May 12, 2010

• Responsible Party

  Are you anyone’s “Responsible Party”?  Maybe you use the term “Power of Attorney”?  It means the same thing.  You are legally entitled to make decisions for someone else.

  Tomorrow  morning, Dan and I will get up and drive 2 1/2 hours to attend the care conference for his elderly aunt.  Dan is her Responsible Party.  It’s a responsibility we take very seriously.  When I was thinking about writing this blog, my first thought was that we have to make that drive tomorrow.  That’s not true though.  We don’t have to go.  The nursing home would arrange a conference call so that we could participate in the care conference from the comfort of home.  We want to go.  We feel that we need to go.  It’s important for many reasons.

  It is very easy for us to get involved in the busyness of our own lives and put off getting down to see Irene.  Attending her care conferences guarantees that we visit her at least every three months.  When it is a 2 1/2 hour drive each way, it is really easy to tell ourselves that we don’t have time to go, and before too long, we haven’t seen her for 6 months or a year.  That’s not a good thing.  Irene needs to know that her family cares about her.  She needs to feel that we are interested in her life.  She needs to know that she matters.

  The nursing home also needs to know that Irene matters.  I think that they are very good to her and they do take care of her physical needs.  They think that she is confused.  Irene has always had a unique orientation to life and the world around her.  She is not confused.  She knows who she is, where she is, what season it is, and who the people around her are.  She is aware of the events in the community and the world if they matter to her.  She does repeat herself quite frequently,  and she does have that unique view of the world that can be misinterpreted if you don’t know her.  She has always had a rather selective memory that is getting much more selective.  I get a little aggravated when the staff speaks to her as if she is a child because they think that she does not always understand what is going on, though.  She is not a child and she most certainly does understand what she wants to understand.  It’s important for us to show up and ask questions.  It’s also important to pay attention to how Irene looks and how her room looks.  I think she looks a little better because we do that.

  We usually take Irene out when we go down to see her.  In my opinion, one of the reasons that she repeats herself so much is that she just does not have much to think about.  Nursing home residents are usually very debilitated.  Many of them are not capable of coherent conversation, so there is not a lot of mental stimulation going on there.  Irene does have many friends who visit her faithfully, but when they are not there, there is really not much to occupy her thoughts.  Taking her out to lunch gets her out into the community.  Many times, she sees people she knows.  One of her favorite parts of going out is getting to look at the sky.  Her roommate has the window side of the room and keeps the curtains between them drawn, so Irene does not get to see the sky very often.  It’s nice if it’s sunny, but she doesn’t really care if it’s not.  She just likes to know that the sky is still up there!

  Care conferences are always on weekdays.  Between conferences, we try to get down on weekends so that we can take Irene to Mass.  They do have Mass at the nursing home, but it is not on the weekend and not in a church.  Irene is very religious and she enjoys being able to go to a real church and be part of the congregation.  That’s another place where she almost always sees people that she knows, too.  We go to Saturday evening Mass, which is the Mass that Irene always attended.  Unfortunately, it is not in her home parish.  Her pastor now serves 3 parishes, and the Saturday evening service is always in one of the other two churches.   It’s a church, though, and it’s Irene’s pastor.

  We always try to do a little decorating in Irene’s room when we are there, too.  She loves all holidays and always decorated her house for even the smallest one.  We kept her decorations, and when we go to see her, we put up the ones that are appropriate for that season.  She enjoys having people compliment her on her room.  She likes to tell the stories that go with the different decorative items.  She tells people who does the decorating, too!

  Yes, tomorrow, we will get up and drive 2 1/2 hours to attend a 20 minute meeting.  It’s important.

  • 10:30 pm
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