Thursday, 14 May 2020
Waiting For The Grim Reaper
One aspect of the pandemic lockdown has been a reminder of our mortality. We all die - it is merely a matter of when. However when it comes to the later stages of life there are sensitive questions to be asked where it is not at all easy to generalise.
For example, I have absolutely no wish to end up in a care home. Not an uncommon attitude perhaps, but what does it mean? In my case it simply means that the person I am now has no wish to end up in a care home. Unfortunately I may have to change and may not always hold or may be incapable of holding that point of view.
I hold that view now partly because my father had to go into a care home. We had some reliable advice on which home to go for in our area and he was perfectly happy there. Well looked after, comfortable, warm and clean but the dignified family man he once was would not have been at all pleased. Unfortunately when he went into the care home he wasn’t that dignified family man but somebody else. Still cheerful, chatty and pleased to see me, but with few clear memories of the chap he had been. Still less did he have any clear ideas of his earlier outlook on life.
He was there less than a year before he died very suddenly late one evening. I received a call from the home just after we had gone to bed. It was probably the way he would have wished to go, although he would have wanted to die at home - definitely not in a care home. What conclusions do I draw from that though?
Perhaps we are too afraid of death when we bear in mind that it is going to happen anyway whatever our fears and precautions. People and circumstances differ, yet however we try to paint the picture, it is not easy to retain much dignity in a care home. Often there is no better alternative, but dignity doesn’t thrive. That’s also the problem with lockdown.
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6 comments:
When I was in financial services and long term care insurance was a thing, I heard that on average women lasted 3 years in car homes but men only half that. I wonder if there is a gender thing about happily submitting to being cared for?
From what I've seen Sackerson's figure still hold good. The big variable seems to be the standard of their experience.
My mother was lucky to remain in her own home until the end, despite having 5 dual-carer visits per day.
My mother-in-law is not so lucky, stuck in a care home awaiting the infection's arrival.
I'd like to be like my mother and stay in my own house as long as possible. But I suspect my daughters will have other ideas, not entirely based on getting their sticky fingers on my property!
As I'm only 70, they may have to wait for a while yet.
This raises some interesting thoughts about what it is to be a person, and the probable lack of any enduring "core" which experiences and acts in a consistent way. Who knows what our priorities will be when the time comes? It makes me uneasy about "living wills" or other instructions as to how we are to be treated once we are too frail to express a changed view.
It might be possible to be cared for and retain our dignity and even pride. While strangers are lifting us and cleaning us up, I guess it would be advantageous to avoid attitudes like resentment and self-pity; because it's certain that we won't be able to do anything about it then. Maybe we ought to mentally practice our mental attitudes now - they will be pretty much all we will have left to call our own.
A Stannah Lift is one of our future plans...
Sackers - from what I saw, not many men made it to the care home. May not have been typical but the large imbalance was quite surprising.
Jannie - I found the standard of their experience hard to judge. Quite a few just sat there, others were chatty but said the same things.
Sam - mental activity may be the key in some cases. Keep the old brain working.
Scrobs - a bungalow is one of ours.
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