Happy Thanksgiving, go see grandma at the nursing home.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, up and making food here. I can't go see my family today as some came down with Covid19. But they are doing just fine thankfully, and are having endless hot dogs with mac' n cheese and coleslaw. My sister, her husband and 3 kids live with my dad and step mother. All are doing good even though 3 have been tested and are being separated in different parts of the house.

Now for thoughs elderly folks at the nursing homes. It's bad enough their families don't visit often, but here in Pennsylvania and most other states; it's mandatory that visitors are not permitted inside nursing home facilities. Of course that makes sense as we don't want the elderly residence getting ill from Covid19. Some families come the nursing homes and sit at the windows outside to socialize with their families inside.

Now, here's a video of Blanche Warcholak. She was interviewed inside the facility by a local news station WPXI 11 about how her family can't enter the nursing home.

www.wpxi.com...

I'm happy that the facility has taken all the precautions to protect the residents by not allowing families inside to stop possible exposure.

I want to thank WPXI for Entering the nursing home with mask and other protective wear and maintaining the 6 ft rule. I'm sure Mrs. Warcholak appreciates your being able to Enter The Protected Nursing Home to talk about how families not being able to see each other without a window in between so no hugs allowed.

Ok I have to get cooking, happy Thanksgiving ATS. Call your loved ones and tell them you love them. If you're able to have no more than 6 or (12) over with mask and distancing, take advantage of the time you get together.

Gobble Gobble

Then you have this side of the coin for it.

Joyce Herod’s family said it’s been hard to see her struggle at a distance. The 82-year-old used to see her family all the time, but since March she’s only seen maybe a handful.

“I think her whole life revolved around us coming up there and spending time with her, seeing the grandkids, seeing I mean, the dogs, the grandkids. It didn’t matter who came up there as long as it was one of us,” her son David Herod said.

For the past four years, she’s been living in a care facility but was always up and moving. Since the pandemic started, she’s fallen and broken her hip — not to mention the effects of spending long periods in isolation.

“She was walking with her walker prior to COVID. Now she cannot feed herself. She cannot walk. She cannot feel her legs. She has nothing. She can do nothing but lay in bed. How does that happen?” her daughter Karen Klett said.

This is not an isolated story. There are estimates that the deaths not related to COVID but to COVID isolation are as high as 40,000 among the elderly since March. In many cases, you can try to protect them, but at what cost?

I can't see my dying mother this Thanksgiving.

She is 90 and decided not to undergo painful medical procedures but she is still trying to get some care. She went in the hospital yesterday. Only one person can see her and because I can't find someone to care for my autistic brother I can't go up.

Let her decide the risk.

If anyone is reading this please pray for the safety of my family. I have some evil family members who practice satanism (they really do - it's not false memory stuff they are very out in the open about it). I think they put a curse on my mother and me. So please say a prayer.

a reply to: ketsuko

Personally, I think the forced isolation takes a bigger toll on the elderly than the Chi-Com Flu, err, Cold does.

Family is all most of these folks have. Take that away, and you take away their will to live. Take away their will to live, and guess what, they stop living. What a surprise, right?

a reply to: ketsuko

She was walking with her walker prior to COVID. Now she cannot feed herself. She cannot walk. She cannot feel her legs. She has nothing. She can do nothing but lay in bed. How does that happen?” 

That's terrible, my neighbor got placed in a nursing home a couple years ago. Up till last march her 3 boys always came to visit her. One was from Boston and the other from Huston. But they would fly in just about every 4 to 5 weeks and stay at least a week and a half. It was a good facility and Connie met new friends. She at first while living alone at home, insisted she would never go to a home. For 90 she was actually pretty independent. But dementia took over.

So long story short, she started getting mentally and physically incapable. Family came to be with her, but they couldn't see her because we had Covid19 restrictions back in june. The nurse kept them informed by phone as the boys were next door in complete agitation and sick to their stomachs. She went to sleep and passed away. The family was here and couldn't do anything, couldn't be at her side.
Even I cried, becuase I was a freind and also watched over her. She was always calling me over to have cookies and conversation. 20 years😔

Staying active and engaged is so important for so many.

