Independence Day

                      One of the fellow residents at Mom's home

I spent independence day among dependent people in a skilled nursing facility. Some of the residents were there because of accidents but most were there due to glitches in the aging process like the stroke that sent my mom to bed four years ago. The residents are dependent on oxygen tanks, tube feedings, wheel chairs and other people for everything from personal hygiene to entertainment. It’s hard to be there with my mom. It’s even harder to imagine myself living in a place like that one day. The staff is wonderful and treat mom with love and respect but the place still reeks of despair and broken down bodies.

Mom taught me how to be independent by example. She left her home country of Germany as a 17-year old and ventured off into a foreign land alone. She learned English by watching TV and was planning her next around the world adventure when she met my dad. Fast forward 50 years and five kids later. She’s an empty nester, socially active in her community, enjoying the peace and quiet she’s earned but trades in for time with her grandkids. 

Mom was an active, vibrant 70-year old when her life irrevocably changed in a matter of minutes. On 8/8/08 my parents came to visit us at my home in Panguitch. At 1:30 am my dad found her laying on the floor and was unable to wake her up. After a CT scan, Dr. Mooney told us she had had a stroke caused by a brain hemorrhage. It was humungous, he said in layman’s terms. The kind you don’t survive. She was suddenly dependent on machines to keep her alive. Terms like, “vegetative state” were thrown around with what I consider reckless abandon.  

But she showed them. A few months later she was speaking some, communicating much and slowly regaining some of the movement she had lost to paralysis. We were all planning the day she would be ready to walk out of the hospital, celebrate her recovery, and show the doctors that miracles do indeed exist. 

That day never came but humungous stroke number two did. Tube feedings, fresh tracheotomies and paralysis followed.

Although we all hear stories of 95-year-old lifetime smokers, common sense tells us they are not the norm. Based on our family medical history I probably don’t have the live-an-independent-life-till-I’m-100 gene. The thought of someone else having to wipe my bum one day makes me wonder: do I have any say so in the matter?

If I trade my junk food for greens will it extend my independence? Improve my quality of life? Allow me to keep enough functional gray matter to solve my sudoku puzzles? Will my food choices today keep me out of that place?

I do believe there is a critical link between nutrition and health. Unfortunately there is often a large gap of time between the two. As a senior in high school I had a pint of Baskin Robbins ice-cream every night for dinner on the way home from swim team practice. I’m feeling it now, thirty years later. Which makes me think that if I want to be a vibrant, independent 70 year old, I should prepare for it right now. 

                                 I love you Mom