Emotionally intense content alert. This is not a new theme for this blog, but recent events of people around me caused me to want to say once again that as Baby Boomers, we face two different, yet related issues. First, if your parent/parents or other aged relatives are still living, the time may come when they are simply not the person you knew. Dementia has a heartbreakingly wide range, not all of which is easily categorized. In some cases, dementia can be combined with terrible pain due to an injury or an illness. In either situation, I would strongly urge you to consult with Hospice. If the individual has left a home setting and is in an appropriate care facility, the facility  is usually linked in with Hospice. As I explained in Your Room at the End: Thoughts About Aging We’d Rather Avoid, there may be multiple hospice organizations in your area. If so, you have a choice as to which one to use. When someone reaches the stage of severe dementia, they may well not be able to make personal choices and the chance of improvement is highly unlikely. Although every individual situation has to be properly diagnosed, everyone over the age of about 60 can be defined as being in a terminal state. Severe dementia is not life-threatening, but most of us have become so accustomed to taking routine medications for conditions such as high blood pressure we don’t even think of that as “artificial means”. (We tend to view “artificial means” as only being hooked to a machine.) Making the decision to cease all medications except for sleep and pain can be heartbreaking and create questions and self-doubt.

This leads me to the second issue which is none of us want to believe this will happen to us. It seems too unfair, too unkind, and surely there will be a treatment/cure before then. There is nothing wrong with hoping for that. It is incredibly important, however, to make your wishes known in the event you do suffer severe dementia. The sentiment of, “I won’t care because I won’t know what’s going on”, can be said cavalierly if you’ve never heard the panicked voice or sobs of a parent/elderly relative who suddenly can’t comprehend where they are or why, “they can’t come home.” It is true that in some cases, severe dementia does not cause distress and an individual can comfortably live in a “time or place” they have mentally created, knowing you less as the person you are and more as someone from their past or simply, “a nice young man/woman”. I urge you to have the courage to address this possibility as clearly as you do the eventuality of an illness or injury that leaves you in a coma. If you can no longer make choices for yourself, be certain whoever is in charge (and legally designate someone) knows what you want done.

Poignant content alert. It’s been a long time since we had a pet in the house other than taking temporary custody of my friend’s cat after she passed away. I travel so often and we have such erratic schedules, we probably won’t be getting one any time soon. A friend is struggling with the decision about his dog and will probably make the difficult choice next week. It’s the usual dilemma of how long do you wait when there is truly no hope of any kind of recovery, limited eyesight, and virtually no mobility.

Several years ago, my former mother-in-law was faced with the situation and she had finally braced herself. She had called the vet to tell her she would bring the dog in on her way to work. She had petted him, kissed him and gone in to get dressed. Oddly enough, she came out, went to pick him up and realized he was no longer breathing. As she sat and wrapped the afghan around him to take him to the vet (teary-eyed of course), she suddenly realized how grateful she was not to have to take that final step. Interestingly, not long ago another friend discovered one of the vets in town actually provides an in-home service. Yes, it does cost extra, but in the same way as hospice for people, it allows the final moments to be in a familiar setting filled with love. It isn’t something I would ever have thought about, but it does make sense.

Musing content alert. I make it a point to try and stay away from politics. The intent of this post is to focus on a subject in what I intend as a relatively objective view and I hope it’s taken that way. In general, we in this country have a limited genuine appreciation for history in that we take what’s going on today and often don’t reach back into history for appropriate comparisons. When I say “back”, I mean sometimes centuries back. (I agree, in some cases we only need to go back a few decades to say, hmm, that didn’t work then, don’t think it will this time either. Conversely, hmm, that might have worked if we’d give it a bit more time.) A case in point. “Politics are nastier today than ever before.” I fully agree our politics are nasty and we should all work to be less polarizing and try to bring a reasonable degree of civility to the process. However, name-calling and backroom deals are not new – the language of old simply seems mild now and the capability to spread information at the touch of a button did not exist. Anyway, I am drifting off-course, so let me correct.

I love there is a history channel and lots of history programs. History can be dull when presented incorrectly and all the “re-enactment” helps make it more interesting, plus I can only imagine what a boost it’s been to struggling actors. The term though, “We’re going to tell you what history got wrong”, always causes me to roll my eyes. History is history. Granted, “History is written by the victors” (actual origin of quote unknown) and therefore the phrase, “What you’ve been taught is wrong” certainly can be applicable. Previously undiscovered documentation is brought to light all the time and the amazing world of forensics can support or refute different historical aspects both recorded and taught. But whatever happened is what happened. Mistakes can easily be made in the telling if an individual recording an event had a limited view of that event and indeed, events recorded by someone with a specific agenda were/are commonplace. It’s logical that what we’ve been taught about an event, a person, a time period might be incorrect based on new information available, but that’s different from the idea that history itself is wrong. I’m all for correcting history providing we don’t cross the line into revisionism, but I’ll save that for another post.

This other unanticipated trip will hopefully close out the unplanned ones for the year. Most people who follow the post are aware I had an extra visit with my dad because of my concerns for his situation, and may or may not be aware I had my brother go visit him which then precipitated my visit a few weeks ago. On 7 May he suffered a mild stroke, but since I was unable to come back over, my brother returned, then my sister and her husband last weekend, and I arrived yesterday around noon. (Yes, the 6:45 a.m. flight did mean getting up earlier than usual.) He is responding well to therapy and the damage from the stroke was quite mild considering how these things can be.

I hope to meet with the therapy team later this morning. In all probability, he’ll be going back to the assisted living facility on Monday, although he feels he could be allowed to leave sooner. That’s a good sign as well and I doubt he’ll change his mind no matter what the therapists tell him.

I haven’t checked the weather forecast for the next few days, but I did just verify that I have an umbrella in the suitcase and it’s warm of course, so that isn’t an issue. I suppose I shouldn’t say, “of course” since I do have friends in other parts of the country who are still looking at snow.