2015 was a challenging year for Nana and for all of us who love her. The beginning of the year saw Nana in her normal routine - enjoying her Sun Gazette, driving to the Weis Store and Dollar General, and watching her game shows. Not bad for a 91 year old lady.
I celebrated Mother's Day with Nana a week before the actual celebration date. We went to The Fence where she enjoyed her first fish sandwich of the season. I remember thinking to myself, "Nana is doing really well."
Nana at The Fence May 2015
On Mother's Day, Bill took Nana to Elizabeth's house for dinner and took this great picture. Nana truly looked wonderful!
Nana Mother's Day at Elizabeth's May 2015
The day after Mother's Day, May 11, I was in Tampa Florida ready to board a cruise ship for a 5 day cruise. I talked to Nana about 9:15 in the morning - our normal AM call. She sounded tired and I reminded her the repairman was coming that day to fix her air conditioning unit. Although it was only mid-May, the temperatures had been in the 80's and Nana was struggling to stay cool. About a half hour later, I got a call from Sharon. "You're not going to want to hear this."
When the repairman rang Nana's doorbell, she rushed to get up from her kitchen table. She caught her ankle between the chair leg and the table leg and crashed to the floor on her right side. The repairman immediately went up to check on her. Nana wanted him to help her up, but he was a wise man who knew he needed to call 911.
Fast forward to the emergency room and the diagnosis: Nana had broken her hip and pelvis and would need surgery. I was on the phone with Sharon, keeping updated on what was happening. When the orthopedic surgeon decided she was healthy enough for surgery, I was ready to get in the car and head to PA. All my siblings, however, wanted me to go on the cruise. I was so torn. Even if I'd left that minute, I would never have been able to get back in time to be with her for the surgery. While I lamented, Sharon handed the phone to Nana as she lay in bed in the ER.
Nana said, "Diane, get on the boat!"
Reluctantly, I headed for the ship, but I knew I had to find a way to keep in touch.
I purchased a ship wi-fi package so I could do Facebook. Thanks to Jeff, Sharon got hooked up to Facebook Chat so we could communicate while on the ship. I was stressed, waiting for Nana to come out of surgery. Nana, the fighter that she is, came through better than any of us thought she would. I'll never forget getting the message from Sharon that Nana was OK. I was sitting at the ship's dining table and as I gave Jan the good news, I cried - tears of joy. There's always risks with any surgery, but with a 91 year old with osteoporosis - that's a big risk. After saying a silent prayer of thanks, I relaxed a little for the first time since I got Sharon's call.
Later that evening, I received a picture of Nana and Sharon after surgery. Although grateful, my heart broke that I wasn't there. But I knew Nana would be OK. Sharon is great in a crisis and Nana also had Jeff and Lori and Bill and Wayne and all their families.
I was on Facebook Chat most of the cruise, keeping in touch. Jeff even sent me an audio and a video from Nana and I was able to figure out how to send one back. That was priceless. On Thursday, Jeff sent a picture of Nana's ankle. "Does it always look this crooked?" I immediately knew something was wrong. Her ankle was twisted at a freakish angle. As it turns out, when they put her on her feet for therapy, she screamed in pain. No wonder. She had a broken ankle. Her second surgery was scheduled for Sunday.
We left the ship on Saturday morning and made the 13 hour drive to Richmond. At 11pm, we finally got home and I immediately started packing again. After only a few hours sleep, I drove six hours to PA. It was the longest drive I've ever made in the sixteen years since I moved away. Exhausted and worried, I had to take tiny naps at the rest stops just to keep going.
When I got to the hospital, I saw Nana with her right foot bandaged as big as a stove pipe. To make matters worse, she was not allowed to put any weight on that foot while the four pins, inserted on the outside of her ankle under the bandage, were allowed to heal. An estimated six to eight weeks.
During the next few days, Nana said she couldn't swallow. After doing all kinds of tests, the diagnosis was a severe case of thrush. It was in her mouth, under her tongue and all down her throat. She couldn't eat and the pain caused her to cry a lot. I felt so bad for her and so helpless, especially when they said the treatment could take 10-14 days to help.
