Mom & Me Two Archive

...excitedly comparing notes about our caregiving situations out on the heat radiating concrete of the driveway. It surprised both of us how many of our circumstances and experiences meshed.

1. She and her husband both have siblings. All of the siblings are married and have children. She and her husband are the only members of the immediate family who do not have children. They are also the only members of the immediate extended family who are taking care of elderly relatives (they are caring for her mother-in-law and father-in-law).
2. It is almost impossible for her to count on her extended family for caregiving help.
3. They have hired caregiving help several times through various local agencies (some of whom I had called a few weeks ago) and, without exception, have been disappointed. They are no longer confident that the business of caring is in any way able to spot them in caring for their parents without also adding a great deal of stress to their time away from their parents, wondering if "everything is going to be okay" when they return home, as, she says, it never has been.
4. She has not made the connection between she and her husband not having children and the fact that they "fell" into caregiving for her in-laws. However, she said something very interesting; that, of all the brothers and sisters she and her husband were and remain closest, emotionally, to her in-laws and she thinks that, all things considered, this is why their caregiving role "chose" them.
5. She has found negotiating the non-alternative medical establishment at least as confusing and maddening as I have. She has turned to the alternative healing community to assist her in caring for her relatives medically and finds that, while they may not necessarily hit a home run on the first try, the alternative healing community is "at least" willing to acknowledge when a particular treatment is either not working or causing a problem and will, of its own accord, research other possibilities. Thus, she trusts the alternative healing community more than the non-alternative medical community and wishes it wasn't necessary to remain linked with the non-alternative medical community in order to gain access to prescriptions, tests and insurance funding.
6. She and her husband both work. Since taking on the care of her in-laws, her husband has had to sacrifice raises and promotions in order for them to accommodate the needs of caring for her in-laws. She is worried, now, that she is going to have to sacrifice her retirement, which is due in 4 years, to the needs of caring for her relatives.

    She told me that her father-in-law, who is in his 90's, is "very sharp" and quite healthy physically except for continual pain from the scarring of previous hernias (which, she says "he bears with admirable reserve") that medicine will not touch, citing his lack of suitability for surgery. Her mother-in-law is somewhat fey, mentally, less so than my mother, and is frail physically in many of the same ways my mother is. She has been diagnosed recently with type 2 diabetes which this woman believes is either incorrectly diagnosed or is being treated incorrectly. Her pulmonary problems are being explained suspiciously and her muscular and bone frailties are not being adequately addressed by the medical community. However, the medical community "hounds" her and her husband to submit their mother-in-law to a variety of surgeries and procedures despite the son's and daughter-in-law's perception that her mother-in-law is a poor candidate for surgery and for certain test procedures.
    As far as being the closest, emotionally, to her mother-in-law of all the adult children within the extended family, this rings a bell with me. I feel much the same regarding my mother and her extended family. I know, however, as does this woman, that, as she said while I nodded vigorously, that it isn't that her mother-in-law loves her other children (blood and by marriage) any less, it's that, throughout the years, because she and her husband were unable to have children, she was more available to her mother in the intimately communicative ways that keep people abreast of the states of each other's souls and she had the time to nurture this kind of relationship. At this point I mentioned that it used to be that I thought I was the one missing out because I knew (as, I've been told by each of my three sisters) that they felt a special connection to my mother through having given birth and having become mothers and I had not. At this point she began nodding vigorously, so I continued: The funny thing is, though, I'm the one who has always known, for instance, what books my mother is reading; how she feels about what's in the news; about her business savvy and the immaculate decisions she made, at one time, in handling her stock portfolio; who her neighbors were and what she thought of them; that she had any relatives, at all, whom she disliked; unusual stories about her past...I could go on but I won't because I didn't. I didn't have to. The delivery woman said to me, "I know. That's how it is with me and my mother (she refers to her mother-in-law, appropriately, as "mother"). Her mother-in-law's other children and their spouses all live very close and, "they have always come to me to find out how she's doing and what she's doing."
    Before we parted she gave me a valuable alternative treatment tip that might help control Mom's diabetes without medication, as it has worked well for her mother: Soak a nopal (prickly pear) pad (without the spikes) in a gallon of "good" water for about a day and have my mother drink the liquid instead of water. Aside from being "very refreshing", it seems to boost the body's ability to process insulin. I informed her, since, occasionally, they find themselves relying on medication to control her mother-in-law's diabetes, of the little researched suspicion that there is a connection between several type 2 diabetic medications and three types of anemia.
    We also talked about how it seems that the non-alternative medical community seems to treat the elderly from a set of guidelines established for the middle-aged and that it is very slow in responding to the idea that a condition in an Ancient One is a different kettle of fish than the same condition in, say, a 50 year old. She admitted to the same suspicion.
    It is interesting to note that although this woman and her family are a from a non-Northern European background that has a reputation for extended family communities that care for their elderly, two distinctly nuclear conditions exist within their family: First, the insularity of each family unit to the point of not being available to help in the care of elders that have been left to one of the units; second, both her in-laws, some years ago, out of fear of being a "burden" to their children, were convinced that "when the time came" that they could no longer live independently they would voluntarily assign themselves to nursing homes. However, having had the experience of seeing other family members dwindle in nursing homes, when "the time" arrived they sought out the most likely available family unit to help them rather than nursing homes.
    As we finished our conversation, I mentioned to her that it sounded like her mother-in-law was the same woman as my mother. We laughed and she said, "And you are me!"
    "Well, not quite," I said. "I don't have a husband to help me and I abandoned my formal working life for this one. Let me tell you, whatever you have to do, hang onto those 4 years of work you need in order to retire. Harass your family to help you do this if you have to even if you think you might alienate them. Remind them that your ability to depend on retirement will allow their need to have you and your husband be your in-law's primary caregivers much more likely to be continued without any casualties."
    She cocked her head, startled. "You're right," she said. "I never looked at it that way. I think you've given me a way to approach them. Are you worried about what will happen to you when your mother dies?"
    "No," I told her, and that is the truth. "I've always been a little insane that way. I've never worried about what was going to happen in the future and, as it turns out, I've never had to. But, you know, that's just me. That doesn't work for everyone."
    "I don't know anyone that works for," she said. "You must be lucky."
    I am. That's also the truth. I am. Here I am, taking care of my beloved mother, getting to know her in ways no one else ever has or ever will know her and doing it with few distractions. You bet I'm lucky!
    In this country as it is today, as it has been for awhile and will continue to be for some time to come, cherish the singles and the childless partners among your families. These are, often, the dedicated keepers of the Ancient Ones, whether by default or design. These are the ones who are often best set to turn their attention fully to the needs of the elders in our tribe, protect them from the thoughtlessness of institutionalized care and medicine and allow them a high measure of personal dignity, safety, composure and the ultimate compliment, which all of us, regardless of age, crave: The compliment of being well known. These are the people who will one day be able to recount for you the nature of the astounding, life affirming secrets harbored within the dying flame.