Comfort Care

I have a theme running through my life for some time now. It's called "Caring for Aging Parents". I'm due to blog about it.  We (my family) and Teresa Kelly, our caregiver, are in and out of my parent's home everyday. Teresa does most of the work while the rest of us "senior-sit". My dad has Alzheimer's and my mother lays in a hospital bed declining from the aliments of diabetes, congestive heart failure, and more.  She has an infection in her foot which she has been fighting for a very long time and currently has a urinary track infection.  She has been on antibiotics for over a year.

This summer my mother was in the hospital, to the skilled care facility (nursing home), and then back to the hospital many times. My sister, Beth, visited this summer and before she left we were able to orchestrate the situation and brought my mother back home.  I wish I could say she is happy to be home. Her care is certainly better, but my parents have no quality of life. It is my father's and mother's wishes to be home, but they don't know where they are most of the time.

A few weeks ago my mother was in the hospital again.  She received a pacemaker and we were hopeful she'd be feeling better, but it was only days and she was back in the hospital again for the ninth time.  I knew my mother didn't want to be there.  We've contemplated my parents situations and wondered about the next decisions that would need to be made.

Monday we (my mom, brother Mark, and myself) met with a hospice team from Kaiser. We assumed she would be coming home and be under the hospice umbrella, but that was not what initially happened.  After a few days of drama she's now home and officially on hospice as of yesterday.  We're feeling relieved and grateful for their help. Life in this world is coming to a close for my mother.

“Honour thy father and thy mother:
that thy days may be long upon the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”

Ex. 20:12

Bill Reynders - 82

Dorothy Reynders - 80