We moved my father to assisted living a little more than a year ago. Three years before that, my sister, brother and I moved him out of his house in the middle of nowhere and moved him to a home a mile away from my sister. He didn’t much want to move, but we had no choice—he couldn’t live out in the country with no one nearby to watch over him anymore. Once in his new home, he started sleeping a lot and couldn’t catch his breath. He was diagnosed with a faulty heart valve. So, at the age of 87, he had an operation where the doctors replaced his heart valve through his femoral artery. He slowly recovered and did physical therapy. Soon after, he was diagnosed with leukemia. He started telling everyone who would listen that he was “riddled with cancer,” including his older sister, who was suffering from dementia in a nursing home in Colorado. She was very upset by his letter and kept re-traumatizing herself by reading it after she had forgotten its contents. Her nursing home staff finally removed it from her desk.
He actually wasn’t “riddled with cancer.” With treatment, his blood cell counts were nearly normal for three years. But he continued to act as though he might die at any moment. We hired a “care at home” company for him, to help him run errands and get things done around his house. He refused to use their services, often sending them home because he wouldn’t ask them to help him do anything. But since he was sure he might die any moment, he did tell them he “needed hospice,” and when we told the company he did not, they wouldn’t listen to us, citing “confidentiality” because he was their client. It took a while to sort out that issue.
He had two of those foldable wheelie walkers, but he refused to use them, instead, walking with two canes. His muscles were beginning to atrophy, but he would not commit to physical therapy to strengthen his legs and core. I began telling him that he would eventually fall and go to the hospital, where he would catch something that would kill him. I said that in front of the doctor who told him he needed physical therapy for his leg strength. The doctor laughed in surprise at my candor. I said to him, “am I wrong?” He caught my eyes and nodded.
And so, of course, my father fell. Necessitating a trip to the hospital, where they gave him morphine for the pain. Morphine can push someone old with their wits into old with dementia. Once he was out of the hospital, the dementia did not diminish, and he was never himself again. He kept trying to get out of bed and he kept falling. So, my brother and sister found a very nice assisted living center for him. We found out that he needed name labels on every clothing item, so I spent a fortune having his name printed on iron-on labels and having them same-day shipped. I had a couple days to iron the labels into his clothing before he moved. Every sock. Every handkerchief. Every pair of underwear.
For about a year, he was pretty happy there. He never walked again, so he paddled his feet to move his wheelchair and took himself to meals. We visited him for afternoon coffee and fed him lemon bars. He slept a lot. His leukemia was under control. He bathed and combed his hair. The family celebrated his 90th birthday in one of the lounges.
In November 2020, we were told that Covid-19 was active in the care facility and he was confined to his room. But in late November he was diagnosed with Covid and was hospitalized. He stayed in the hospital for about a week. He never needed oxygen, although his lung x-rays showed the perverse blossomings of Covid attack. He was weak and slept a lot. But he was released back to his assisted living facility. We were amazed that at 91, he could “beat Covid.” A few days later he was back in the hospital with sepsis. After another week his blood tests were clear of bacteria and again he was sent home to assisted care.
As it turns out, it’s hard to “beat Covid.” The sepsis was caused by kidney failure due to Covid-19. He’s now in stage three kidney failure, so we have finally implemented hospice for real. We have no idea how much time he has left. Yesterday he was unresponsive and the situation looked pretty dire. Today he is sitting up, knows who he is, and is chatting with his caregivers.
The state where my father lives is a raging sea of Covid-19. We can’t visit him in his facility unless he is dying. The hospice workers will notify us of his condition. If he’s lucid, they can set up a zoom call. Whether he’ll know who we are when we do so is not known.
I don’t really know how to sum all this up except to state the obvious: we are living in terrible times. My father is dying from complications from Covid-19 and I can’t visit him. Deranged armed white supremacists are threatening our governmental servants and structures. The government-promised “stockpiled” vaccines for Covid-19 don’t exist, and there is no good plan for “getting vaccines into arms,” as they keep saying on the news shows. I’ve barely left my house for eleven months.
Where I live, it’s cold and grey, and spitting snow. I walk the dog every day and suck cold air through my face mask while enjoying the movement of my body—I am so sedentary these days. I cook a lot. Good food helps me feel safe. I set my home security system every night—that helps me feel safe too. Still, everything feels tenuous. Unmoored. Like I’m wracked on a sea of unknowable time to come.
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