By Tuesday, The Williamsport Hospital was ready to ship Nana to Muncy Skilled Nursing for rehab. When the social worker told me Nana would have a private room because of her ESBL, I was stunned. What? Turns out, during one of Nana's previous hospital visits, she contracted ESBL, an abbreviation for a long name of some kind of super bug. It's detected in her urine and although there was no infection and the bug was dormant, she had to be in a private room because of the possibility of being contagious. I was happy she had a private room but not happy she had some super bug that she could never get rid of. Thanks to a hospital stay.
Nana had a transport to Muncy Valley Skilled Nursing and I met her there to get her settled in. With the thrush so severe, she couldn't wear her false teeth. Her meals had to be pureed but she couldn't stand to eat because of the pain. Add to that the pain from the broken ankle, the pins in her hip and a broken pelvis that had to heal on it's own. A stronger, younger person would have been tempted to throw in the towel at that point.
But somehow Nana persevered. Through the long healing of thrush, through a urinary tract infection that woke up the ESBL (everyone had to wear yellow gowns to see her), through long painful sessions of physical and occupational therapy, through eight weeks of bedpans and Hoya lifts, and through daily pureed food. Nana persevered through it all.
Nana at Muncy Skilled Nursing Summer 2015
By the end of August, Nana was coming to the limit of her 100 days of Medicare. That meant a decision. It reminded me of the lyrics of an old song,
"You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here." Nana wasn't strong enough to go home. She wasn't helpless enough to make Muncy her permanent residence. What to do? The options didn't fit. Live with a family member - no one in our family had the space or the ability for full time care. Have 24/7 care in her apartment - no money for that and it would violate the rules of her apartment complex. The last option was Assisted Living. Thanks to Sharon and some available funds in Nana's checking account, we decided we could do The Meadows for 30 days and hope Nana would be strong enough after that time to go home again. A big plus was that Aunt Dorothy was already living there. In fact, Nana got a room next door to Aunt Dorothy, who graciously offered to move from her regular dining table to eat with Nana during her stay.
On Thursday, August 27, I picked Nana up at Muncy. There were tearful good-by's. During those 100 days, she bonded with many of the staff. It was especially hard for her to leave Matt, one of the aides. With his tousled, brown curly hair and soft voice, he won Nana's heart. Crystal, one of Nana and I's favorite RN's, helped her from the wheel chair into my car. I know Nana was afraid of what lay ahead. I was too.
The Meadows August 27, 2015
I left on Saturday, nervous about Nana making another adjustment. She'd already been through so much since her fall. But Nana has always amazed me with her resilience. She needed all that resilience and more. Sunday morning she fell out of her bed. Unlike the nursing home, there was no nurse practitioners or doctors on staff. Sharon had to take her to get treatment. Nana had a cut on her arm and, as it turned out, a broken thumb. Somehow she slid out of the bed, which was higher than what she was used to. After the fall, the staff found her a lower bed.
Even after the fall, the transition from full care to limited care was a challenge. Nana had to learn to use her walker for longer periods of time to hobble down to the dining room, a distance of several city blocks from her room. But each day she went further and further with the walker and used the wheel chair less and less.
When Jan and I went to visit her a few weeks later, we celebrated her 92nd birthday with cupcakes and anticipation of her date to go home - Saturday, September 26. This time there were no other options. At $100 per day, there weren't any funds for a longer stay. I prayed Nana was strong enough to make it on her own.
Nana's 92nd Birthday at The Meadows September 15, 2015
During Nana's stay in Muncy and The Meadows, I made multiple requests of her apartment complex maintenance staff. First to fix the air conditioner that started this journey. Second to repair her electric stair chair that had stopped working in her long absence. Thankfully, the maintenance department responded. By the time Nana was due to come home she had a new air conditioner - the other couldn't be fixed - and a new electric stair chair - the old one couldn't be resurrected. I was extremely grateful for both of these updates.
The first stop on our way home from The Meadows was KFC. Nana loves the chicken, mashed potatoes and baked beans.
