Disrupted plans

I started blogging here when I was at least seven years past learning I would never ever have children. I'd done a lot of grieving, expressed some of my feelings online with friends in a restricted space. I've never done the full emotional download onto my blog that some others have done. And now I know my blog is connected to my own, real name - as connected as I feel to Mali, who has been my online persona since 2006.

I remember some years ago seeing someone say (online, not one of my beloved bloggers) that their plan for their childless old age was to stay healthy. At the time I remember thinking (and writing here) that that wasn't a plan, it was just putting their head in the sand. My parents lived fit and healthy lives, but the ends of their lives were difficult. Genes and cancer had other ideas. Looking at them, I knew I needed to plan. I know now how right I was.

I just thought I'd have a few more years before they were necessary. My husband and I are going through some pretty serious health stuff right now. It's caused me to realise that even my relatively cautious plans have now been blown out of the water. I'm going to take a step back from No Kidding in NZ. I'll still blog, but just not every week. Because there's a lot going on in my head at the moment, and I don't want to write it all down for public consumption. And it's hard thinking of topics to write about when my every thought is about another issue. 

But living in the moment helps. Finding joy in a lovely day, good food, a joke. I wrote about it in my 2020 Healing series, and Gifts of Infertility under Mindfulness. It helps each day pass. I don't apologise for the repetition.

 

Elder care for the No Kidding

I just had a lovely long seaside lunch with a friend. The sky was blue, the waves startling white as they broke, and the kite surfers were relishing the brisk breeze. (I've just had to wash the sand off my face!) I enjoyed a delicious "bliss bowl" and coffee, and we talked and talked. Connections are so important! One of the many topics we covered was elder care, as her last parent is now in a hospital-level care facility. She knows about everything we went through with my mother and my in-laws too.

After The Guardian article (also mentioned here by Loribeth) discussing the UK system for health and care of the elderly, I thought it might be useful to talk about the situation in NZ. According to the article, in the UK "... one in 10 people over 60 don’t have children, but for the over-50s that figure jumps to roughly one in five." It also notes that "older people who don’t have children to help look after them are 25% more likely to need to go into a nursing* home ..."  These are frightening statistics, but also useful ones - for politicians and policy makers and government planners, of course, but also for the No Kidding population. As I've often said, forethought and knowledge can give us an advantage when planning for our old age.

In New Zealand, assisted living care is available, and paid for if your income/assets fall under a particular threshold. At the moment, because of limited facilities and cost, the government focuses on providing assistance to the elderly in their own homes. Both my mother and in-laws had government-supplied assistance. My mother had weekly shopping visits provided, daily welfare checks, and could get minor cleaning and chores done. My father-in-law had similar assistance, with daily welfare checks and physical assistance. Things we didn't even know about were prompted by the assessment process. Household aids - implements to help get out of bed, stools for the shower, etc - were supplied free of charge. There was even day-care for the elderly - when they could be picked up (and dropped off later) and taken to a facility where there would be company and activities for them. Further assistance was available, from welfare checks multiple times a day, through to cleaning services etc. The level of help supplied was based on need, both financial and physical/mental. 

Doctors (GPs) play an important role in this, kick-starting the assessment processes (both physical and cognitive) that then lead to offers of assistance, or the recommendation that the elderly person needs to move to in-house assisted living. All this help was most gratefully received by us all. It meant we didn't have to (as my mother used to fear) "bundle them into an old people's home" before it was necessary/they were ready. My in-laws were adamant they wanted to stay in their own home, even when they knew it was going to be difficult or unwise, but they were able to do so because of this help. (And because of us too!) And as far as the government is concerned, it is a simple economic equation. All this assistance is usually still cheaper** than paying for someone to live in an assisted-care facility. 

Personally, I didn't know all this assistance was available. For any NZers reading, I hope there is some comfort in knowing that we are not completely alone when the time comes that we might need extra help. However, in reality, the system is set up so that the children of the elderly person still need to be major players in ensuring their parents' general well-being. It's one thing receiving this help and having it available. It is another if the elderly have to cope with the health system on their own. Advocates for the elderly are usually their children or a younger relative. Professional advocates could be wonderful - if they existed in NZ - but it would be a role that could lead to elder abuse by less scrupulous members of society. 

My friend revealed plans to build a small house on her daughter's land for her retirement, and joked that there could be a "Mali and Husband" house appear in a few years next to them! That sounds like a nice idea, especially as it will be harder to have such enjoyable long lunches as we age and driving to meet up becomes more difficult. Oh, the conversations*** we could have if we lived next door to each other! But the reality is that we will probably need to have our affairs sorted more cleanly. Writing this is yet another reminder to me to put in writing all our wishes for our waning years, and to think about timing more carefully too. 

Facing our elderly years is not easy for anyone, let alone those of us without children. We hope our savings will ensure we can be looked after. If not, the government will have to do it, though it will be far from luxurious. We're lucky that this is a possibility. But I think the best thing is that we are aware of what is available, and what we will need to think about doing before we are completely infirm. That might be ensuring our documents are all in order, or disposing of most of our private possessions, or a myriad other things. I know I've written about this before, but it is something I think about regularly. That's the greatest gift I can give myself as a childless person - being prepared, rather than being caught in a panic, or waiting till I am confused and befuddled. (Or more so than I already am! lol) I've seen the elderly who don't plan or think ahead. I do not want that to be me.

And in the meantime, I intend to live life to its fullest. Even if that means finishing this blogpost, and going downstairs for a nap on the couch in the sun (still catching up on lost sleep over the Olympics). 

