Facebook can be viewed as an entertainment center. Besides the entertainment of catching up with friends, the medium’s original purpose, you can log onto to Facebook for inspiring memes, breaking news, videos that range from cute to morbid, playing games or shopping. Two different slideshows about Alzheimer’s caregivers have circulated on Facebook for awhile now, gathering thousands of views and “Likes.” Alas, I have a different perspective on them that contradicts all the “Likes” being generated.
One features a man who gets his hair colored purple in symbolic support of his wife with Alzheimer’s (purple is the color for Alzheimer’s). The story, if true, is being told from the perspective of a hairdresser, greatly impressed with her client. I’m not as impressed. No, I’m not jealous because I don’t have much hair on my head to color purple (well, OK, maybe a little bit). The symbolism means nothing to me, what I’m interested in is responsibility. The husband could be a very responsible caregiver, or not.
I know more about the husband in the other “inspiring” slideshow about a caregiver. This one is being told by a nurse, impressed because the gentleman who comes into the ER for stitches is antsy about being on time for breakfast with his wife. This is a routine he has dutifully followed for the five years his wife has been in a nursing home, even though she no longer knows him. I once was that caregiver, with my Mom.
Mom was only in a nursing home for six months. She may not have known who I was for the last two months tops, though I stopped in every day on my way back home from work. I can imagine how the husband in the ER feels because, presumably like him, my decision is what landed a loved one in the nursing home. To reiterate, this “inspiring” slideshow is presented from the perspective of a third party; I guarantee that the caregiver, if this story happens to be real, does not feel anywhere near as noble as the nurse portrays him to be.
I am not going to unfavorably judge the decisions of another caregiver, real or fictional, anymore than I unfavorably judge my own decisions that placed Mom in a nursing home. Things happen in life we cannot foresee and cannot prepare or know how to handle until they descend upon us. In hindsight, there are things I would have done differently with Mom; in hindsight, my intentions nevertheless were good.
Even with greater hindsight and experience I am not prepared to guarantee Cindy will pass away at home, though that is my intention. I’m only confident that any time Cindy spends in a nursing home will be even less than my Mom … and far, far less than five years! Of course I would not expect Cindy to remember me after five years spent in a nursing home, let alone dazzle me still with her smile. I hope to be dazzled by her smile until the very end.
The point here is not to second guess the caregiver in the story, be he real or fictional. Perhaps he is disabled or for some other reason had no choice. My second guessing is of a society that thinks placing loved ones in nursing homes and having breakfast with them every morning for five years is inspirational or even heroic behavior. Perhaps it’s necessary for some, perhaps it warrants our genuine sympathy for the caregiver, but it’s not inspirational to me, a person who has placed someone in a nursing home, knowing that no amount of subsequent visitation can replace the value of a person being home.
