At age 51, Jim Comer rearranged his life to take care of his elderly parents.  When Roles Reverse is his story -- and it may be yours as well.  The book gives practical tips and insights on how you can best pay back your parents.

Jim  Comer’s story:

The phone woke me up at 7:00 A.M. My parents’ next-door neighbor told me that Dad was wandering in front of the house in a daze. She was afraid he was having a stroke and she was right. Within hours I was on a plane from L.A. to Dallas and my  world had changed forever.

By the time I arrived Dad could not walk, talk, or control of his bodily functions. He’d been hard of hearing for years; now he was deaf. Mother, who had suffered from early Alzheimer’s for five years, didn’t understand what had happened. I was totally unprepared for the deluge of decision I’d have to make in the next ten days. An only child since my brother’s early death in a car accident, all the decisions would be mine.

Woody Allen says, “80 per cent of life is showing up.” I showed up but I was totally unprepared because my father was in denial of Mother’s condition and would not talk to me about her health, their future plans or their finances. I knew nothing about taking care of the elderly; not the financial part, the health part or the emotional reassurance part. And I had not pushed him for information that would have been invaluable now that I was faced with decisions about rehab, insurance, their house, what to do with Mother – who announced sweetly that she was not leaving Dallas. Because I had been the “nice guy” I had not had the crucial conversations with my father that would have made this instant transition so much easier. I was unprepared, but they still gave me one week to find a rehab for Dad. And it couldn’t be in Dallas because we had not relatives there. Our relatives were near Austin and so I flew there and “auditioned” four rehabs in one day. I chose St. David’s for a logical reason: a nurse smiled at me. They said they’d bring Dad by ambulance the following week and that Medicare would pay for it. With great foresight, Mother said, “Do you think Medicare can afford it?”

My two cousins and their wives achieved sainthood by volunteering to keep Mother while I sorted out my life. The problem was getting her to their home almost 200 miles south of Dallas. I solved it by discovering an important and often overlooked medical procedure: therapeutic lying. On the day they were moving Dad, I packed for Mother and got her in the car by asking if she’d like to go get some ice cream. Mom never turns down ice cream and happily followed me into their Buick. She never saw her home again, but I did buy her the biggest sundae in town.

Once she was safe with my cousins, I flew back to my life in Los Angeles but it was never the same. I had become an overnight parent.

Over the next six months I made many trips to Texas, but realized that I couldn’t do what needed to be done from a distance of a thousand miles. After five months I had to make a choice: bring my parents to California where they knew no one but me and care was much more expensive, abdicate my responsibilities, or quit a good job and move to Texas where I had not lived in 30 years. The choice was not easy, but it was clear. I was going to follow the example my parents had set by the way they cared for their parents.  I would move to Austin and start over again at 51. It was the best decision I ever made.  There are many people out there in a similar situation — there is even a  catch phrase: “sandwich generation,” meaning those who are caring for elderly parents while still raising their kids (I don’t have children).  I wrote this book for all of them.

What Got Me Through the First Ten Days:

Comer's Intensive Care Gratitude List

• A boss who cut me some slack.
  
• Neighbors who got Dad to the hospital by telling him they were taking him out for Mexican food.
  
• Doctors who use one-syllable words.
  
• Nurses who realize that a sense of humor is as important as a catheter.
  
• Despite all the paperwork, Medicare.
  
• Friends who brought casseroles and cherry pies, and those who helped eat them.
  
• Credit cards.
  
• Those who said nothing when there was nothing to say.

 

Dad’s story:

On my second trip to Texas, I went straight from the airport to my father’s room at rehab. He was alone and, while he could not walk, talk or go to the bathroom unassisted, his eyes and mind were sharp. He took one look at me and forced out three words: “Get me pills!” From the look on his face I knew what kind of pills he wanted: ones that would kill him. I shouted – remember he was stone deaf – I can’t do that. I’ll go to jail. No, not hell --- jail! Well, maybe hell, too. But I can’t do it.

