Cindy on September 12th, 2011
The healthy and strong individual is the one who asks for help when he needs it. Whether he’s got an abscess on his knee or in his soul.” ~Rona Barrett
The past several weeks have been even more challenging than usual. I’m noticing yet another decline in my mother’s dementia and health. It’s time to enlist the additional support and help I’ve needed for a while. Whatever it takes, this month I’ll be researching and interviewing in-home nurses, aides, assisted living facilities, and as many elder-care options as I can find. Meanwhile, I won’t be posting or spending as much time online until I get things in place. Thanks for your patience.
Click here to access an archive of my lifestyles columns on AOL’s Royal Oak Patch.com
Cindy on June 26th, 2011
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” — Henri Bergson
It’s so much easier to stay rooted in the same place, whether it’s a desk chair or an old neighborhood. Or even a toxic relationship.
Once we nestle into our proverbial comfort zone, it takes work to pull ourselves up to the next level or move to a better place.
Staying in a rut has its benefits. Even when we know we deserve more, for instance, we tend to justify earning low wages while working at jobs we’ve already mastered. We tell ourselves that the economy is lousy; that we’re lucky to have any job with pathetic wages. We lower our expectations.
Likewise, instead of seeking out healthier relationships, it might feel safer to put up with neglect or abuse from friends or relatives who’ve been part of our history. Or we keep performing the same family “roles” we outgrew ages ago. (Victim? Competitor? Big brother? Benefactor? Brat?)
Change is hard, and asking for what we need takes courage. It also requires that we take risks and face what scares us. Is there a new door you’ve been waiting to open? Are you leaning your ladder against the wrong wall? –CL
– Photo: detail from “What We Remember”, a mixed-media construction by Cindy La Ferle –
Cindy on February 27th, 2011
Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” ~Jane Howard
It’s not always easy to be a family. For starters, our troubled job market makes it nearly impossible for relatives to live in the same community — or the same region. And even if they do live nearby, work and other obligations can make it a challenge to forge satisfying connections or offer help when it’s needed.
Earlier this month, my mother was finally sent home after spending two weeks in the hospital and another two in nursing rehab. Getting her settled has taken a team of visiting nurses and a physical therapist — and lots of family support. This week’s column in Royal Oak Patch tells the story of how my son’s surprise visit helped us “bring Grandma back.” Please click here to read it. –CL
Cindy on January 16th, 2011
Photography takes an instant of our time, altering life by holding it still.” — Dorothea Lange
If you graduated from high school in the 1960s or ’70s, you probably have a sepia-toned, hand-tinted graduation portrait of yourself stashed away in a family album.
When I was growing up, my mother worked as a commercial artist for Bill Williams Studio, and was responsible for hand-tinting hundreds of portraits over the years. The photo of me (at left) was taken in 1972, and painted by my mother. This week’s Royal Oak Patch column is a memory of those years as well as a tribute to my mother.
Speaking of my mother, I hope you’ll send out your best wishes, prayers, and healing vibes for a speedy recovery. In the hospital for over a week, she’s currently scheduled for pacemaker surgery on Monday afternoon. — CL
Cindy on January 5th, 2011
Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” ~Oprah Winfrey
Though I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions, I’ve always loved how January nudges us toward self-improvement and encourages fresh starts. The month, after all, is named for the two-faced Roman god, Janus, who’s always depicted looking backward and forward. Janus seems to remind us that we should pause long enough to consider the events that brought us to the present moment before we start something new.
My father-in-law died of Alzheimer’s in June. As you probably recall from previous posts, the months preceding his death were especially tough on Doug. There were grueling decisions that involved finding the right nursing home for his dad as well as helping his mother with the changes in her household and finances. In retrospect, I was so involved with the upheaval in my own mother’s situation, that I don’t think I offered as much emotional support to my husband as I should have.
And isn’t that always the case when we are preoccupied with our own stuff? We turn inward and neglect others who need us — especially when the others who need us appear to be handling things well enough on their own. That’s something I need to remember and work on in the year ahead. Because people who have strong arms sometimes need a helping hand, too.
