Thursday, May 26, 2016

AFTER THE PSYCHIATRIC WARD 

After this traumatic experience,  we figured out a way to dispense the pills without mom having to check on Harry. A company has a pill dispenser that connects to the phone line. You fill it up 2 weeks at a time. It actually tells you in a computer voice, “It’s time to take your pills.” It’s like the Life Alert System. I was in charge of filling up the dispenser. If he didn’t take his pills after a few hours I would get a telephone call from the provider of the machine at my home. This way someone other than my mother knew that the pills were not taken. It was  $75 a month for this service. I have to admit it was really efficient to have the people call. If he was not at home the pill machine kept talking every 15 minutes, “It’s time to take your pills.”

I later found out that you can go to Walgreen’s and buy a large pill dispenser with a 31 day calendar, with a small container which holds a day’s worth of pills. This was $50, and this is what we later used when my mother needed a pill dispenser. The negative side of this is that someone needs to check and make sure the pills are being taken. There is no accountability like the phone call.

Elderly folks take a lot of medication and possibly vitamin supplements. It’s a good idea to make sure this is a foolproof system. It is way too easy to overdose.

Since Dad was with Mom we weren’t considering a nursing home or assisted living, at least not yet. We still did not realize completely what was going on. 


Legal Documents

As  I said before, my brother is a financial planner. My parents were very private about their money. We all knew they needed some legal documents, but you never knew how dad would be. We had to assign powers of attorney (POA) for financial and medical reasons. If you do not have a POA and something happens to your parents, you are out of luck. No one will talk to you. You need one for medical authorization and one for legal and financial decisions. We also created a family trust. 


I can remember holding my breath as the attorney presented the paperwork to my dad. Only Dan and I were there. When Dad signed it I couldn’t believe it. He just gave his power away. We wondered if he understood what he was doing. Mom signed it as well.
Whew! That was a feeling of relief. At least now we had some authority to help them out when and if they needed it. Unfortunately, I found out later I needed much more to handle their affairs.




Dad’s in the Backyard Underneath the Tractor

I got a call from Dan, “Dad’s underneath the tractor and mom called 911. Where are you?” I was almost home so I scrambled over to their house as fast as I could. Dan got to see the paramedics cutting my dad’s clothes off. I got there just as the ambulance was leaving his home. This was the adrenaline rush I hated. We got all worked up because he was doing something stupid.

Apparently, after being in the house all winter, Dad decided to mow the lawn. They had 2 acres and he enjoyed being outside. It was a nice spring day, but the ground was still wet in the rear of their property. He got stuck and decided to do what he always did in this case. He got out and tried to push it out of the mud. He passed out. Mom looked outside just in time to see him fall. She screamed and called 911, then us. 

We did this 911 thing 4 or 5 times over the course of many months. Every time it happened, we thought he was going to die. It was such a horrible feeling.

They always released him after a time of observation or overnight. He was just getting too weak to be doing this type of physical labor. It’s hard to see a man decline when he was so strong. He would work for hours on end outside. He loved his yard and he enjoyed working, no matter how hard it was or unbearably hot.


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