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Monday, 15 February 2010

Alzheimer's: Part 9 – Separated

By William Weatherstone of The Diesel Gypsy

From the day that I sent my wife to the emergency of our local hospital, she has never returned home.

Since she had started the constant wandering throughout the apartment, she started to walk around the secured ward and on the second day, she fell and cracked her pelvic bone. She was bedridden and started to deteriorate fast. They could not operate and decided to heal by bed rest.

Eventually they tried to teach her to walk again through physical therapy but she could not get past two or three steps while being supported and then balked at continuing. She spent five weeks in the hospital and continually went downhill.

There is a long waiting list to get into a nursing home. There are three within a 100-mile radius, and the fastest entry will be at least 18 months.

There is a private retirement home in town that I was not aware of. It is at the end of a long lane at the edge of town, and is not noticeably visible.

The hospital administrator suggested that we apply for temporary living quarters. They have a three-story building and the second floor is totally secured for people with dementia or Alzheimer’s. They have the first and third floor for able retirees who are free to come and go as they please.

There are couples there who are separated by two floors. One alone on the main floor and the other with Alzheimer’s on the second floor which needs constant surveillance and is staffed 24 hours a day by professional caregivers and a registered nurse.

Because it is a retirement residence and not a full-fledged nursing home, they require that the individual be able to at least bear weight for just a moment. (To just be able to stand, with assistance, so that one nurse or caregiver can turn the person alone to sit down into a wheel chair.)

We applied for residence and the retirement home sent a nurse over to the hospital to evaluate my wife’s ability to bear weight with assistance. She had to be slid from the bed to a standing position on the floor while the nurse turned her a quarter turn to be lowered into a wheel chair. The nurse accepted her condition and called the ambulance to have her transported to the retirement home directly. She is sharing a room with another lady, who is quiet and friendly.

She is finally getting settled in and adapting to the hours of feeding and sleeping. I am allowed to visit any time, 24 hours a day. I have the security codes to get into the second floor at any time. Her retention is only lasting for a moment or two, but she still recognizes me when I approach.

There was a day when she was wandering down the hallway and stopped, sat down and passed out. The nurse was there in a flash. She tested her sugar, as she's diabetic, but found it okay. She then went cold and clammy and the nurse could not get a blood pressure reading. She was sent directly to the hospital emergency room and was there in minutes.

The ambulance was rushing out of the driveway as I was coming in and I had no idea it was with my wife. I immediately took off for the hospital. The staff and the ambulance people are first class, and they bend over backwards to help you.

They found that all the drugs that she was taking were too strong and her body couldn’t take it any more since she has shrunk to under five feet and less than 100 pounds. She was stabilized and back the next day.

Neither of us has ever been in a hospital before, so all these new experiences are at times driving me crazy. If it were not for all the help from different organizations around here, I would be a total basket case for sure.

As I write this, she was sent to the hospital again just a few hours ago and found that she has a bladder infection. She is now on antibiotics and will be okay in a day or two.

She is deteriorating at a very fast pace and I have no idea as to how long she will last. I visit twice a day and the odd time, three visits. All this has happened in less than a year. (Scary) As mentioned before, I have never been an emotional person, but every time I leave her I am weeping.

I am now back at the gym trying to get my body back in physical shape and reinstalling my web site to get my mind back in shape.

This disease is devastating and affects all of those people close to the patient. I wish you all good health and long life.

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[INVITATION: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Instructions for submitting are here.]

Posted by Ronni Bennett at 02:30 AM | Permalink | Email this post