Honoring "the one who changes the diapers of the incontinent"...

A quote from Mark Galli's essay Insignificant is Beautiful...

When we think of making a difference, we think about making the world a better place for the next generation, not caretaking people who have no future. This is one reason we are quick to push the incontinent into "managed care" staffed with "skilled nurses." No question that this is indeed a necessary move for many families—I had to do it with my own father, sad to say. But let's face it. A fair amount of our motive is mixed. How much skill does it take to clean up excrement from an elderly body? Mostly it takes forbearance—and a willingness to give oneself night and day to something that, according to our usual reckoning, is not all that significant.

Read the whole essay.

Every day is Saturday....

Theologically speaking, we all know that today, the Saturday between the Cross and the Resurrection, is the longest day of the year.

And, it pictures where we are in life. While we have a certain and fixed hope, we still wait for the return of Christ.

Nowhere is this felt more keenly than in the nursing home.

Read the rest: In the nursing home, every day is Saturday by Pastor Chris Brauns

Bed sores and a testimony

Earlier today I received this email from Jennifer:

I wrote you several months ago as we were building an addition so my father-in-law could move in w/us. He moved in the beginning of Nov. After just a week & a half, he was in the hospital with pneumonia. After 9 days, he came home...1 day before Thanksgiving. Things went downhill fast and I found myself checking his blood sugar (which my 8 year old son taught me how to do!! He had been watching his grandpa and was able to help me), giving him his medicines 4 times a day, filling his syringes with insulin (until the day came that I had to actually inject him!), and monitoring his breathing treatments. As the days progressed and my fil weakened, the day arrived when I had to clean him and care for him. God gives such grace for exactly what we need to do!

He was only home for 2 and a half weeks and then had to be admitted for internal bleeding. The high doses of prednisone he has been on for over a year have done their work.

He has been in a nursing home for several weeks now. We want to bring him back home. He is not alone. He does not need to be there. We can care for him, help him exercise, and do all that they have or have not been doing at the home. He also has MRSA and so the attendants don't go in unless they are gowned, masked, & gloved. He is very isolated there.

He is also one of the sweetest, politest, and uncomplaining persons I know. He does have a sore on his backside that we will have to care for. They also have him on a different steroid that is through an IV. I've been encouraging my husband that we need to be very proactive in asking questions and seeing what we can actually do here...more than what they are telling us right now, I am sure.

We are already getting questions from nurses and other people about why we would want to do this. Why not leave him in the nursing home where others can care for him? We tell them that WE are his family and he is NOT alone and we WANT to do this!! This was why we put on the addition! Granted we didn't expect it to come so soon, but it has and it is what God is calling us to do!

We believe that my fil has decided to come to Jesus for salvation during this time! I'm sorry I wrote so much. Wanted to share... I appreciate knowing some of what we
can do to help with the bed sores! Thank you!

Jennifer, please do not apologize for writing "so much". The testimony of your love for your father in law, and your family's desire to care for him at home is a beautiful one. Thank you so much for sharing your story with me. God does indeed give us grace for exactly what we need at the moment.

Don't be surprised if you continue to receive questions from those in the medical profession, and even family and friends, about why you would want to assume responsibility for your father in law's care, rather than relinquish that responsibility to the nursing home staff. There are many possible reasons why they would like for you to keep your father in law in the nursing home. Doctors like it because they can turn the day to day care of that patient over to the nursing home staff doctor and not have to be concerned about middle of the night phone calls from family. Nurses love caring for patients like your father in law who are kind and not demanding. The nursing staff is also threatened by family who question the care their loved one is receiving.

My advice to you would be to remain proactive in your questioning, but with gentleness. Avoid putting the nursing home staff on the defensive. It will only make it more difficult for you to get the information you need to bring your father in law home.

When I removed my mother from the nursing home, she had bedsores on both heels that the nursing home had neither acknowledged or treated, but Medicare provided several weeks of home health care that was initially very helpful. A home health nurse performed an initial assessment of mother's needs and then obtained the doctor's orders I needed for the treatment of those bedsores. Eventually they also helped me get an order for an alternating pressure air mattress to prevent the development of future bedsores. The nurses instructed me in how to care for mother's bedsores and provided the dressings until her bedsores were healed.

