This morning my elderly father fell again. He must have passed out, fell straight back, and hit his head on the bathroom door. He had a bloody circular scrape on the back of his head. I got him up off of the floor and cleaned up the scrape, disinfected it, and put a bandage on.
Dad was not disoriented and unsteady as when he fell 2 weeks ago and had to be sent to the hospital. That fall was caused by a U.T.I. (and COVID, as it turns out). I think it is the same issue as when he passed out and fell at Kroger's grocery store earlier this year: He just basically passed out and fell straight backwards while standing at the customer service desk. He hit his head hard on the bare store floor, so they sent him to the Emergency Room by ambulance. The hospital released him to home the same night after some quick tests.
This morning I woke him up and told him to get out of bed at 11:00 AM. It took a few tries to make him get up. I went to finish making his breakfast in the kitchen. Five minutes later I found him on the bedroom floor with a bloody scrape on the back of his head.
After getting him up onto the bed, I noticed that the bathroom door was hanging ajar and had 2 of the 3 hinges pulled out. I saw the screws on the carpet. It was a solid hit to have them pull out from the door frame. That's how I know it wasn't a simple fall caused by losing balance; He had to have lost consciousness and fall backwards into the door in order to facilitate that specific round bloody scrape and have the screws ripped out of the doorframe.
I believe he was standing at the sink putting in his dentures when he lost consciousness.
My father is fine now. He ate breakfast, drank water, and is doing life as usual. He is alert and (mostly) steady on his feet. I think the cause was being inactive and sleeping in bed for too many hours over the last two days: On Thursday, he had gone back to bed after breakfast until late afternoon, and on Friday he slept almost the entire day.
On Friday, I got him up late morning. He ate, drank 1/2 a glass of juice. I told him I needed to sleep for a while and that if he needed anything, let me know. I am still experiencing COVID fatigue, and my natural insomnia is giving me a hard time by not allowing me to sleep more than a few hours at a time. I needed to sleep because I was completely exhausted. I have not had much rest or recuperation this last month, and not enough at all during the COVID infection. My father's daily needs and setting up his appointments, fielding medical calls, doing the chores and housework, that has taken up all of my time. I've been burning the candle at both ends, so to speak.
So, on Friday at noon I went to bed and slept for 6 hours. I woke up to discover that my father had gone back to bed at that same time I had laid down. The 1/2 glass of juice was still there. The coffee I had made him had not been touched. And the newspapers I got him that morning were sitting there unread. So, yeah, he had gone back to bed directly after I had laid down. After waking him up on Friday night he didn't stay up more than 3 hours. He probably was only awake and out of bed for 4 1/2 hours that entire day.
Too many hours being inactive, and not drinking fluids, or eating. That is, I believe the root cause of his falls this year. There have been 4 so far.
Dad has several medical appointments next week (and I have one too). I will be addressing this most recent fall and him sleeping too much with the doctors and rehab people. I also am setting him up with an adult Active Day center twice a week. Dad doesn't want to do it, but I am going to make him at least try it.
***
I am not sure how long we can function like this before my father will have to go into a nursing care home. He needs more social interaction, but I can't give that to him. We are not a "let's play a boardgame!" type of family. I am not the kind of personality to be a full-on caregiver. I can't be there 24/7. I won't wipe someone's backside or give them baths. I cannot entertain them all day or sit with them all day. I just cannot.
I am a very solitary and independent person. That was never an issue until several of my family members began to decline in health and ability. Now everyone seems to expect me to be a social interacting caregiver type of personality... something that I never was and cannot suddenly become. I can help support, but I cannot carry other people on my shoulders. That is not my nature. It is not my ability or capability. Some people are wired that way. I am not.
I can wake someone up at 8:00 AM every morning to take their medications. I can wake them up, make their meals, do their laundry, do the grocery shopping, take them to appointments, and even make their appointments for them, and handle their bills and rents. What I cannot do is live as an "attachment" to them, keeping them alive, spoon feed them, wipe and wash their posterior. That is not the type of caregiver I am, or ever can be. I can fix their food, fix the broken bathroom door, put a bandage on. That I can do.
