After 109 days of care in and out of hospitals (and yes I mean plural), my mother in law is showing signs of beating the “SuperBug” and the “Fungus” infection. Someday I will take everyone through the laborious tendrils of the care system and the wonderful world of “we aren’t sure but…” But this 75 year old perfectionistic Boomer has thrown the odds and survived the unsurvivable. And now, again she is going through another transfer BACK to the hospital she just came from because a drainage tube just “came out” and the abscess isn’t finish “abscessing”.

Which direction does my husband get to direct his frustration? Not really any direction. Why? Because “everyone” is doing what they are supposed to do. The Doctors are responsive, the nurses are very careful, the CNA’s are watched carefully and because we are dealing with a “Superbug” and we all have to use gloves, caps and gowns just to say hello. She’s that special right now. But somehow, whatever the worst that could happen, seems to happen. And it is frustrating to have to sit back and just watch.

This woman has so much energy and life power or whatever else you want to call it. She wants to live, explore, has goals, makes lists every day and enjoys the process of “check, check check” as she calls it. She wears me and my husband out daily. Now, after 109 days, she sits there in the bed, day in and day out and has physically dwindled into a lump in the sheets and blankets. Her face drained of color, hair matted on the back of her head, finger and toe nails so long you might think she was homeless. She’s so incredibly weak that she can’t even lift her arms up to feed herself. My heart hurts when I see her. To think this time, last year, we were running through Rome, Italy trying to figure out how to catch a cab! I am at best, frustrated.

There are so many directions to take this one blog post. So I will start here: HIPPA sucks! It isn’t just the law that sucks, it is the ongoing dependency of legal translations that sucks. Mom (mother in law) has been shuffled between three different hospitals in the area. Yes, they are all part of the same system and you would think that her information would follow her in some sort of electronic file accessible from one location to another. Not so! Oh no!

Now I get the idea that a person’s individual information is important. But if I’m dying…or feel like I’m dying, do I really care if my license, or address and God forbid the social security number is accessed? Surely, the “number that was never supposed to be an identifying number” is out there enough that every single number is on a black list somewhere? Somehow, sometime, the good intentions of “protecting” private information became deadly to those over 65. Truly, do we just become numbers after 65?

WHY does a family member have to follow the vehicle carrying their loved one to another location have to be present to make sure that they get the MOST ESSENTIAL items for care. It seems sensible to comprehend a person being fed through a tube in their stomach might need to have food with them? Oh, and maybe not wait 18 hours before a FAMILY MEMBER asks when she was fed last? And the answer shouldn’t be,”oh, it isn’t here on the orders”. And she was right, there were no orders to feed my mother in law. That is at the end of the story though, which is where I am starting. The end of the story.