Later I asked the doctor if there was any way he could help to restore my father’s bodily functions. He suggested a prostate operation as a possibility and Dad signed the papers. Within two weeks he could go to the bathroom unassisted and decided that he wanted to live! Unfortunately, by that time he had raised so much hell at St. David’s that he was expelled for bad behavior. By this time, Mother was driving my cousins crazy and I needed to get him into a skilled nursing home and her into assisted living. Slowly but surely I was learning patience, an invaluable skill when parenting your parents.

It was about this time that I learned about the term “the continuum of care” – facilities that have independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing. By some miracle that I did not recognize at the time, one of the best homes in town had openings for both my parents on the same day.  Their admissions director acted as if we had won the lottery! We had, but I was too naïve to realize it at the time.

Dad now turned the full force of his amazing will toward walking and talking. Within four months he was walking without even a cane and his speech had returned completely, with no hint of a problem. Soon he was thrown out of his second facility because he was too well and Medicare would no longer pay for his stay. Dad moved to the Wesleyan Retirement Home, one block from his sister’s house in Georgetown, 27 miles north of Austin. There was only one problem: mother. To live in a retirement home, you had to be able to take care of yourself. Mother fit that physically, but her memory loss made help essential to negotiate life. Despite the rules, the nursing home administrators had not met my father, a sales manager for thirty years. He got them in a room, locked the door, and in an hour they agreed to let Mother come on a “trial basis.” The trial lasted five years. Only six months after a devastating stroke, my father would be taking care of his elderly wife once again.

 

Mother’s story:

I showed up in a U-Haul in the fall of 1996, a month after my folks moved into the retirement home. Immediately I was confronted with the reality of dealing with Alzheimer’s on a daily basis. Mother had 55 dresses in her closet, but would only wear 5 of them. I told her repeatedly that they were her dresses, that I had given some of them to her, but she would have none of it. She told me, “Jim, those dresses are belong to other people. Do you want me to wear stolen clothes? I could end up in the hoosegow!” Mother had moved to a land beyond logic, but the Dad and I had trouble accepting her new habitat. We wanted her the way she’d always been.

About two weeks after I arrived, she asked if we could go visit her sister Estelle. That would have been a perfectly normal request except for one fact: Estelle had been dead for eight years.  Her request caused me to make a big mistake. I said, “Mama, Estelle is in heaven.” Mother had completely forgotten her sister’s death and because of my insistence on the truth, she had to relive that pain all over again. I watched her cry and grieve needlessly and knew that I’d made a big mistake. I went to see an Alzheimer’s expert and said, “I can’t do this.  I’m not cut out for parenting my parents” She told me, “You don’t have much choice, do you?” She was right. Then she gave me the advice that changed my life. She said, “Quit trying to drag your mother into your world. She can’t go there any more. You have to go into HER world. GO INTO HER WORLD.”

I got it. And I put her advice into practice immediately. Instead of urging her to wear the 50 “stolen” dresses, I tried to keep the five she would wear clean. When she wanted to visit her dead sister, I said, “Sure, let’s go next week.” Mother would smile and promptly forget it. Next week never came. That was more than 13 years ago and as her condition worsened an inch at a time, I went with her. I remain in her world today, where she is, not where I wish her to be. And it has made all the difference.

Mother’s memory may be fragile, but her wit remained sharp. One time I went into her room at the retirement home and my shoes were scuffed up. She took one look at those shoes and said, “Jim, those shoes are a scandal to the jaybirds.” That is deep East Texas for “not good.” I told her, “Mom, I’ll get some new shoes when I’m rich.” With real concern in her voice she told me, “Oh, Jim, don’t wait THAT long.” I wonder how she knew.

There was a 92 year old who lived in the retirement home who thought that my mother was wonderful. Every time he saw me in the lobby he raved on about her charms. I thought she needed to know that she had an admirer. I said, “Mother, do you know there is a 92 year-old man who thinks you are terrific?” She rolled her eyes and said, “Honey, that’s the kind I attract!”

Today, she can’t walk or talk, but that wit is intact. It just takes more effort and a language of the heart to uncover it.