Being a loner or solitary type of personality means that I do not have many, if any, remaining friends or family who will be there for me when I begin to decline in health and capability. I realized this back in my younger days soon after the death of my mother. I fully comprehended, for the first time in my self-centered life (because that is exactly what it was), that there was a huge distance between my relatives and myself. We were not close at all. Not near, emotionally nor in thought and mind, or even in familial love. The thing that connected us all, the thing that made us family, was my mother.
It was not me, as I once confidently thought, that was that anchor. It was never me. It was mom. Once she was gone, we began to drift apart in all the ways that it counts. Close family or distant, we no longer had that connecting center-stone. The family clusters drifted farther away as time passed, no longer secured by what and who it was that was the very last anchor.
I have tried over the years in my own pitiful way of strengthening the bonds of our family, and the extensions of that family, but it always failed. I would get something started, only to see someone else break that start apart almost immediately. That glimmer of hope snuffed out; it was even harder to get something else going the next time. I finally gave up trying entirely. It was not meant to be. That's ok, though. That is life. Not everyone gets the family they want, and often get the family no one else would want; Or so we think to ourselves. That is probably not true.
That sounded kind of mean. I am not suggesting that the people in my family are not good people, they are just not a good mix with the other people in our bloody pot of genetics. I actually think that is part of the genetics to have family not really like other family: It helps prevent incest.
*cough*
So, I realized that I would probably end my days without family or friends to care about me or help care for me. I accept that. I accepted that a long time ago. But those who are now caregivers for a family member or friend, those who were once social people, who had good social lives, will discover it later. Perhaps too late. Caregiving eats away at the social life people had, the friends, and even the family. Those will drift away, slow but sure. Once you devote all your time to caregiving for a relative or friend, there is no time to maintain those interpersonal relationships.
Once the drift begins, even without you noticing, you might suddenly find yourself adrift, alone, with no one left. It happens to more people that you might expect. You can find yourself in a hard situation where suddenly you need to find a new place to live, or find a roommate, because once the person you are caregiving for dies, everything changes. Unless you are wealthy, everything changes, and not always for the better.
You have to "Estate Plan" not just for when you die, making sure your last wishes and beneficiary bequests are clearly stated, but also for when other people in your life die. This is especially true for those who are non-professional caregivers. Your life and lifestyle can and will suddenly change in the blink of an eye.
For those, like myself, who are the lone wolf type, solitary people, we will need to find one person, be it a professional or an acquaintance whom we can trust to administer our last wishes and medical decisions. That is harder and more complex than it sounds. Believe me, I know.
***
I know my limitations in ability to provide caregiving. I know my limitations on just how many hours I can spend in the company of others without bashing my head into the wall. I am a solitary person by nature. My social tools are not the best. Some of them are long since broken. I do know my limitations. I am not a Stretch Armstrong toy. I can only be stretched "just so far" before I will break apart.
I don't even have as much hair left as Stretch does. For sure, I am not blond. I haven't been blond since I was 8 years old. That's when it all began to go downhill, I think. Where did the hair color go? It went to the same place as the hair did in my 20's: It went with the summer wind.
The summer wind came blowin' in from across the sea
It lingered there, to touch your hair and walk with me
All summer long we sang a song and then we strolled that golden sand
Two sweethearts and the summer wind
Like painted kites, those days and nights they went flyin' by
The world was new beneath a blue umbrella sky
Then softer than a piper man, one day it called to you
I lost you, I lost you to the summer wind
The autumn wind, and the winter winds they have come and gone
And still the days, those lonely days, they go on and on
And guess who sighs his lullabies through nights that never end?
My fickle friend, the summer wind
The summer wind
Warm summer wind
The summer wind
Songwriters: Bradtke Hans, Mercer John H, Meier (d) Heinz. For non-commercial use only.
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