Love

[BaguaKicksAss]

Covered death in the last one, so now onto love...

 

Though I hope we never have to be tested in this way...

 

(edited this a bit since it is now moved to a public area of the board).

 

Anyways, so this man and woman had been dating for over 20 years, but they each had their own place still...

 

Then one day he has a heart attack, goes to the hospital and gets operated on. 2 days later he has a stroke.

 

Since then, he cannot walk, cannot speak (cept 2 words, which are irrelevant to his wishes, and random sounds yelling) and cannot even get to the bathroom on his own. He also pretty much can't understand what people around him are communicating most of the time, and has no way to communicate his needs, accept yelling (but then one has to guess what he needs, and can often get it wrong), as it is pretty random. There is unfortunately no yes or no option that is discernible to anyone, even after many years.

 

Well his girlfriend moved out of her apartment into a 2 bedroom they could both share, so that she would have a spare bedroom for a caretaker to live in, and also spends $1200 p/m of her income to pay for a caretaker.

 

Basically she works, and looks after her boyfriend, since he needs 24x7 care. She hires a caretaker while she is at work (the livein one didn't work out so well). She doesn't do anything else ever, and barely ever takes him out due to it being extremely difficult to.

 

I think that is pretty awesome that she stuck it out and stays with him. That would definitely be difficult though!

Edited January 8, 2014 by BaguaKicksAss

[GreytoWhite]

Time, love, and willpower. I was lucky things were not worse for me. May your friend recover.

[BaguaKicksAss]

My friend is fortunately the one who is doing the caretaking, not the one with the stroke. The person with the stroke has been like this for quite a few years already .

[Marblehead]

I am violating my standard for a purpose here.

 

BKA, this should have been created in open forum. It speaks to a very important topic in the life of each and every one of us: expressions of love.

[BaguaKicksAss]

Oh alright, I'll move it on over .

[Marblehead]

Oh alright, I'll move it on over .

You done great!!!

 

Now, let's see how many people will contribute to the discussion.

[Marblehead]

Excellent topic! Love and caregiving.

 

An example:

 

After my Dad passed away my Mom lived alone. Later in her life she invited one of her grand-daughters to live with her. That was a mistake as the grand-daughter had a drug problem and this caused my Mom many problems - more than any aged person should have. The father of the grand-daughter finally made his daughter come back to his house and live with him and his wife.

 

As my Mom aged she acquired dementia and had to be moved to a nursing home. My siblings didn't like how much that was costing so one of my brothers decided to take her home to live with him and his wife.

 

This didn't last very long because they just were not capable of giving the care needed for the condition my Mom was in so they moved her back into a nursing home. She passed about six months after that.

 

As in the story in the opening post, it takes a lot to give proper care to someone who no longer can care for themself. I admire what the person in that story is doing. I admire the willingness to give up the amount of money that is required to have a live-in, either permanent or selected hours, person caring for the person in need.

 

This is, in my opinion, what love is all about. The willingness to give of ourself for the betterment of another, whether family or others.

[BaguaKicksAss]

When my mother was dying I offered her to become roomates (I was in college at the time and definitely couldn't afford the entire bill, and she was on disability benefits at the time). The first 6 months she was doing pretty well and things were fine. But the last 6 months... it was more than difficult for me. I was really having a difficult time being extremely emotionally distraught watching her suffer and die slowly (I was only 27 at the time, a bit young to have a mother die). I wasn't doing very well with the whole caregiving thing, or at least not as well as I should have. Fortunately we had various caregivers come in, as well as a long-term friend of hers spend nights there quite often. Changing her diapers was a bit more than I could take really.

 

Basically she wanted to die at home, so the hospital would pick her up anytime she was in so serious of condition that she needed the IV and such, then bring her back as soon as she stabilized. She was much happier with this arrangement then spending the entire time in palliative care. The good news is that she did actually get to die at home, and fortunately was not in the hospital on that day. Having my instructor at college come find me and say I had a phone call was a bit rough (but wow, he even drove me home to see her one last time!)

 

While it was a bit more than I could handle at the time, I'm glad that she got to spend the last 6 months of her life how she wanted (and would even still do it had I known all this ahead of time).

Edited January 8, 2014 by BaguaKicksAss

[Marblehead]

Yeah, in a way I am sad I wasn't with my Mom when she passed. She lived in Northern Ohio I in Florida. But I did go up to see her one last time about three weeks before she passed. My sister told me that one day after I had returned to Florida my Mom asked her "Why is it so hard to die?" She was ready.

[Brian]

The quality of mercy is not strained.

 

Love is a many-splendored thing.

 

That's the power of love.

 

Etc.

 

 

Thanks for sharing, BKA.

Edited January 8, 2014 by Brian

[BaguaKicksAss]

Since we are talking about love, and the idea of caring for terminally disabled or dying people we love is kinda of depressing...

 

Here's the question many ponder.

 

Anyone ever seen that movie What Dreams Will Come?

 

PS, the painting scenes in that movie were awesome!

[Marblehead]

I don't know the movie.

 

But talking about this stuff can be uplifting too. Depends on our frame of mind.

[silent thunder]

Depth and impact of love is expressed vividly when things stop being convenient.

She is deeply in love with that man BKA...

That is awesome to hear about.

[BaguaKicksAss]

You have a point. It was actually uplifting when my friend told me about the guy who has the stroke and his girlfriend who *didn't* just ditch him .

[thelerner]

Here's the question many ponder.

 

Anyone ever seen that movie What Dreams Will Come?

 

PS, the painting scenes in that movie were awesome!

Good movie worth seeing and thinking about. One of Robin Williams serious roles. His wife dies, he dies and he finds out that heaven is pretty good. What you create, is what follows you there.. the love.. the art.. the relations.. that is the stuff which is truly real and eternal. In the movie the drama comes because his wife committed suicide and thus has created a bad trap for herself. So he has to rescue her.

[Captain Mar-Vell]

...

When my aunt's lover had a stroke she and her sister cared for him in their home.

 

Actually at first the sister did most of the caregiving.

 

And my mother's second husband suffers from dementia - she cares for him despite being elderly and recovering from cancer surgery from some years ago.

 

Life's hard.

 

It's a tough gig here in middle earth.

 

I always thought love was unconditional.

 

People have been trying to convince me otherwise.

 

I always though it a blessing to be able to look after my children.

 

And there's always this of course.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love

...

[chegg]

.

Edited March 14, 2015 by chegg

[Zhongyongdaoist]

[Marblehead]

Take with grain of Salt - I got inspired to write this from a book - I hope it is relevant.

 

Blessings of Love

:wub: :wub:

Yes, I think it is relavant. However, I can't go as far as what is suggested in your post. No, that's not possible for me.

 

But the thought is sound; love as deeply as we possibly can.