation - sixty people or so, total?)  He came, and I was so thankful.  During mom's surgery, I shared the wait with my father, her pastor, and an elderly aunt and uncle.

Prior to Dad's surgery, I called the pastor and left a message with the date and time.  For an elderly person from a small town, their church is their connection.  Their minister, present at a time of trauma or insecurity, brings a sense of comfort.  Without this touch, they feel a sense of loss, of disconnection.

The minister never came, never called.  I was heartbroken for my dad over this.  How many visits had he made to people who were having surgeries over his 86 years?  When his own time came, the only ones sitting vigil for him were a daughter and the same elderly half-brother and his wife.

I have not spent most of my married life around my parents.  We've only lived close for four years.  I'm not accustomed to this vigil sitting.  I did not feel comfortable spending hours sitting with my elderly relatives.  What would we talk about?  They'd had many surgeries themselves, struggled to shuffle around the hospital, became easily lost as they navigated the corridors looking for coffee or the restroom or food.  How would I hostess these old ones in a hospital waiting room?  What if they had an emergency themselves?  None of those things were real issues - I was simply uncomfortable.

I again found myself unready for this role.  Mothering, I knew.  Babies, toddlers, preschoolers, elementary ages, middleschoolers, highschoolers - I had all of these at home.  I know how to care for people, how to "do," - but to sit and visit with them?  To be the primary family member present at a surgery, to hold power of medical decisions - this was heavy and I would have pushed it aside if I could have.

I remembered one recent visit to my fetal/maternal specialist's office.  I was lying on the bed for yet another ultrasound, and the tech and I chatted while she scanned the blood-flow to our baby's brain.  I was telling her about my parent's upcoming surgeries, and how I did not know how I was going to handle everything that was still on the calendar before our baby was due.

She stopped, looked at me, and said.  "You will do it.  You will do it, because you have to.  It will be hard, but you will make it."  She was an only child, who was responsible for her parent's care alone, so she understood what was happening.

Her words lifted me and sustained me.  I was pretty sure they were a direct message of confidence from God.  :)  They were exactly what I had needed to hear.  I could make it through this.

I thought of her words this day, and although I was pushing myself forward every step because of dread and anxiety, I took strength from them.  The Lord God was with me, with my parents, with us all.

My aunt and uncle and I took hands, and in the absence of a minister, we prayed over my dad.  He was so peaceful and accepting as he put himself into the surgeon's hands.

So, then, we waited.  We made small talk.  I refilled coffee cups.  We endured bad cable tv shows.  (I think that's the worst part about waiting room.  No right to change the channel.)  We looked through every magazine available.

And we waited.

I realized something new about the elderly, about my aunt and uncle, in particular.  At their stage of life, waiting vigil was about the last thing they were able to do for their loved ones.  They took this responsibility very seriously.  I could not persuade them to leave to eat, even though I knew they had medications they needed to take.  We who are young are often in too big of a hurry to do the waiting - at least I know this is true for me.  Give me something to fix and I'm fine.  Ask me to wait, and I resist.  I gained so much insight and respect for them and for their "waiting."  If they had not come, I would have sat alone, again.  No one should be alone at times like that.  People going through surgeries or traumas should have plenty of arms to hold them up.  If they are leaving this life, they should be held and lifted up in love - if they remain and return to health, they should know that there are loved ones waiting to welcome them back, praying for them throughout.

And we waited some more.

It was taking too long.  My aunt and uncle began to get agitated and worried.  They'd sat through many surgeries over the course of their lives, and they knew when something wasn't right.

I tried to allay their fears, to say that I imagined that the surgeon had gotten a late start.  They said, "No, Holly.  Something went wrong."

I tried to get some information, but no one knew why the surgery was taking so long.

Eventually, several hours late, we received word that the surgery was over, and the surgeon would meet with us.  We were taken to the same consultation room that I'd sat in twice for Jeff, once for my my mother.

The surgeon, a man I'd come to greatly respect over the months, entered the room.  His eyes were tired and bloodshot. 

"Your father made it okay through the surgery....but his hip broke when I was completing the replacement."  He gave us the rest of the details about his care.  I thanked him for his labor on behalf of both of my parents.

I helped my aunt and uncle find their way out of the hospital, called my mother to let her know that things did not go quite as expected, called my children to see how they were doing, called my brother and sister who were enroute and would be arriving later that evening.

