"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men", as Robert Burns said, "gang aft agley"…
Well, perhaps not as seriously awry as they did for poor Lenny Small.
Still, there was no gardening yesterday. There was not much of anything but waiting and worrying and helping. Not that I am complaining about that, because such is not my purpose.
Apparently it was the sciatica that kept my G in bed on Sunday, and allowed me to garden, which kept him from being able to walk on Monday and sent us to the emergency room where he was examined, x-rayed, and promptly sent home, still basically unable to stand more than a few seconds or walk more than a couple of feet at best. We feared a hip fracture or dislocation, but there was nothing more serious to be found other than sciatica, which is apparently not an adequate diagnosis for admission, even in an frail elderly male whose grip on ambulation is often tenuous in the best of circumstances. But that too, and any thoughts I might have on age, aging, and healthcare in one of the richest countries in the world, are also not the purpose of this post. Although they might be.
Instead my musings run in a more frivolous vein.
Would G have been sent home if he lived alone? What if I, his spouse, were older and also frail and unable to support him and keep him from falling, or God forbid pick him up from the floor after a fall? Would they have sent him home? I don't honestly know. Actually no one asked about his home situation. This may not be surprising as I was there with him. Except that everyone assumed I was his daughter. This often caught me by surprise, and I did not really expect it as I told everyone I was his wife. The ambulance crew knew this, and I informed his nurse, the admitting clerk, the x-ray tech and the doctor the first time I met him. So why did he ask me if I learned anything about sciatica growing up with my dad? My dad was a history professor, and yes I learned a great deal about Ren & Ref but not much about sciatica. The doctor must have forgotten, although it is true that I gave up on correcting him. Perhaps he just wasn’t connecting what I said, what should have been there in G’s record, with what his eyes and his own biases were telling him. And this does bother me. If the medical staff cannot overcome their own basic prejudices concerning this, whether I am wife as I say or daughter as they feel I appear, if decisions and opinions are based on faulty perceptions, what else are they missing?
We have been fine at home. Yesterday I stuck close and looked after G. I am strong and I can help support him. Getting up the steps into the house is proved far easier than getting down the steps would have been. But I knew that would be the case.
Today I will have help in looking after G so I can look after the other things that need looking after. And yet I still wonder what I would have done had I not the resources to bring in help. I suppose I would have made more of a fuss. I didn't. I knew G would be happier at home. I knew I could handle the situation, at least in the short term, beyond that I don't yet know. We hope for improvement.
Still, I wonder….
We have come a long way from the age when a family might tie an aged relative to the bed to keep them safe… or have we?
Comments
5 responses to “Sometimes I wonder…”
Sciatica is miserable. My DH suffers from it periodically, and he had a severe bout a number of years ago, similar to how you are describing G’s situation today. My DH is (and was) much younger, in his late 30s or possibly 41 or so at the time. It was horrible, but I wasn’t worried he’d break anything if he fell.
To add my wonderings to yours: I wonder how anyone survives in our health care climate and how much worse it will be with the new health care plan? What I learned while under oncology care is that you HAVE to have “advocates” to get through the system or you have to be your own advocate. I don’t know how persons who have no one to play this role can even get good enough care to recover from serious illness. Yes, I’d say the hospital employees were using you!
At discharge time and after a quadruple bypass, my Dad informed the staff he was not ready to go home. They were stunned. It was then that he repeated to them, his wife’s condition, the availibility of help and non-presence of relatives (I live some 800 miles away.) He had given the staff this information before, several times and in several ways such as that’s my daughter calling from (State). But until he refused to go home, they didn’t get the message. I can only encourage everyone to politely but firmly challenge the medical personnel when appropriate.
The assumptions that health care providers are a real problem. I have dealt with some assumptions about my ability and willingness to care take for some others in my life. When i dared to say that I couldn’t or wouldn’t I got a whole lot of grief, judgement and attitude. I was very surprised by the morality reaction I got.
I am so sorry G is suffering. And I am so happy you can get some help so you don’t have to shoulder this alone.
And of course the caregivers at home are so often women, trained up to be nice rather than make a fuss.
Interesting cultural difference — in Greece, I know from a friend’s experience, the family provides a great deal of the in-hospital care. My friend took a leave from a high-level position in Canada to go back to Athens and care for her father while he was in hospital — they provided a cot for her, and she helped get him to the toilet, bath, feed, etc., while he went through the terminal months of prostate cancer. I’ve heard that this is also the expectation in many other countries, and I can’t imagine how we would fare if it were the expectation here, given how widely dispersed our extended families can be. But in some ways, it’s more transparent, more honest.