“When my mom got into her 80s, we had to deal with periodic medical issues. Fainting. Falls. Broken bones. Luckily, she was in good stead with the local rescue squad because she faithfully attended their crab feast fund-raisers.
“Each time, my siblings and I would move heaven and earth to get her home from whatever hospital she had landed in.
“In 2003, I tried to talk one emergency room doctor into releasing her after 11 hours.
“’I’ll let her out if she can tell me who the president is,’ the doctor said.
“We both looked at my mom, expectantly.
“’George,’ she said.
“I was thrilled; W., it was.
“’George Washington,’ she finished.
“After each episode, I’d proudly tell her internist, Dr. Simon, how we had nursed her back to health.
“‘You don’t understand,’ he said with exasperation. ‘Picture your mother hanging off a ledge, holding on by five fingers. After one of these incidents, she’s hanging on by four fingers. Another incident, three fingers. And so on. You think you’ve gotten her through and you’re starting fresh, but you’re not. It’s cumulative.’
“My mom was a stubborn old bird and she hung on with two fingers, and then one, until she was 97. We gave her morphine at the end, with a bourbon chaser.
“I know that octogenarians and nonagenarians can keep their wits about them. My mom was sharp and funny into her 90s.
“But I also know they begin losing threads of the narrative, and it’s as painful to them as it is to those who care about them.
“At some point, older people find themselves on that ledge. And, as Dr. Simon taught me, each traumatic incident you pull through just leads to another.”
— posted this morning (7.13) at 7 am.
