Sandwiched
Last week, I mentioned my husband John’s recent trip to northern Illinois to help his father Ron who was in the hospital. Ron went in to see his doctor in mid-February with shortness of breath and was surprised to be immediately transferred to St. Mary’s Hospital in Kankakee.
At first Ron insisted that no one needed to be with him. “I don’t want to be a bother,” he said, a phrase I hear CONSTANTLY from folks of, shall we say, an older generation. John and I talked that Monday evening and we both concluded that he should drive up there.
We were glad he did. Turns out that Ron showed signs of having had a heart attack three weeks earlier. One of his arteries was 100 percent blocked, other arteries were 80 to 90 percent blocked, and he had a blood clot in his leg! We were amazed and grateful that he was still alive.
Ron was discharged later in the week with medications and a future appointment to have stents put into his arteries. Of course the doctors instructed him to take it easy and rest until then.
That Friday morning he and John went out for breakfast. Once they returned to Ron’s house, John did all he could before he left town to make certain his dad was settled and able to manage with the help of nearby friends and neighbors.
“Now, Dad, take it easy,” John said, “Don’t do anything that’s going to put stress on your heart. Call someone if you need help. Just do a little at a time.”
As John was walking towards his car to drive home with his back turned to his father, he heard the familiar sound of a snow shovel scraping the ground. John turned around to see his dad, shovel in hand, removing remnants of snow off of the sidewalk.
“Dad!” John exclaimed. “What did I just say?”
“But I’m only using one arm,” Ron protested.
“Dad, that doesn’t matter,” John said, “It doesn’t make it half as bad!”
“Uh … I guess I’m not a very good patient,” Ron replied.
“Well, you’re going to be nice and still for the mortician if you keep this up!” John exclaimed in frustration.
Thankfully Ron’s been doing okay since then and being a better patient (hopefully!). We’re all looking forward to him getting the stents and feeling more like his former self.
I’ve heard from other sandwich generation members that Ron’s not the only older parent who’s a bad patient. I wish we could do stuff to improve our parents’ behavior like they did to us when we were kids – you know, ground them, take away their privileges, or put them in time out.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t work for an 83-year-old man.