Nana at KFC September 26, 2015
I stayed with Nana the first five days she was home. Even though she'd lived in her apartment for over 20 years, it was almost like she was experiencing it for the first time. Albeit, there were some differences. Thanks to Sharon and Bill and I, there's now a clear path for Nana's walker in her bedroom and in the living room. Nana kept saying, "I can't believe I'm really home."
During my stay, we devised a way for her to make breakfast and get her coffee to the table while still using the walker. I stressed that the light in the bathroom had to be on 24/7. Before her fall, Nana liked darkness to sleep but that wasn't an option now. We wanted no more falls.
After her arrival home, nighttime frightened me the most. I lay very still on the daybed in the living room, listening for any sounds that would indicate Nana needed help. I learned that her loud sighs, and sometimes even talking in her sleep, were normal. When I heard her walker clunking to the bathroom, I held my breath. I so wanted to get up and help her but I knew she had to try this on her own. I would be going home and she had to conquer this task independently. To my surprise, she did every middle-of-the night bathroom trip on her own.
During her stays in Williamsport Hospital, Muncy Skilled Nursing and The Meadows, I traveled the six hours from Virginia to visit Nana every two weeks. With her back home, it was time to go back to my monthly visits. Could she do this on her own with some help? I was praying she could.
Since she's gotten home, Nana has stepped up her game, working hard to live alone again. She makes her own breakfast, has accepted Meals on Wheels, and allowed us to hire Cindy, a capable and kind in-home care-giver who spends five to six hours a week helping Nana - which helps all of us.
Since September, it hasn't been all smooth sailing. There have been several falls, thankfully no broken bones. And keeping Nana in her home truly takes a village. In addition to Cindy's time and my monthly trips, Sharon is there for Nana almost every day and sometimes several times a day. Bill and Marcia help with meals and visits and being on call for immediate help. Wayne comes by with items from the Weis store and brings deviled eggs made by Sharon G. Nana loves those deviled eggs! Lori and Nate and Ollie and Sid provide regular phone calls, lots of mail and frequent visits. Jeff keeps Nana updated on all weather activity and recently submitted her application for fuel assistance. We are also blessed that Nana has her neighbor Chuck, who faithfully delivers her Sun Gazette to her door every morning and gets her mail every afternoon. He's a gem.
At Christmas this year, Nana was blessed with lots of visits with family and outings to Wendy's and KFC, her favorite restaurants.
Christmas Day at Bills 2015
Nana and I Christmas Day 2015
Nana and Sharon and Ollie and Sid after KFC
Nana with Sharon and Ron and Lori and Nate and Ollie and Sid at Wendy's
Five Generations - Nana and Wayne and Mike and Michael and Anna and Ava
When I checked Nana into Muncy Skilled Nursing unit in May, I couldn't have predicted we'd be celebrating Christmas with her back in her apartment. On that day, the prognosis by the medical staff was not encouraging. Most 91 year old patients who have a serious fall like Nana's plunge into a downward spiral that often leads to degeneration or death in six months or less. When I heard that statistic, I refused to believe this would happen to Nana. She's been through tougher times. Nana fought through a poverty-ridden childhood with an alcoholic and abusive father. At nineteen, she endured the stress of being a soldier's wife in World War II. In her marriage, she dealt with more poverty, an alcoholic husband, and raising four kids practically by herself. After us kids were on our own, she began living alone for the first time in her life, while still slaving in a low-paying factory job to make ends meet.
Life got better when she became Nana to Lori, then Jeff, spending her hours doing the best job she could. In addition to caring for Lori and Jeff, she burned papers, made the sweetest ice tea, and hung out with a menagerie of pets that ranged from an African Grey named Frosty to a bunny named Thumper. When she finally retired, she loved her apartment, her car and her freedom to be independent.
As 2015 ends, she no longer drives, her memory has suffered, and her arthritic hands are too shaky to write checks. But, she's back in her own apartment, tooling around in her walker with the cool basket that Sharon attached to carry her cookies and snacks. Everyday, she reads the Sun Gazette, watches Price is Right, Channel 16 News, and her evening line up of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Not bad for a 92 year old lady.
Yes, 2015 was a challenging year for Nana. But Nana met her challenges with fight and determination and defied all the odds. I think 2016 is going to be a good year.