I collected my things and my dad's bags and took them to the room he would be moved to once he was out of surgery.  By now, I knew the joint replacement floor really well.  I knew the nurses and they knew me.  They were getting a little sick of seeing us, I think.  :)

I waited in the dusk for Dad to arrive.

Once the nurses had wheeled him in and left the room, he slowly opened his eyes and called my name.  I wasn't sure if he was coherent or not.

What he was, was thirsty.  He'd not had anything to drink for almost 24 hours.

I leaned close, waiting for words of love.

Instead, Dad's first words post-surgery were:

"Bubba."

He'd survived surgery, he'd survive this too, somehow.  I dug thru dad's bag and pulled out the precious Bubba.  He fell back to sleep without a sip, and I sat back to wait for my brother and sister's arrival.  I was exhausted, done for.  I held his head and stroked his wrinkled face and smoothed his grisled hair, noting that he needed a haircut.  I mourned his wrapped swollen hip and the awful bruises from the iv and blood draws.
 
This was too much.  I'd like to tell you that I handled all of this with grace.  In fact, that's the way I originally wrote this post.  Yet as I reread it, I thought back to how it really was.  In the spirit of honesty, I have to tell you that I was angry.  I became angry with God - that after all of this, at the end of this horribly long summer, that we suffered this indignity of a broken hip. (I'm not excusing it, I'm just saying that it was there and that I had to deal with it.) How would I be able to take care of two elderly people with joint replacements that had not gone well?  How would we handle this when I had the baby?   I felt offended, as if wounded by an old friend.   I hated old age, trial, disease and infirmity.  It seemed like the series of unfortunate events, where nothing could go well.

The year that was: My father's surgery - part 2

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

Dad and I pulled up to the surgery entrance.  I helped him get inside and checked in, made sure that he had his book and reading glasses, paperwork, and medications.  I headed back out to park the car.  Walk, walk, walk - or rather, endless waddling, at my stage of pregnancy.

By the time I returned, a nurse was taking a list of his medications.

Dad is mostly deaf and due to neurological damage suffered during his adrenal crisis and resulting coma almost twenty years ago, many people can not understand what he says.

Since I'd been with him for every doctor's visit from endocrinology to nephrology for the last four years, I was fairly used to this.  The nurse or doctor would ask a question.  He would pretend that he heard, and smile happily at them.  I have learned that my parents are "authority pleasers."  They come from a generation that respected authority, and as such, they "over-perform" when they are talking to the doctor.  They may have been writhing in pain and unable to walk at home, but as soon as the doctor hits the door they are right as rain and capable and agreeable.  It's only after the appointment they realize that they never told the doctor how badly they hurt nor what their difficulty might be.  The main thing to them is that he is pleased with them, and that they made a good impression on him.

Well, dad was grinning, and the nurse was writing down his answers.  Only problem was, since he couldn't hear her, and she couldn't understand him, the answers were all wrong.

We started again with his complex list of medications and with directions for surgery as related to his adrenal insufficiency.  We got him gowned up and the proper hip swabbed with betadine solution.  Labs were drawn and an iv started.  Nothin' to do but wait.

I sat and read; Dad got quiet as he contemplated what was going to happen to him.  He likes drama, but this was a little too real.  At his age, many of his friends had not survived surgeries.

I tried to not notice how very, very small this person who fathered me really was.

In real life, in his element, I forget how small he is.  His "in charge" presence has always dominated in our family.  But here, on the flimsy hospital bed, in an even flimsier gown, I noticed that my papa was the size of a boy.  Five foot tall, 124 pounds.

"Daddy."

"It hurts me to see you like this, old, and small.  I could pick you up, if I needed to."

"Why am I the one doing this?  Why me?  I'm the youngest - I'm not really strong enough to handle seeing my Dad like this, to be the one to hold his hand and see his skinny white legs and hold his gown down when he turns over so he's not ashamed."

"This hurts too much.  I can't do this.  This is too intimate.  I've borne enough suffering.  This is the fifth time I've sent a loved one into surgery this summer.  I handled so much:  Nick's mugging, Sammy's accident, Jeff's illness, mom's fear, her recovery.  I can't handle his fear too."

"Why is life like this?  Why does it come down like this, Jesus?  Old, frail, our dignity at the edge....oh, we need YOU, Jesus.  I don't understand this, but I need you today."

