Most of you WHO read my column may recall that I have been helping out a veteran friend that attends our church. His health has continued to decline. The ability to assist as a caregiver has become exponentially more difficult. Prior to COVID-19, my role was to assist getting him to and from doctor’s appointments, dressing wounds, providing medical advice, and pulling medicines. I had that down to a science, and then COVID hit. Our first experience was in a same-day surgery center, where I was told that I could not wait in the waiting room but would have to pick him up when they were done. With his health being so fragile, I choose to wear gloves and a mask every time that I go into his home. Have you ever tried to pull meds, much less have to cut them in half, with gloves on?
The hardest part of the journey has been the multiple hospitalizations that he has experienced during this time. This most recent hospitalization has required me to have to make several visits. Most hospitals will not allow friends or family at all. He is allowed one visitor per day at the hospital that he is presently in. I get screened for sickness and temperature every time I go in. As far as protection, I wear a mask and use hand sanitizer frequently while in the hospital and after I get into my truck. I was showering about 3-4 times a day, but I have backed off of that.
He called me the other day, informing me that he would now have to have dialysis three times a week. The only piece of the puzzle that was not considered is: How will he get there in the midst of COVID and after COVID? To top things off, he has become less and less mobile. The Veterans Affairs Department installed a ramp at his house just before this most recent hospitalization. The only problem is that there is not yet a ramp to get his wheelchair over the entry-door threshold from inside to outside of his house.
To top it all off, his “friends” are trying to run off with his stuff. When you offer to help someone that is not family, and even when it is family, you take on something that is so much bigger than you. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that every single person needs an advocate, or someone to fight his or her fight when he or she cannot. Just today, I had to speak on my friend’s behalf to doctors and nurses, while he dealt with a pain level of 8-10 since 3:30 a.m. I gave my thoughts, which the doctor did not agree with or listen to. The doctor went down a path that gave him relief from the pain, simply because that med handles all types of pain. The other med bottomed his blood pressure out. You might say, Who are you to tell a doctor anything? All I can say is that 22 years as a cardiac tech and paramedic has never left me.
Caregiving is exhausting work. To those of you that do it every day, God bless you! I would have loved to think that when COVID-19 ramped up, my friend’s health would have stayed steady. I am thankful for the one gentleman who has stepped up to help with transporting our friend to most of the VA trips that had to occur. If he makes it through this hospital stay, I would say that he will head to rehab just to attempt to get strong enough to live in his home. When your family has abandoned you, for whatever reason, it is tough when you have to depend on friends to help. At one point, I was helping three elderly people, at the same time. I leave you with this: caregiving in or out of COVID has taught me that everybody needs somebody.