Meanwhile, this week, we completed the last of four appointments for my mom at the Beaumont Geriatric Evaluation Clinic. Offering health-care and lifestyle consultation for the elderly and their caregivers, the Clinic put my mother through a series of tests (including a neuro-psychological interview) in addition to a complete physical. The good news: My mother’s memory loss was re-diagnosed as vascular dementia, not Alzheimer’s. Regardless, dementia is dementia, no matter which label you paste on it.
My mother is in the milder stage, and still capable of caring for herself in her condo with minimal assistance. Even so, I’ve been told that putting Mom in an assisted living facility would make things much easier for me. But Mom loves her home — it remains one of few things she’s genuinely enthused about — so I’m honoring her wish to stay there as long as possible.
The bad news: Once a patient is officially diagnosed with any type of dementia, there are serious liability issues when it comes to allowing that patient to drive. So, early in the evaluation process last year, the doctors suspended my mother’s driving privileges. She never drove very far, anyway, but she’s nonetheless freaked about having her wings clipped. The final verdict will come after Mom completes an official driving test to be conducted at another Beaumont Hospital facility in a couple of weeks. Ah yes, more appointments.
Even when we’re adults with kids of our own, and even when we uphold our most noble intentions, most of us secretly struggle with the idea of becoming parents to our parents. For the past two years, Mom’s doctors have asked me to show up at her appointments, oversee her medications, and supervise her health-care decisions. I haven’t minded that half as much as I’ve mourned the loss of my real mother — the strong, capable woman she used to be. These days she’s like a surly teenager riddled with anxiety. It all makes me sad and angry and, mostly, emotionally drained … which is another thing I need to work on this year.
It does get better, though …
When I tally up some of the year’s happiest moments, I recall the good friends who’ve been at the ready with a listening ear and a willingness to meet for lunch, dinner, or drinks. Or heartfelt conversations on the phone. As an only child, I don’t have much of an extended family to speak of, so having longtime friends who function like a true family has been more valuable than I can express in words.
And in the fun department, Doug and I continued the recreational foray into background acting we began in September of 2009. Between the two of us, we’ve been in 14 different film and television productions to date. We continue to support the film industry in Michigan, and hope our new Michigan governor will see the benefits of hosting Hollywood here.
Writing-wise, I didn’t start many new projects. Like the dormant plants under the snow in my garden, my muse was sleepy, or maybe she was deliberately giving me extra time to focus on my mom’s health care. I did manage to get a new essay published in Victoria, and several of my previously published essays were chosen for national anthologies. Guideposts gift books, for instance, published a Christmas piece (from Writing Home) in The Heart of Christmas. It was a thrill and an honor to see my work in a collection containing writings by Sue Monk Kidd, Pearl S. Buck, Marjorie Holmes, and others whose work I’ve admired. And in the fall, I was hired to write a weekly column for Royal Oak Patch, one of AOL’s hyper-local online newspapers.
After a long day with my mom earlier this week, I came home and crashed with a book in one of the big chairs in the living room. Doug and I had taken down the Christmas decorations the day before, and it was a relief to see the mantel and tabletops cleared of elves, angels, pine boughs, and other holiday doodads. I was reminded once again that, when life gets more complicated than usual, the sanest thing you can do is to clear some space, cut back where you can, and focus only on the essentials.
Wishing you all a wonderful, healthy New Year. — Cindy La Ferle
– Winter garden photos by Cindy La Ferle –
The past several weeks have been even more challenging than usual. I’m noticing yet another decline in my mother’s dementia and health. It’s time to enlist the additional support and help I’ve needed for a while. Whatever it takes, this month I’ll be researching and interviewing in-home nurses, aides, assisted living facilities, and as many elder-care options as I can find. Meanwhile, I won’t be posting or spending as much time online until I get things in place. Thanks for your patience.