A lot of people have been suffering with this imposed isolation and social distancing, but it gets worse for the elderly where those things really may be the only things keeping them going.

So you have the catch-22 of them being so vulnerable to the disease, but at the same time, the measures taken to try to protect them are also cutting them off from the things that make them feel the need to keep on living.

It's cruel.

originally posted by: Daughter2
I can't see my dying mother this Thanksgiving.

She is 90 and decided not to undergo painful medical procedures but she is still trying to get some care. She went in the hospital yesterday. Only one person can see her and because I can't find someone to care for my autistic brother I can't go up.

Let her decide the risk.

If anyone is reading this please pray for the safety of my family. I have some evil family members who practice satanism (they really do - it's not false memory stuff they are very out in the open about it). I think they put a curse on my mother and me. So please say a prayer.

Very sorry for you and yours. Absolutely I'll put you in my heart and give prayers. 😔🙏

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Family is all most of these folks have. Take that away, and you take away their will to live. Take away their will to live, and guess what, they stop living. What a surprise, right?

My other neighbor on the opposite side was 95 and still driving and caring for himself. The guy was was WW2 veteran. Told me stories of how he was drafted, trained then was put on a boat that was towed behind a ship. He was on this tow behind craft in the Pacific waiting to invade Tokyo but we used the atomic bomb. He ended up on an island in the south pacific clearing the enemies off. Came home and opened a mechanic garage. One day I found him in his car trying start it with a tv remote. He had swelling in his legs and my sister couldn't hear portions of his heart and lungs.(she too was a paramedic). So I took him to the local e.r. and met his son inlaw there. They put him in a nursing home and he passed away not long after that.

a reply to: Bigburgh

Yeah ... had two relatives with Alzheimer's (well one had dementia of a different sort), but neither one survived the transition to a home.

I am thinking this is going to a rough year in the LTC homes. So many are not allowed to have family in for the traditional holidays this year - Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas - and then you go into the two long, dark, cold winter months of January and February which are always the hardest on everyone. As stressful as it is, I think that holiday season is magnitudes more important especially to our older relatives than we all might realize.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
It's essentially what's happening to my grandfather.

Broke/Fractured his hip beginning-mid November. Had a rod put in place last week. He was doing well until, you guessed it, the lockdown.

What happened? My grandmother was visiting every day, staying at a hotel nearby. Lockdown happened last Friday and when she went into see him Saturday, she was denied.

His health started declining, got tested for covid, moved to the death camp wing and just yesterday, we thought he passed. He came back around and gained consciousness and now it's up in the air. He is barely eating, trouble going to the bathroom and we can't even see him.

His health degrades fast when our grandmother isn't there with him. Now since he's in the death camp wing, he isn't getting physical therapy, only checked on when its food time and no one even stays to make sure he eats.

But these lockdowns save lives right?

Bite me.

a reply to: ketsuko

Yes definitely, it's a special generation of ours that was always about keeping family together. You're absolutely right about the winter months. Here in Pittsburgh we stay inside mostly during those times, but try to get together once a week for family dinner. It helps and we don't feel isolated... lonely.

Connie (my neighbor) was an outgoing lady and was able to make friends right away, so that helped. But like i said, once the restrictions came; it was very heart aching for her 3 boys. My father refused years ago to let my grandmother go to a nursing home. So we built an addition with a living room, bedroom and a bathroom that had a walk in shower. My father, brother and I came to check in daily.
Eventually she passed away 5 years ago the week before thanksgiving. She was at home and we were all there with her.

Same here in my home. Once we get to March, we start getting excited for Spring and Summer. But gosh dang it gets humid muggy sweaty here by june.😊

a reply to: Nivhk

Hip fractures are very severe depending on the arteries.

The very best to him and your family. Wish he didn't get moved, and he's heartbroken it sounds without your grandmother. Sheesh, prayers to him and your family. 🙏

originally posted by: Bigburgh
a reply to: ketsuko

Yes definitely, it's a special generation of ours that was always about keeping family together. You're absolutely right about the winter months. Here in Pittsburgh we stay inside mostly during those times, but try to get together once a week for family dinner. It helps and we don't feel isolated... lonely.

