Parent Duty

Ya know, in many ways getting old stinks.

Bob's parents are about the same age as my grandparents as he was a "later in life" baby like Ginger. Both of them until fairly recently have been pretty healthy and pretty together mentally and physically. Well, that has all been changing rather fast.

Bob's mother, Jane, has been going through a series of strokes, a major heart attack, a triple bypass, congestive heart failure and basically uncontrolled diabetes. Her health in the past three years has been in a rapid and continual decline which is so hard to watch. And in order to keep her healthy enough to try and live for the next five years, she has to be forced to take her medicine and to eat right. (And boy does she fight having to eat right. She will glare at you, call you mean and try to sneak food that she shouldn't have. I know this from personal experience.) This responsibility has fallen to Debbie K.. Debbie is the caretaker of Bob's siblings and the one who is making sure that their parents are taken care of. That is not to say that she doesn't get help from Patti, Bob & Diane, but she has the brunt of the responsibility. It has been hard for her to basically change her relationship with her mother from daughter to caretaker. She has to force her to do what needs to be done even though Jane tries to get out of it.

Bob's father, Bob Sr., has also been going through a decline. His physical health has never been too fabulous because of years of smoking and alcohol abuse. After the death of his second wife a a few years ago, the kids got together and moved him out to San Diego so he could be closer to them. Surprisingly, he gave up both cigarettes and alcohol cold turkey after he moved. Which is such a relief because he, his clothes, his furniture and his house just reeked of smoke and it made everyone sick to their stomach. Bob Sr's rapid decline has been more mental than physical. He has been sliding into dementia for the past few years. He will sit and regale you with the same stories over and over again if you let him. He spent so many years sedentary, he has no strength whatsoever in his upper or lower body. When taking out the trash a week or so ago he fell on the asphalt and really scared himself. When he was here yesterday he kept changing the channel with the remote and then getting frustrated that he couldn't find channel 22 (TCM). I think that a commercial would come on and then he would forget what he was watching and then try to use our rather large universal remote and get frustrated when it wouldn't work. I finally had to take the remote away from him after the third time.

How frustrating for them. They were once young, strong, energetic, creative people. Now they are physically weak and have to have someone walk them around for fear that they might fall again. Luckily, Oregon provides both of them with caregivers for a certain number of hours each week to take care of house cleaning, driving them to doctor's visits and ensuring that they take their medicine. But now, they both have reached the point where they can not live alone any longer. Debbie K. will be taking Jane and we will be taking Bob. At least, that is the current plan. We would have to add on a bathroom by the office downstairs first before we could move him in. There are many things to figure out on our end to see the feasibility of this plan. We need an architect to design one, come up with an approximate financial impact and get the thing built. Then of course, Bob needs to move his office offsite to free up the room. So many things. Debbie has tried to get Bob Sr. into assisted living, but there is a waiting list for those places that accept Medicaid. There is no timeline for when one would come available. The only other option for him is foster care in someone else's home. That is just not an option we could live with. We will see how thinds end up turning out.

I know that even just having Bob Sr. downstairs will be more work for me. Not too much, hopefully. I do have three kids, a husband, a house, a yard, two dogs, two cats and Bob's bookkeeping for the company to take care of. But, I believe that sometimes you do what you have to do because it is the right thing. Bob's parents took care of him so now it is our turn to take care of them. Besides, it could be ok. Alexis and Logan could sit and listen to his stories and never get tired of them. They could entertain him for an hour or so every day. If things got really, really bad we could cross that bridge when we come to it.