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A Place For Pauline
When the child becomes the parent
Last week my 95-year-old mother, Pauline, was admitted into a long term care facility about twenty minutes from my home. She has dementia, hypertension, kidney disease, and in the past year or so, has dwindled to just over 100 pounds.
A fall just after Christmas put her in the hospital. She had been on the floor of her apartment for a few hours before a neighbour found her, had broken her arm, and required surgery. Not a great scenario for a frail 95-year-old person to be in. Only a year earlier, she had fallen and broken her hip, requiring hip replacement surgery and a three-week hospital stay. In between these two falls, were many smaller ones, and a lot of days filled with tears, confusion, frustration, and anger. (For her AND for me). You see, Mum had been living independently in her apartment up until Christmas, and while she’d been on the waitlist for a nearby long-term care facility for over a year, the system deemed her able to “age in place” while she waited. Translated that meant, “Pauline has a daughter who lives nearby who can be her primary caregiver.”
“Your mum is so independent,” the health care worker who visited Mum daily to give her meds said to me. “Remarkable.”
I had nodded sweetly and agreed, but in fact, I had wanted to say, “Mum isn’t independent; she’s…