I didn't say it, of course.  It was all inside my head.

Outside my head, I snooped around his bag and saw that he has snuck in contraband soda for after the surgery.  Bubba.  Dad loves a generic, awful soda called Bubba.  Just like Dad to make sure he had his Bubba addiction covered.  He also had a flashlight in the bag.  Once a boyscout, always a boyscout, I guess.  Always prepared.  I can't imagine when he thought he might use the flashlight - perhaps if there was an emergency and the hospital generator also failed, he and his new hipjoint might be able to heroically lead the rest of us unprepared people out of the building.  Never mind that if the power failed the elevators would also fail - and we were on the fifth floor - Dad was sure he would still find a way.  It made me grin.

This was my job.  I knew his medical history, his idiosyncrasies.  I was his interpreter.  There was no one else.  He was mine, and no one else could or should be doing this for him.  He gave me life - I was holding his hand when he needed me.  No matter what, I would do what needed to be done.


I kissed Dad goodbye when they said that it was time, and headed for the coffee at the now-familiar waiting room.

The year that was: My father's surgery, part 1

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8

(I know that I am posting quickly now, maybe it is too much for you to read right now.  Maybe you don't want to read it at all.  :)  That's okay.  I never look at my blog stats and I never know who is reading.  I am just compelled to finish telling this story.  I want to write it down and move on.  Most people who read here know me in real life, or else we've been friends online for years.  Don't feel bad if you can't read it all right now, maybe you'll find time later.  It's all okay with me, it's just something I've got to do.  I'll probably post the next part later today, even, while I have time, and then not post for a few days.  Saturday is my father's 87th birthday.)

The three weeks after my mother's surgery passed all too quickly.  We were balancing my frequent ultrasounds with mom's therapies, care, and doctor's visits with preparation for my father's surgery.

On the morning of the surgery, it was just me and Pop.  My mother should not have been left alone, as she was still in much pain and was having trouble keeping her medications straight.  My oldest son was working, and I needed the second two eldest to watch our little ones for me.  I would be away from dawn to close to midnight.  There was no one to stay with her, so we made sure she had the phone at her side.  She was able to get up and get herself around, minimally.  I was so worried about her, worried about the kids, just plain overwhelmed and worried, really.  I'd worked hard to have things ready at the house for the kids, too:  food, laundry, things to do.

It was the perfect storm of a youngest child caring for parents who were already older when they had her.  I know that my situation really isn't all that unique.  So many people care for their elderly parents and try to juggle work, life, children, and maybe medical situations of their own.  I've been extremely humbled by the incredible love and care I've seen many people take of their elderly.  My situation is perhaps unique in that God has led my husband and I to have a large family, and that I was already worn down by Jeff's illness, and by the fact that I had a baby due in less than a month.  But still, as we analyzed all things, we did not see any other way.  Our family errs a little too much on the side of thinking we are invincible, that we can handle anything.  (If you know us in real life, you are likely laughing at this point.  We have a "sure, I can handle that" mentality.)

Dad drove the 45 minutes to my house.  He can still handle the drive, as he knows the road well and there are only small towns to pass through.  (Truth be told, he still drives really well.  He has great reflexes and has a good intellect which serves him well in crisis situations.)  He's just not too comfortable with city traffic, particularly if he hits construction or detours.  He'd rather meet me at my house and let me drive in the city.

It was a horribly hot and sweaty morning, even though he arrived shortly after 6 a.m.  My Dad is short, only 5 foot tall.  When I hop in his car to drive I have to readjust everything.  I toss his cushion that he uses to lift himself up so that he can see over the dashboard into the backseat.  I push the seat backward, tilt the rearview mirror, strap my very pregnant self in, sweating all the while. 

He struggles with his seatbelt buckle on the passenger side, bursitis makes the necessary movements difficult.  I always reach over without a word an latch the buckle.  He chuckles, embarrassed, but he's really okay with it.  He turns the air on, barely, out of deference for me.  He does not like the air, but knows that I do.  He couldn't possibly crank it high enough for me on this day.

We set out, make it into the heart of downtown traffic.  A woman, perfectly coiffed, races past me.  Angrily, she yells silent words at me and raises her finger in an obscene gesture.

