11 Days ago at 3;00 am, my wife took a fall while trying to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Since then it has been, ambulance, then Er, then ICU, then a room and a transfer to a Rehabilitation Facility. Then twice since then transfers to Emergency rooms for problems one a blood clot in her leg and the second a scare about her temperature and heartbeat being high. Then, now finally, back to the Rehab Facility.
I try to get information on her conditions and know certain things already. 1) The fall caused a brain bleed, which damaged her cognitive functions. She is slow to respond to verbal communication and has lost her abilities to do math and write properly. 2) Her right side is totally messed up, her right arm is weak, but she can use it a bit, her right leg is completely gone and not working. 3) Her memory or retention of day to day or minute to minute conversations is not happening she forgets all, almost immediately.
Today I am going to see her in a bit, and then try to talk to her Case Manager and hopefully her Doctors at the Facility. So many questions need answered now and, I don’t know if the Doctors have had enough time to give me any information on her conditions or a prognosis. I shall attempt today to meet with them, and try to get answers to my questions.
Will she be able to recover at all, she is 80 years old now? Will she be able to get her memory functions back, her cognitive abilities back in any form? Will she ever be able to walk again, will her right leg ever come back? If she doesn’t recover enough soon, how do her treatments get paid for? Will, she end up in a Long Term Care Facility or not and will she be Titled 19 or not? If so where do I put her for decent care that I and her daughter can see her, and make sure she is cared for properly?
The questions grow each day of course and the answers are not forthcoming yet, so I wait and see what I can find out and how soon. Each day, is a lonely one when someone you love and live with constantly, is injured and gone, and they are all you have had for 28 years, or more.
I worry about what do I do next, now! I am slowly cleaning up the house we own, garbage first of course old magazines, catalogs and junk mail. Then I had to learn to pay the bills using her system she set up. Feeding myself, caring for myself and two cats. Nothing seems easy anymore, nor is there any fun, to a damn thing.
Each day I tell myself, she has a chance to come back, then I bounce to the other side and say to myself no way she can recover. I want her back, and pray she can recover, but know also at 80 years old and with the damages she has from this fall, she may never come back and end up in Long Care. everything happened so fast, and now it is one day after another of questions from her daughter, from her sister, from our friends, and I don’t have the answers now, I will try and see what I can get for full information. I can’t find her Doctors yet nor have I seen them. I have not even seen her Case Manager yet, but I did get an appointment to see her after my visit today. I hope the Case Manager can tell me deeper information on her conditions and what the Doctors are saying. I hope the Doctors will come by and see me also, so I can talk to them about her possibilities to recover or come back from this. I keep requesting information but not much is being told to me.
Money will be the problem for sure, for her care and my survival also. We are not rich and I do not have endless money here, I am on a Veterans disability and social security disability and her social security period. Limited budget for sure. So, I will have to find out how she can be cared for under Title 19 and where.
I have to take it one day at a time currently, and try to get answers first, then make decisions second, and thirdly then deal with her daughter and sister. So it is all one day at a time right now.
I know if she can not return to me or our home the house must go, I can’t afford to stay in it, financially, it has to go. So, once a determination is made that she can not return home or will not return home, I must empty the house and apply for a small apartment based on my own disability pay and Social Security. There is no way I can hang on to a big four bedroom home and pay the monthly utilities and operate it. The oil heat alone will kill me. So one thing at a time is all I can do, if I sell the house all the money must be banked and saved. If she dies, She will be cremated and then buried next to her son, as her last wishes which she told me many times.
Since her fall, each day grows lonelier, each second slower and my heart breaks each moment I think of her. Will I be able to carry on without her I don’t know, I just know that I can only do one day, at a time, right now.
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