You're 100% right about that. Sunday dinners at my great-granparent's house was still a thing until they just couldn't function anymore. By that time grandma was around 90 and gpa was 100. They both passed two years later. It was important. When they were still alive the scattered family still came together as often as possible but when they passed it wasn't feasible to gather when family was literally in three of four corners of the US.

After my greats passed, grandma (mom's mom) still got the immediate family together every Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve until she passed not long ago. No one gets together now on my side, I haven't seen one aunt & uncle since grandma passed so its been at least three years and they live just a few miles away. The other aunt & uncle on mom's side turned on everyone so I've only seen them once a couple years ago at a car show. My step-mom passed last year so dad is alone now.

Many of us were going to get together at my father-in-law's like we do every year but Covid makes him nervous so my daughter was going to have us and her husband's family at their place today. His mom was potentially exposed last Friday so everyone decided it was best for no one to go since she's pregnant and is high-risk from that.

We don't have anyone in a nursing home but a dear friend of ours did and she couldn't even go see her mom for quite a while this year. Her mom passed a couple of months ago. On one hand we obviously miss them all but I'm glad they didn't have to see what an extreme cluster-F this year has been and what it has done to people. Mentally as well as physically.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Bigburgh

Yeah ... had two relatives with Alzheimer's (well one had dementia of a different sort), but neither one survived the transition to a home.

I am thinking this is going to a rough year in the LTC homes. So many are not allowed to have family in for the traditional holidays this year - Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas - and then you go into the two long, dark, cold winter months of January and February which are always the hardest on everyone. As stressful as it is, I think that holiday season is magnitudes more important especially to our older relatives than we all might realize.

Oh pfft, if you listen to the virtue signallers, these old folks are supposed to be grateful for the isolation against their will, it's saving them!

Until the depression kills them.

I think it's fair to call the pro-lockdown, forced isolation Do As I Demand folks sadistic outright. They can harp on their "virtues" all they want, they're still taking an elder's free will to congregate with another person away from them, and at the higher ages, that's crucial to keeping going.

Sadistic might be an understatement here. Evil sounds more apt.

a reply to: Daughter2

God will place nothing more on us than He knows we can handle. Prayers to you...

a reply to: HalWesten

With my dad and step mom, all the siblings get together on sunday evenings too. But today they're self isolating. Step mom lost her sense of smell and taste while having what she thinks is a very bad case of bronchitis, my dad has developed a cough yesterday. My brother in-law is running a fever with joint and muscle aches. 3 kids are fine so far. 🤞🤞😞

a reply to: Bigburgh
This sense of smell loss, is it across the board with cases or is it random who's affected by it when they get covid?

Edit: Forgot to thank you. Got a call this afternoon that my grandfather is doing better. They moved another patient in with him and having a roommate seems to have helped. Just strikes odd.

a reply to: Nivhk

From reading and from what I can figure, this is not across the board. But is common with the CNS (central nervous system) *version* of this Covid19, not everyone gets this symptom.
Some people get itchy, muscle aches, headaches. But having this version of Covid19 is bad for her (my step mom) she has Lupus, a breast cancer survivor, non smoker and she's in her mid 60's.

I gave my dad who was a paramedic way way long ago, a pulse oximeter and a stethoscope when my grandma was dying. Now he's using it on my stepmother. I could hear her coughing in the background. Sounded like Paroxysmal cough and Bordetella pertussis. ( Whooping cough ). I may have to go over regardless very soon.


😏

I was talking with my folks today, and dad told me this morning that my mom is not sleeping well at all. He thinks she's upset because of not just being able to go when they want to because of the restrictions.

We're talking about two people who used to regularly drive all over the state to follow their grandkids at all their various activities, but now they don't hardly go anywhere. They're used to football, basketball, baseball, and martial arts so going and doing and seeing every season of the year. But now, nothing's happening and no one is going anywhere.

a reply to: Bigburgh
Wish you the best. One thing I've found is that keeping spirits up goes a long way in health.

Something I personally feel is being counteracted by everything being pushed in our faces.

Maybe a more inclined poster might know the details, but stress and relaxation with production of ACE/ACE2 receptors.