I have no idea what I have done to offend her, but she has no idea of how much her rudeness hurts me on this day.  She has no idea that my heart is already about to explode and I am about to crumble. 

It took awhile, but I have chosen to forgive her for this.  She had no idea.  It is a great lesson that I return to again and again when I am tempted to be angry with some nameless person over a minor grievance.  I have no idea what they are carrying.

The year that was (third hospitalization)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

And so we continue...

A new doctor took Jeff's case.  We were not confident that he was aware of the previous infection/situation, he was not a joint surgeon, so we requested that Jeff's first surgeon (Dr. B.) come back on the case.

Jeff suffered through the weekend, we worried about a repeat infection in his hip joint.  If re-infection had occurred, he would lose the hip joint for sure, and a new one would have to be installed.  It was frustrating to wait through the weekend, difficult to consider yet another possible surgery, and besides, this mean that Jeff would be out of work for...how long?  Who knew?

Good news came on Monday morning.  Our brilliant surgeon, Dr. B., stopped by Jeff's room.  The antibiotic beads that had been inserted into Jeff's hip were designed and infused with full-spectrum antibiotics.  They were meant to fight against almost any known type of bacteria.  (We later learned from Dr. B's assistant that together they made the cement beads themselves, grinding and lacing, infusing them with antibiotics.  We blessed their brilliance, acknowledging it as a true gift from God.)  What a thrill to hear this news.  We could breathe again.

Where was the infection coming from, then, if not from the hip joint?  The hospital had repeatedly assured us that it could not be coming from the PICC line, as they had never had a PICC line infection.

For my part, I was a little freaked out.  One staph infection with no known origin is bad enough.  But two?  I started becoming a serious germaphobe (bacteriophobe?)

Finally, one doctor ordered the PICC line pulled.  The tip was tested, and sure enough, the line was the culprit. Once it was removed, and a new one reinserted, Jeff began to improve.

It was June.  The office for my fetal/maternal specialist was located at the same hospital.  It simplified things, in a way.  I could walk over a few buildings and talk with the office instead of dealing with phone calls.  I tried to talk them down from such frequent ultrasounds and blood draws (every two weeks for both) but to no avail.  The baby was continuing to grow well and the titers for the isoimmunization never raised, not even a blip, and they never did.

The big kids were still running things the best that they could at home.  We were still caring for my parents, keeping up their properties as well.  Both of my parents were beginning the preparations for joint replacement surgeries.  Mom's surgery would be in August, Dad's would be three weeks later in September.  And the baby was due three weeks after that - or so.

I'd come home at night, cook supper, do laundry, spend as much time as possible with the little ones, handle finances, send out updates, etc., then head back to the hospital to be with Jeff as much as possible.  The big kids did well, considering, but they suffered.  They had their own heartaches going on at this time; struggles to fit in to their worlds, friendship issues, etc.  We sorta, rather...fell apart during these days, quite honestly.  I know that everyone wants to hear how a good family "overcame," and that part comes eventually, but for a time we were just in a world of hurt.  Sometimes, even though you love the Lord and even though you "trust," you just struggle and the path is terribly long, dry, dusty and painful.  I looked ahead and saw two more surgeries, still, on top of everything.  I saw two elderly people who desperately needed me, and I really was the only one around to help them at that time.  There were no guarantees that the surgeries would help my parents, even.  How much would they directly need me in days to come?    I saw many children who needed their mommy, teens who needed mom to not be so distracted, and a husband who needed to be nursed back to good health.  I looked down the road, and saw no end in sight.  Why did we ever think we could do this, handle this much?  Well...we were still following what we were sure we were supposed to do...care for our children, care for our elderly, care for each other. 

We were overwhelmed, but we did what we had to do.  We kept getting up and doing what had to be done, day after day.  God kept carrying us.  There is no other way to explain it.

Jeff got well enough to come home from the hospital.  He improved little by little.  In mid-July, he re-entered the hospital for another surgery, this one to remove the antibiotic beads from the hip site.  Dr. B. took his joint completely apart, cleaned it out again, and put him back together.  Jeff didn't stay very long this time, just a few days, and when he came home he was soon walking without the walker.  He brought me coffee in bed the first morning he was home.  What a sweet memory that is.

Jeff was cleared to return to work the second week in August.  His workplace had retained his job for him, that was a real blessing too.  He had been out of work, without a paycheck, without work paying for his insurance, for three months.

