Life is fragile, yet all of us tend to believe we will live a long, healthy life. Despite having open heart surgery in 1994, Marvin Mayer considered himself a healthy, happy human being. That triple bypass operation did what it was expected to do; extend his life for an unknown, indefinite number of years. End of health concerns, or so he thought! And for the next twenty-five years, that was true. He had no way of knowing how significantly and dramatically his and his wife's lives were about to change.
On January 19, 2017, EVERYTHING changed! On that Thursday morning, Iris, his wife of over fifty years, awakened before dawn, speechless and unable to get out of bed. A short time later, paramedics were transporting her to the emergency room of a local hospital. She had suffered a massive stroke. Would she survive? Would she recover? How long will she be hospitalized if she survives, and what needed to be done to help her recover? Should she be placed in a nursing home? These and many, many more questions raced through Marvin's mind as he sat in the ER waiting room.
Iris DID survive, but the stroke left her in a weakened condition. She could not speak, a condition later identified as expressive aphasia also known as apraxia. She had total right-side paralysis, meaning she could not stand without help or use her right hand or arm.
What would YOU do if your spouse, your parent, your grandparent, your child, your sibling, or anyone you consider a "loved one" suddenly became totally dependent on you for everything? It's a frightening scenario but it happens more frequently than one might imagine. Disabilities of this type can result from a wide variety of events, stroke being just one of the more commonly known ones. And when an event such as this happens, it tends to discover the caregiver within us.
This book is presented from a "Here's what I did, and maybe you can benefit from my experience" perspective. It can't cover every conceivable issue because every disability is different from every other disability. Some are short term while others are long term, even lasting until death. The depth and breadth of your loved one's disability may be significantly (or mildly) different from the disabilities with which my wife and I had to deal. But I offer my experience as a learning opportunity for you. I hope you are never faced with the trauma of seeing your loved one suffer a disability, but if you are, perhaps this book will make some of the decisions you will face easier to handle. At the very least, it should help you discover the caregiver within yourself.
