Excerpt

"The sheer volume of paper struck me every time. There was always more paper. The entire house felt like it was made of paper; walled, buttressed, and roofed with paper. Drifting against every wall in a storm of cellulose. Grubby stacks of newspapers, junk mail, useless prospectuses, and magazines supported the sagging walls. Old bills, bank statements, and ephemera spilled out of boxes and filing cabinets. Letters, contracts, and certifications filled up every drawer, every cabinet. Every scrap of paper that had ever entered the house remained, heaped and hoarded anywhere space was available.
It was not the first house I had ever emptied; a few years before, we had cleaned out my Grandmother’s house in a few weeks. Carrying over some of her belongings and papers to become part of the strata at our house. It’s hard to know how much a house can store, especially if the same family has lived there awhile. And you don’t realize that, of course, you have to also get rid of the bones: appliances, furniture and soft furnishings, everything. You have to strip it right down to the walls."

Excerpt

"Several years ago, standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, I was amazed at the sheer beauty and majesty I saw before me. Taking in the colors of the rock, the many striated layers of ancient earth that made up the canyon walls, I was struck with feelings of awe and delight. Standing on the edge of the carpet in my father’s house, viewing the chaos and the layers of junk and paper, I was struck with similarly powerful, if slightly darker emotions. How in heaven’s name were we going to be able to make even a small dent in the huge mess that had taken over my childhood home?
Picture a big house, roughly 2700 square feet. Imagine the inside of the house as having layers of stuff, the geological strata that reminded me so forcibly of the Grand Canyon. The top layer, laid down the most recently, consisted of huge amounts of debris and recycling that Dad had accumulated over the years. Not quite at the point of finding bodies mashed flat and mummified between stacks of trash and paper, it was approaching critical mass.
Under that, the basics: furniture and curtains; house wares and food; clothing and carpeting. Below that rested years of accumulated tools, car and airplane parts, and toxic paint cans in the shop. Old books and my mother’s belongings, our old toys and things we’d left behind, Christmas decorations, ancient photo albums, and numerous boxes and full filing cabinets. Then, the accumulated years of papers and belongings of my parents; everything of mine and Big Sister’s that had been saved and stored; and whatever had made its way over when each of my grandparents had died."

Personal Post

Hey everybody, I've been on vacation for the last two weeks and it was great. I'll be back posting now but just wanted to give a shout-out to my friend Leslie. Her website link is now listed on my site, she's the wonderful person who spent 6 months helping me out with Dad's house. If you've got a similar situation, or just need to get a little organized, she's the person to call! I've also decided to self-publish my book and hopefully make it available for purchase through the blog so keep checking back for updates!

Walker III

Dad's doctor is so great-she always talks directly at Dad as if he can understand everything she's saying, and she never talks down to him or is insulting. She carefully explained to him what she thought the problem was, that we all knew how he valued his independence, and that if he fell and broke a hip, his independence would be severely curtailed. She then said gently that she was going to suggest he use a walker. And just when I think Dad can't understand anymore what's happening to him... I swear I saw his face fall and settle into dismay, and I know I saw in his eyes the comprehension of yet another indignity being visited upon him. I think he understood very well what the walker meant, and I felt my heart contract with pity.

Walker II

After the doctor sat Dad down, she turned to me and Dad's caregiver to discuss what she thought. She said that she didn't think the problem was because of dizziness or any inner ear problem. She said it was possible it had something to do with the medication that he was on but she also thought it was structural, that due to the Parkinsons, Dad was losing nerve feeling in his feet; he might not be able to tell where his feet or body was. His body was literally losing the ability to remember how to walk. The minute she said that, I knew what was coming. I knew she was going to suggest a walker, the penultimate insult to Dad's independence and ability to move-the only thing still making him happy. My heart fell. I knew this was not going to be an easy problem to fix.

Walker

Just when I think Dad has finally past the point of being aware of the terrible things happening to him, something else happens and I have to wonder. His caregiver called me the other day because he was worried about Dad. Apparently Dad has been having what looks like dizzy spells and his caregivers were concerned so they called his doctor and made an emergency appointment, then called me. Why is it that you can have free spots in your schedule everywhere except for one thing you have to do, and something comes up that has to go exactly where you don't have the time. The doctor's appointment was, of course, right during something else I had planned! I managed to get there with Dad at the right time and we met up with his doctor, who is absolutely great and absolutely on my side where Dad is concerned. Dad seemed more dozy than usual and kept falling asleep during his exam, even when the doctor was talking to him. She managed to examine him as best she could, however, even having him walk down the hallway a couple of times. I was a little sad to see how slowly he was moving.

Personal Post

I've been poking around on the websites of some of the big Alzheimer's groups and found some great information on www.alz.org that I listed on the blog. One of their partnerships appears to be with ElderHealth, an organization in Washington that provides many services. I hope they or something similar exist in other states. It caught my eye, however, because for years Dad went to the day program provided by Elderhealth, a kind of dementia-daycare for adults. I thought it was an amazing program; they provided days worth of activities, lunch, health services, and support groups, which my father, the original psychiatry-shy male, appeared to really enjoy and find helpful. Eventually, it no longer worked for him, but if you have such a program in your area, and your loved one is reasonably mobile and social, I can't recommend it enough as a way to keep them connected and thinking, even if its just a little bit.