* this is not really a phrase we use in NZ. 

** although part of the reason for this is the criminally low rates paid to the usually kind, devoted elder care workers. Thank goodness too for immigration, which boosts the numbers of carers available as our population ages.

*** with shared family histories of dementia, we once joked to our husbands that when we are old, they can put us in the same care home, and we can tell each other the same stories over and over again, and we'll be none the wiser!

Plans change, so let us thrive

Today, purely by chance, I came across two previous posts that cried out to be reposted. They were written 18 years ago, on my second blog (an alphablog that was so much fun to write), so I'm pretty confident none of my readers here today ever saw them! They were written with my No Kidding status in mind, especially V = Vintage, but not for that purpose alone. I think it's worth repeating the sentiments, as they hold true 18 years later. If not more so.

V = Vintage

“Five years ago, I had a doctor who kept referring to “women of your vintage.” I felt like a wine that was souring, turning into vinegar, appropriately barren. He was trying to be considerate, but it would have been kinder if he had just been blunt.

Now, though, I am a very different vintage. Richer in character, able to stand up to time, changing and aging in the best possible way. I like to feel I’m maturing well. I like my vintage. It is one of the best. The kind to be celebrated, treasured, appreciated. So I do.

Vintage. There’s a lot in a word. And in five years.”

Note: I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to say this, as the years do their damage. But it still feels good to me, so I'm reposting it while I can! 

"Z = Zigzag

The logical, pragmatic, planning, and list-making part of me loves the idea of setting goals, achieving them, having the next five or ten years of my life planned out. But then I listen to people who do that, and think of everything they are bypassing.

Life doesn’t take us where we plan. For that I am very grateful. Some of my most rewarding experiences have been when plans have gone awry. Some of my most successful career moves have been the result of a barrier in the way of my plan, or simply of chance, being in the right place at the right time. I am who I am now, simply because my plans didn’t go the way they were supposed to.

A straight line is so boring. No stopping off to sample experiences on the way, to meet new people, to try new things. A straight line has no imagination, and covers far less ground. Zigzagging my way through life is much more fun."

It’s worth clicking through on the titles to see the comments of people I still “talk” to all this time later, and who had interesting insights or funny comments. I particularly liked the ones on the last post, showing that we all have unexpected changes to our plans for our life, whether we’re childless, childfree, or parents. A reminder that we’re not that different. And I loved these lyrics that were posted:

“Somehow I find myself far out of line from the ones I had drawn
Wasn't the best of paths, you could attest to that, but I'm keeping on.
Would our paths cross if every great loss had turned out our gain?
Would our paths cross if the pain it had cost us was paid in vain?

There was no pot of gold, hardly a rainbow lighting my way
But I will be true to the red, black and blues that colored those days.
I owe my soul to each fork in the road, each misleading sign.
'Cause even in solitude, no bitter attitude can dissolve my sweetest find

Thanksgiving for every wrong move that made it right.

—Poi Dog Pondering”

End of life wishes

Once again, I’m thinking about the issues of ageing without children, almost certainly because my 91-year-old father-in-law is in hospital. In the last year we’ve had to spend a lot of time helping him out. But we’ve been incredibly lucky to have a lot of assistance in the form of free in-home visitation care provided by our public health system. At first he was getting one visit a day, then for almost a full year he had two regular visits every day (morning and afternoon), and in recent weeks, three visits a day, plus a cleaning service every two weeks.

 But it had become clear that he couldn’t cope at home on his own, even with the extensive help my husband has provided him, and so we set about trying to get him into a care home. But of course, life laughed at those plans, and he’s in now hospital, with a sudden cognitive decline, so the place we had arranged for him may not now be the right place. His wish, of course, was that he wanted to die at his home, the house that he built, where he raised his four sons, and has spent his 30 years of retirement. We warned him that it was unlikely to happen, but as usual, it never seemed to register until it became too late. In reality, it just doesn’t work out that way for the majority of people, but few will acknowledge that in advance. I know it’s what we would all like. But dying at home is a wish, not a plan!

But as we know, plans don’t always work out either. Sigh. Once again, it reminds me that we will not have someone to advocate for us in the same way, so I’m thinking about doing some more writing along this topic. Consider this a teaser, and watch this space.

Debrief on The Day that is Not For Us

I thought I’d report back on my Day that is Not For Us plans, as when my husband and I were ushered to our table in the little French restaurant on Saturday evening for his offical (if a day early) birthday dinner, standing next to the table was a man holding a very young child! He had to move for me to take my seat, and then sat down at the table that was next to us, and I immediately said to my husband, “the best laid plans … !”

Then the mother started speaking loudly to the third person at the table about how special mothers are, and continued doing this for the next 20 minutes. I looked at my husband, and we both had to laugh – but don’t worry, I’d done my fair share of eye-rolling prior to this. They left not long after the child gave a deafening screech in my ear, and to be fair to him, the father did apologise to us for disturbing our evening.

The following day we had a lazy, rainy day Sunday morning, picked up lunch to take to the in-laws, and then retreated home for a happy evening with some of my husband’s (and my) favourite Thai food for his birthday dinner, and binge watching a series we had recorded.

Next year I’m not going to plan at all!

Finally, I was congratulating myself about avoiding too many M Day messages … until I woke this (Monday) morning and looked at Fbk, and after seeing several self-congratulatory messages from friends (ranging from Malaysia to the US), I shut down social media for the rest of the day, kicking myself for forgetting that sometimes, being a way ahead of the rest of the world is a curse!