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Editorial
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COLUMNIST Editor’s Page
By Victoria A. Schmidt
Make time while you have the time
I’m talking legal matters
here. The recent death of my husband reminded me that my will is out of date. I need to update my medical power of attorney, and take care of all that necessary paperwork that has been driving me crazy since he died.
May I pass along some wisdom? If a doctor does not honor your Power of Attorney, get another doctor. It could mean the difference between life and death.
Your USA will won’t help you here in Mexico if you own property. And don’t ask me. Find a Mexican attorney and ask them.
Go through your own pension programs and insurance policies NOW. They all seem to have web sites and will help you understand your insurance. Is it term life, whole life, a group policy? It makes a difference. Today I am reading through my policy and changing my beneficiaries to my son and his wife.
Make sure you have your own Mexican Power of Attorney who knows what you want in case you cannot speak for yourself. And make sure it is someone you trust to follow YOUR wishes, not their wishes.
Discuss your wishes with your doctor so that he/she is aware of your feelings. Choosing the right doctor for you is the most important decision you will make here in Mexico. For those of you who have reached the point where you need assisted living, talk it over with your doctor. What will you need? Do you just need supportive care? Do you need hospital care? Make sure the place you are looking at has the ability to provide that kind of care.
Don’t ask me. Ask other friends, families and doctors who are more familiar with the care givers in the area. This is true north of the border as well. Also, make sure the patient-to-care ratio is adequate. And ask the owners of the home for the certificates of the nurses. Some nursing programs are well established and take years to complete. Others are six-week programs.
When inspecting a home, make sure you check out how clean it is and how often they do laundry. Look at the patients and see the quality care they are receiving. Make sure the cook can follow special diets. Do they advertise game days, events, etc. Ask them what they are and how often.
I have found exemplary examples of impressive care at Lakeside. I have found examples I would recommend. Again. Don’t ask me, go do your research on your own. Because no one knows your needs but you.
Some of the places have waiting lists. So, don’t put this off. Also: when you have selected a place, make sure you have a contract and read it through carefully.
Let your family and friends know of your plans. Once you’ve made your move, have them check in often.
There is the advice for the taking care of yourself.
Victoria Schmidt
PART ONE
By Janice Kimball
My mother was the only grandchild of early 20th century cult guru,
Alois P. Swoboda. His instructions on raising children included the mandate that they learn from their own mistakes. It was only in this way, he believed, that a child would develop into an adult with strong character.
“I have made the decision to take swimming lessons at Dearborn Pools when they open for the summer.” I told Mother. Public notices were posted throughout that summer: Keep your children home, away from crowded places. If your child has a fever, stiff neck, or flu-like symptoms call your doctor. Do not bring your child into the waiting room.
“You may want to reconsider the decision to take swimming lessons, dear. The pool gets very crowded and there’s been talk of a Polio epidemic.” It is strange that I remember that conversation, because at the time, I had no intention of taking Mother’s advice.
My brother, Kurt, eight, sat up front with our parents. I lay in the back seat of the car trembling and burning with fever. We were rushing back from Petosky in northern Michigan where we had been on vacation. Mother had called Doctor Vogel, our family doctor, who met us in the clinic’s parking lot. He handed mother a map through the car’s open window. It directed us to the University of Michigan’s gymnasium loading dock in Ann Arbor, Michigan. By then it was getting dark. We were told to stay in the car and flash our lights at the end of a high fenced alley and that an attendant would come out to meet us.
The block-long dock had a line of steel doors three feet off the ground which could be accessed by portable metal stairs on wheels. After the five-hour drive, in the ten minutes it took the attendant to appear, panic mounted. Dad started screaming, “We’re in the wrong place, this isn’t it. This can’t be the place!”
The attendant wore coveralls and gloves. He directed us to pull up to a door with a set of portable steel stairs in front. He approached the car, asked our names, and instructed us not to get out. “You were sent from Garden City Medical Center and the patient’s name is Jani?” By this time I was sitting up, eyes wide, wondering what was to come next. “Is this her in back? Can you roll down your window a little, Jani? My name is Tom and I will help you,” he said through the halfopen window. “Can you walk? Do you think you can make it up those three stairs?”
I nodded yes.
“She needs a wheelchair,” Mother screamed. The attendant ignored her. He opened the back door. “Can you get out all right?” he asked me. With legs shaking I got out and stood beside him.
“You will need to do the paperwork to have her admitted,” Tom told mother. “Afterward you can come back through the front entrance and visit your daughter. The office is in another building on campus. Follow these directions carefully,” he said, handing my parents another map.
My Parents had no idea this process would take hours, that their whereabouts would be questioned, that their car would be fumigated, and that Kurt would be given an experimental drug to become known as
the Salk vaccine and be quarantined from attending school.
“Take the steps slowly, I’m right here behind you if you need help,” Tom said. “I’ll push the door open and you can step in.” Never touching me, Tom locked the metal door behind us. I faced a large trash barrel striped with fluorescent tape. Its lid popped open with a press of his foot. “You need to take all of your clothes off, Jani, and put them in this barrel.”
“Even my underwear…and my shoes?” I asked.
“Yes,” Tom replied. I will keep my back turned.” I undressed and dropped my clothes into the barrel. Rapidly, I stepped onto the stool and sat on the edge of the gurney, grabbing the sheet to hold up in front of my naked body as I heard the barrel’s lid snap shut.
“You’re a brave girl. I believe you will come through this all right.” Then, he exited and locked the door behind him.
The room was but a windowless cubicle, probably once a storeroom for basketball equipment. A camera was mounted on the ceiling overhead. The only other item in the room was a refrigerator. Strange, as the inside of the room was kept cold as the inside of one.
