Despite falls, I'll keep my husband home

Long-term care seems like the worst option of all, writes Iris Winston.

Everything I see and hear — most recently Citizen reporter Elizabeth Payne's eloquent article about her father's fall — stiffens my resolve to keep my husband at home as long as possible.

He will be 91 next month and has had severe mobility problems for the last few years. They came to a head last June, when he was no longer able to stand long enough to transfer from bed to wheelchair. There had been a few falls before this, fortunately not causing any damage beyond a few bruises.

Pickups had been accomplished either with the help of kind neighbours or, on the couple of times when he slipped out of bed, by the paramedics on call. On those occasions, following the testing of his vital signs, he refused to go to hospital. That changed on June 10, 2023, when he just couldn't move.

For the next two months, he was in the rehabilitation unit of our local hospital. The care was good, even when the area was short on staff. Yet, despite that and regular physiotherapy, he got weaker by the day. Staying in bed too long will do that to anyone. On seeing his deterioration, our family doctor recommended alternative care of some kind.

Most of the hospital staff, the care co-ordinator and my friends assumed that this meant he would be going into long-term care. I had checked out a number of facilities while he was hospitalized and knew that my husband would be miserable in any of them, whatever the quality of the care they offered.

I had also seen what had happened to two older friends of mine in a matter of months. In both cases, their wives could no longer care for their increasingly infirm husbands, so both men landed in long-term care facilities. Both went downhill fast, mentally, physically and emotionally, one living for seven months, the other for three.

Would my husband follow a similar path in such a place? Maybe. Maybe not. But I knew he would become very depressed and depression is part way to giving up. I wasn't prepared to take that risk.

He has been at home since August 2023, first describing his return to base as heaven. While it was an immediate contrast to hospitalization, he has now adapted to his present normal state of spending most of his daytime hours in his wheelchair and his nights in a hospital bed in a corner of the living room. We have three daily visits from personal support workers, with the early morning calls being particularly valuable for showers or bed baths, as well as dressing and generally preparing for the day.

I have learned alongside the PSWS to use a patient lift, or E-Z turn machine, for transferring him. He is now a little stronger and steers himself to the bathroom as needed. One PSW even persuaded him to let her wheel him around the block on a sunny day. Our family doctor makes the occasional house call. So do nurses and paramedics.

I am no longer able to drive him anywhere because falling between wheelchair and vehicle during the transfer is too likely. On the few occasions that he leaves the house these days, he is wheeled into a commercial vehicle driven by local volunteers. Journeys of this kind, for medical purposes, are complicated and costly.

As we get older, horizons tend to be shorter for all of us. As long as my husband's condition remains stable — and for that matter, as long as I continue to be healthy and mobile — the living arrangement is working. For today and the immediate future, my husband will stay at home, where he belongs.