God taught us so much through these trials.  We were humbled, but in a deeply good way.  We gained compassion for the "down and out."  We were blessed by the love and remembrance and strength of friends.  God is so good.  Blessed be His name - through easy times and hard. He is worthy of our trust, not because things turned out, but because He is God and He loves us.

(Next time, I'll write about my parent's surgeries, and then finish by telling about the day that Gabriel was born.)

Caretakers

Along with our own home, we also have a little house that we bought on a sheriff's sale (for $3,500, if you can imagine that.)   We immediately put a new roof on the old place, and Jeff and the boys have gutted it down to the studs and are getting ready to install new plumbing.

Along with that house and the one we live in (which we are also remodeling,) we are caretakers of my parents' two properties.  (That's four places, in case I lost you.)  My parents still live in a small town in the same home in which my father was born; in the house which my great-grandfather built with his own hands in 1914.  They also have a little cabin way out in the hills and hollers; twelve acres of rolling, stretching, wooded land.  My family has owned this particular piece of property since I was 11.  Dad saved up his pennies until he was 53 years of age, then plopped down $18,000 cash for this piece of property.  Dad never made more than $18,000 a year in his life.  Mom was a substitute school teacher making $30 a day when I was in highschool in the eighties.  Frugality bought them a beautiful piece of land that has given and given to our family over the decades.

(I hope I don't make anyone uncomfortable talking prices.  I tell it all for the sake of perspective.  You can buy houses and even land for less than the price of a car.  Also, it's good for the kids to see what hard work and fiscal conservation can do over time.)  :)

My Daddy was a pastor.  This place was our retreat.  No phones, no running water, no indoor bathroom, even.  Just wood heat.  The farm sits inside the rim of an extinct volcano; you can see the outline of the rim by aerial view.  It's a hardscrabble, beautiful place.  We came once a week, Fridays after school.  We mowed, we gardened, we remade the cabin.  We fenced the pasture and gravelled the driveway one bucket at a time.  We seined the pond and restocked it, built the dock and built a deck on the house too.   It was mostly just my Daddy and I doing the work, as my oldest siblings left for college very soon after.  I loved the farm, I hated the farm.  There was always so much work.  I named it NeverRest, and the name still stands.

I've grown up with this land.  I've watched it change and shift over 31 years; and it has shifted.  I notice new species of trees, different mushrooms and bugs, gullies and ravines worn through the hills by spring rains.

  It is an amazing thing to parent the same land over time, to be able to say, "I remember when Dad and I planted these pear trees.  I remember when we grafted in new branches, splicing in the buds and wrapping them with tape."  Now, my children harvest fruit from these trees and I spend late summer days canning pears for us to enjoy this winter.

God is so good to me to let me live this long and share such things with my children.  When I was eleven and twelve and working so hard to clear the land and help my Dad remodel an old cabin, I never knew that one day I'd have nine children who would come back to work with me, to swing on the same old tree that I enjoyed as a kid.  I'm grateful now for the hard work that I was made to do.  It made me very, very tough - and I sure need that with nine children.  I'm no quitter.  :)

I like that they are getting the opportunity to learn to work, too, to do the things they don't necessarily want to do but should.  They are gaining ties to the land, learning to caregive both the people that live there and the land itself. 

Shepherding land is hard work.  Mowing, pruning, mending,

Splicing, sharpening, harvesting, gathering, cutting wood for winter.  The work is never done.   Three seasons wear us thin, pull us into four different places that need maintained.  My parents' places have strong familial value.  We do the best that we can.  By September, we are looking ahead with longing towards the first snowfall, when we can sit with our backs to the fire and enjoy cocoa from the kettle of warm water that is always on the cookstove.  The kids pilfer cookies from Grandma's cookie jar, drive her a little nuts with the chaos, and play legos in the loft bedrooms (you get there by pulling down and unfolding a ladder.)

My parents love this place.  It hurts my heart so much to see them grow older and able to do less around their places, but as long as they can make it down to the country, to their farm, they are content.  Last year when they both had joint replacement surgeries (and my father's hip was broken,) they couldn't come for several months.  They came as soon as they possibly could - and it did them such good.  My Dad will be 87 next month.  I'm not sure what we will do when the day comes that he can't drive himself to his farm any longer.  I think I will have to take him, for sure.

