Mary was such a joy. She became a client in 2007 when her out of town family realized she was having word finding problems, noticed when they spoke with her over the phone each week from Nevada. I will never forget my first visit to her home and how amazed I was at her accomplishments as an artist! Not only was she a joy to be around I was impressed with how humble and gracious a lady she was and her incessant drive to improve her memory and speech problems. At one point she had me take her to a well known speech therapist in the community three times a week for "homework". She was a diligent student and practiced doing her assignments without fail each week.
Although, in the early stages of Alzheimer's, she lived in a community which supported her drive to exercise, play golf, swim, and continue painting. My role was to assist her to live independently, follow up with periodic visits to her medical providers, check her medications management which she was still doing without help. In my overall assessment, I could see she had a pretty good quality of life, helpful neighbors, and in no apparent danger except for a heart murmur for which she took medication.
All was well in Mary's life until she ran to pickup the phone one day, fell and fractured a hip. You know the rest, she had surgery and her family flew out to see her. During her hospital stay, she expressed her desire to live longer than her mother's age at her death, 83. But Mary surprised everyone and made a remarkable recovery with the rehabilitation process, going home in a couple of weeks with assistance. Unfortunately, confusion and behavior problems set in while at home and she resisted the help of caregivers cooking, grooming, bill paying, and most of all driving. She finally sold her car and traded it for a golf cart so that she could still go to the putting green.
But tragedy struck when her power of attorney arrived, cognizant of Mary's athleticism and worried that she just might outlive her resources. This adult child discontinued her heart medication without dignity and placed her on hospice where her life suddenly stopped. So much for Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother. As this family member stated in a shocking email, she was a lot closer to her father anyway! Mary died at age 85, sketching the above during an art session at a local memory day care center and she enriched my life.
I wept while reading you're two posts "Every Day I Cry". Unfortunately, these incidents are all too common. One of my daily money management clients died recently. Her daughter had cut off all contact with her more than thirty years ago and had resisted all attempts to re-establish contact with her mother. I like to think that I, and the rest of her caregivers, helped relieve my client's loneliness and gave her the love she had been without for so long. Less than two weeks after being notified of her mother's death, the daughter contacted me to ask if she had been left any inheritance!
ReplyDeleteThese incidents just zap the life out of the goodness we give as care managers. So many of our clients are starved for love and sometimes I wonder if that's what threatens family members into these behaviors. Thanks for your comment.
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