Bedsores are treated according to their classification. They are not all treated in the same way. You will need to ask your father in law's doctor to order initial home health care when he leaves the nursing home so that the home health nurses can instruct you in the particular care needed for your father in law's bedsores.

After mother's heels healed, I was very diligent in my care of her skin. I kept her clean and dry, and repositioned her often. I gently massaged her skin after her morning bath, and again before she went to sleep at night to stimulate the circulation to her skin. The alternating pressure air mattress was the best. It allowed me to sleep at night without having to wake up and turn her during the night. Mother never developed another bedsore.

You might be interested in reading what I wrote about how I cared for her skin here.

Jennifer, please stay in touch and let me know how you and your father in law are doing. He is so blessed to have you for a daughter in law.

Heart hunger for intimacy

In her book Dear Abba, Finding the Father's Heart through Prayer, Claire Cloninger tells the story of Mother Teresa's 1979 Nobel prize acceptance speech in which Mother Teresa spoke of visiting a nursing home - "where elderly people had been placed by their adult children."

When Mother Teresa entered the nursing home, she was initially impressed by the well-furnished and attractive decor until she noticed the expressions on the faces of the nursing home's residents.

"I saw in that home they had everything, beautiful things, but everybody was looking toward the door. And I did not see a single one with a smile on their face. And I turned to the sister (in charge) and I asked:...'How is it that these people who have everything here, why are they all looking toward the door? Why are they not smiling?'"

The sister in charge told Mother Teresa that the residents were not smiling, but looking toward the door in the hope and expectation that their son or daughter would enter. The sister added, "They are hurt because they are forgotten."

Claire Cloninger wrote:

"Mother Teresa was reminded that day of something she had often observed in her work: that 'the poorest of the poor' are not the only ones who know poverty. There is poverty in the midst of great wealth. There is loneliness in the middle of crowded rooms. And all of us are hungry. Even the well fed have a hunger of the heart."

When I am old...

Tracey was very kind to bring attention to "Washing the Feet of the Saints" in her Christian Women Online Blog post yesterday. In her post, "...when I am old..." , Tracey humbly shares her rather brief employment at a nursing home when she was a very young adult, and how she has been blessed to witness the generations in her family as they have lovingly cared for each other over the years. Tracey - thank you - and welcome to all of you who have found your way to this place by way of Tracey and Christian Women Online.

Tracey mentioned how touched she was by the black and white photograph of my parents' hands here. I wrote the Beauty of Winter about that photograph, a section that was cropped from a photograph taken by my nephew Michael White. It is a stark reminder to me of both the sanctity of human life, and the desire we have to reach out to those we love in our time of need.

Tracey also indicated that I am presently a caregiver - if only it were so. My father died 7 years ago, and my mother 5. I miss both of them more than words can express, and would give almost anything to have them still with us, but that would be selfish. I am comforted, however, to know that they are no longer encumbered and trapped by the diseases, pain and suffering that characterized their final years on earth and firmly convinced that they are rejoicing in their eternal life with Christ in Glory.

My caregiving years began on the road, as I traveled back and forth from my home to my parents' - more and more frequently, as their health deteriorated over time. My brother and his family, who lived in the same house with my parents, met most of their needs before my father's death, when we moved my mother into our home.

My father was in a nursing home for just 2 1/2 months before his death. Despite my objections, my mother had been rather insistent that my father move into the nursing home. Though it was a nice, clean facility, I believe that it was living in the nursing home that ultimately led to his death. Over the 2 1/2 months that my father was in the nursing home, my mother's health rapidly spiraled downward. After 3 hospitalizations and as many stays in the rehab center connected to my father's nursing home, my mother went from walking to using a cane, to using a walker, to not being able to walk or stand. When dad entered the nursing home, mother was able to perform all her activities of daily living and manifested only minor memory impairment. Two and 1/2 months later she couldn't even brush her own teeth and had no short-term memory - and no one - not even her team of doctors - knew exactly what had happened.

Two weeks after my father's death, with bedsores on both heels, dehydrated and malnourished, my mother made the three hour trip in a medical transport van from the rehab center to our home. It was a time of unparralled grief for me, and the beginning of the experience that I hope to share in much greater detail - offering hope and encouragement to others - here at Washing the Feet of the Saints.