Catfish, bluegill, and bass.  Yum.  :)

We don't fish nearly enough to suit the boys, but hopefully we'll find more time this fall and again in the spring.  I recently saw that Jeff had picked up a pink fishing pole from a garage sale for our little girl.  He must have plans.

My dad has always been a steward, a conservationist, even before it was cool. He devotes specific plots to wildlife, he works to eradicate invasive plant species that threaten the national forest, he loves this land the Lord has let him caretake for a time. He's taught me well in this regard. I love it too.  Although the days are very long and tiring and the work exhausting; I am thankful that our children have the opportunity to experience the land, the work, and the relationships regularly.

*These pictures were taken in the spring by my daughter Emily

The power of a man's influence

Four months ago my father was sent to a rehabilitation center for therapy following surgery.  He had gone in for a new style of hip replacement, the kind that features an anterior cut rather than a posterior cut.  This type of replacement is supposed to allow the individual to recover in days rather than weeks.

My father was so hopeful, so excited at the thought of regaining a measure of independence.  His walking had slowed down to mincing steps.  He always lived a high-octane life, a highly independent life, up until the last year.  He feared falling.  We feared his falling.  Neither he nor my mother were able to walk well, both were falling frequently.  Heaven forbid that either one would give in and use a cane.  That might mean they were getting old.

If positive thinking were a magical cure, Dad's surgery would have been a flying success.  As it happened, the top of his femur broke off during the replacement surgery and his hopes were dashed.  He lives with complete adrenal insufficiency, so his daily steroid dependency had weakened his bones over the years.

Rather than walking within a day, Dad was told that he could not touch his toe to the ground for 8 weeks.  He did not want to go to a rehabilitation center.  In his mind, it meant "nursing home," and the thought of a nursing home simply gave him the heebie jeebies.

We convinced him that he had to go for a brief time, that he would be able to get the therapy he needed on site much easier than he could receive it in his home.  Mom had knee replacement surgery three weeks prior and wasn't doing well at all.  She couldn't drive, he couldn't drive.  My baby was due (and came) within 3 weeks.  He didn't have much choice but to enter the rehab center.

I drove the 30 minute drive over several times to be able to be with Dad for his therapy sessions.
The male therapist was good at his job, good with his patients.  He was a big guy, focused on his work, kind and empathetic yet pushing those who were capable to do as much as they were able to do.

I watched my Dad as he flexed and lifted his good leg and then his bad, striving to lift higher and further with each repetition.

I watched the therapist lift my father from his wheelchair to the work-out table.  Dad's so little.  I wish that you knew him, you would understand what I mean.  Five foot tall, one hundred and fourteen pounds in a hospital gown.  He's the size of my 12 year old daughter, but he's barrel chested and as strong as an ox.  He never had legs, he had pistons.  His steps beat a specific stacatto down the street of our small town.  You could always hear Dad coming.

As the therapist's arms wrapped round my father's chest, from back to front, under his arms, I watched my father's face.  I did not understand the look at first.

I expected embarrassment, perhaps.  He does not like to be weak.  I thought maybe he would be discouraged.  It is, after all, hard to get old and the surgery did not turn out as he'd so highly hoped.

What I saw instead was, a man who was reveling in praise of another man.  I saw the little boy, now old, whose father died when he was an infant.  I saw the boy, who was raised by a kind but distant grandfather; the boy who never heard the words "I love you" from an older, stronger male.  Raised in a different time, a time where love was tough and affection was not easily shown, my father was enjoying something he'd not had much of in his life.  He had plenty of discipline, but not the warmth.  He was receiving positive attention from a strong male presence in his life.  The man wrapped him in a bear hug and praised him, and he beamed.  The man praised him, and he nearly worked his muscles into a panic to please. 

Boys need men in their lives.  Apparently, this need, this power for good and affirmation from men to boys, from fathers to sons never goes away.  Maybe this need is more apparent if it has never been met, yet barely noticeable if it has.  My father came to the point after two weeks where he really did not want to leave the rehab center.  It had nothing to do with needed care and everything to do with the boost his spirit received from male bonding and affirmation from a male role model.  It explained many things, and gave me, the mother of six sons, much to think about.

Men, you have no idea of the powerful role you have in the lives of your sons and in the lives of other men.  It is a power that apparently, never fades away.