nursing – Mary Laudien

SENIORS CARING for SENIORS (Part 3)

What Happens on 5th Floor, Doesn’t Stay on 5th Floor

Welcome back to Tender Tuesdays! This week’s installment moves forward with our father’s brief stay on 5th Floor of our local hospital. As you’ll recall, we’re the senior kids caring for parents living long and healthy lives- many surpassing the more normal 100th Birthday milestone. This is the new norm!

Picking up from last week’s post, our dad was being moved out of Palliative Care and sent up to 5th Floor. We went up with him, the orderlies pushing his cot through the crowded hallways into a room with two beds. When we arrived, the nurse who accepted our father, was curt, ill-prepared, … Read the rest

Seniors Caring for Seniors (Part 2) – Navigating Paliative Care

Thank you for following Tender Tuesdays, as one reflects upon the next stage of our father’s journey through the medical system and the effects upon his wife and his senior citizen care-giving kids. Thankfully, there were many tender moments along the way…

The kids had their hands full leading up to the decision to place Dad in Palliative Care. As the days progressed, Dad required more and more nursing care. He was sleeping the majority of his days away, and required assistance to get to the washroom throughout the day. The Government’s Home Care Program was arranged to arrive during the day to help with this, but at the … Read the rest