People face this question all the time, what to do about Granny or Grandpa when that person reaches the point when he or she can no longer live alone. It’s an issue we usually avoid because it hurts to think about it too hard. But this debate over what to do with the elderly is not always quartered in your own home or in your extended family. Sometimes it spills over into the hands of complete strangers. This happened in my family a few months back and we were outraged at the audacity the state can take with our own personal rights.
We were visiting my Grandmother in the hospital , where she was being kept under observation for symptoms unknown. (One of the problems with dementia is the patient’s inability to declare what hurts, they just complain of general pain.) A lady walked into the room and proceeded to inform us that the doctor in charge of my Grandmother’s case had decided she should be in a nursing home, and as a result of that decision made by one man who had never even met my Grandmother, this woman was now telling us that our rights as her family were at that point and forever-more, null and void.
She gave us two choices….we were to either put her into a nursing home immediately, or hire nurses and maids to come into her home and disrupt the rest of her life. Stuck between two evils with no loopholes in sight, we chose the lesser evil and started paperwork on hiring people to come into her home. The Social Worker set up some contacts with the Commission on Aging and before long she was set up with Meals on Wheels, (something she hates. Makes her feel like an invalid) a home health care nurse, and another Social worker. No maid was ever hired, thank goodness, or Granny would have had a royal fit.
Time went by, and Granny hated every minute of her home “imprisonment”, and before long the tantrums started up again. These were what put her in the hospital in the first place. She wanted to go back but we knew they would commit her if she returned. We finally did call 911 and they found nothing wrong with her, and informed us yet again that she would not be able to live alone and would now have to come home with us. Again, we were given absolutely no choice.
She lived with us for five horrible, miserable, rotten days during which time she whined, moaned, cried, carried on like a two year old, and just basically made life impossible for all of us. Her dementia is not very far along so most of the carrying-on was faked, which only made matters so much worse. During those five really long days, nobody called, nobody sent us any information on nursing homes or our rights as her family. We basically heard nothing at all from the people who were forcing our hand.
Then we called my Uncle, who had been a nurse for many years. He informed us that we could not put her into a nursing home without her permission unless we went to court. Now, this was information that the state was not willing to give to us. They knew she was living in our home and that was it as far as they were concerned. They had washed their hands of the case. It was as easy as that.
So, on the fifth day she went home, back to her own house, to live by herself and take care of herself. She was a spoiled brat for many weeks afterward, but has since calmed down and started living her life again. She is in her nineties and is not in a nursing home. I hope she can die at home without ever having to go live in one of those places. The state should not have control over the rights of the individual or the family. We need to learn to stand up for our rights.