It was the middle of the night when my parents finally arrived. They took turns looking at me through the thick, one-foot square metal-encrusted window in the hallway door. An attendant instructed them on the use of a one-way microphone to talk to me, but I had no speaker to talk back.
“We got here as soon as we could,” Mother cried. “We love you, Jani. We love you. Is there anything you need? I’ll get you out of there as soon as I can. They are going to give you a spinal tap tomorrow. It’s going to be painful. This is my entire fault, Jani. We shouldn’t have gone on the vacation when you weren’t feeling well. I am so sorry, so terribly sorry. Your Dad is here beside me. He is worried about you, too.”
Dad’s face replaced Mother’s in the small window. I remember seeing the pads of his fingertips pushing against the sides of the window as if it were a curtain he could push open. He pressed his nose against the window, his mouth agape and tears streaming down his face. Then he collapsed.
“Help!” Mother screamed. Then, their microphone was turned off. I waited shivering on my stainlesssteel gurney, as if frozen in silence to be told my father had fainted.
Three days later they released me from the isolation room. Transferred to another gurney with a mattress pad but no pillow, the attendants rolled me into the hallway banked with dozens of the other victims of the Polio epidemic lined against the walls waiting for a bed.
Mother visited every day. After my third day in the hallway, she screamed at the head nurse.
“I have connections in Lansing. If my daughter is not in a room when I come back tomorrow there will be hell to pay. I will not have her treated like this!” When mother left, the staff made up an adult bed for me that encroached on the entry to the gymnasium, the pediatric “ward,” which must have held a hundred children. This spot, made to accommodate me, was near the entrance next to the iron lungs.
The pushing of air into the lungs of helpless children, then sucking it back out in mechanical death-defying beats, ‘Phew-Whooh, Phew-Whooh’ dominated the room. Spatters of conversation could be heard from parents in the northern part of the state and those from the Upper Peninsula, saying goodbye to their children, possibly forever. Cries of terrified children housed in tight rows, echoed up the walls, cries that called out to me and reverberated in my ears even when the ward would become quiet for a time, deep into the night.
“If I hadn’t let you go to Dearborn Pools you wouldn’t be here.” Mother confessed.
“There were lots of children in the pool, lots of parents thought it was alright for them to be there.” I tried to console her.
“… But I’m the one who said we should go.” I answered, hoping mother wouldn’t be compelled to fix things.
“You will have to talk to a doctor.” the nurse replied.
“And where can I find one?” Mother spat with a hiss.
“The doctors are all gone for the day.” The nurse smugly replied.
To be continued Janice Kimball
By Bernie Suttle
It’s starting. I’m eighty-seven, close to eighty-eight years old and I remember a guy I knew years ago but I can’t re-
member his first name. Know his brother’s and mother’s names but can’t remember his first name. If I go to his family’s restaurant where he is maître D I’ll need to greet him by his first name, but I’ll be damned if I can think of it now. I know It’ll come to me later if I just back off trying so hard right now. It usually does. That’s aging I guess. Beside this fading and some physical limitations, it’s not so bad. Except I’m called, “Sir,” by strangers, but thankfully without the sneer it came with from enlisted men when I was a junior officer in the Navy.
Today I’m disposing of mementos of some recreational event I’ve been carrying for years and never used. “Free tee-shirt”. Like hell! These items were deemed “Free’’ by some entrepreneur to entice my participation in some event I paid to be in. Back way before I started fading, I guess I would call it during my risk-taking days, I had a misadventure. I had a positive expectation of all of my adventures and took any setbacks as only temporary. I was living in Corpus Christi, Texas and thought a trip to Laredo, Mexico would be nice. I enjoyed visiting Mexico but on the return trip at night in the “Badlands of DuVal county” I had a blowout. With no spare tire. I thought such things only happened to other guys, never to me.
I pulled the thunking car just off the right side of the tarmac, jacked it up to teetering height and removed the dead tire. I stood by the uplifted car with my wife, reassuring her that all we needed was a ride to the next town. She looked at the nearby road sign, “Freer, Population 217”, and started to whimper. “All I have to do is get the tire repaired and a ride back” I reassured her with confidence. It was dark as the inside of your boot as we stood beside our wounded car in the cold midnight awaiting the good Samaritan who arrived within a half hour.
A Forty Ford two-door sedan swerved to a stop in front of my hobbled and hoisted Belair.
The driver was a James Dean imitator curled around the steering wheel looking out from under his drooping pompadour with a further drooping centered curl. In the right front seat was a not so innocent looking, pouting Natalie Wood. She had a pompadour too. A revolver lay, prepared for trouble, on the seat between them.
Jimmy Dean offered his assistance. “Give ya’ a lift to the next town, ’bout forty miles, where they fix flats. The gas station is open all night. Catch a ride back here with someone filling up to get through the badland’s lands. You’ll be lucky if your car is still here when you return. This place is full of bandits”. When he finished his offer, he reached under his dark leather jacket to grab a fresh pack of Lucky’s. He bit off the cellophane top of the wrapper and pitched it out his open window. He shook out one of the nails, sucked it into the corner of his mouth, flipped out his Zippo to ignite the cigarette that stayed in the corner of his mouth, not disturbing its permanent sneer until he spat it out the drivers’ window.
A high school kid working the graveyard shift at the station fixed my flat. We drove back in the lineman’s truck and found the abandoned car still waiting where we left it. Back then I said I’d had a bit of bad luck. Now I know it was stupidity.
Now that I’ve had the medical procedures to put stents in blocked arteries to my carotid and heart I don’t take any risks, even in walking. I note however that fading has occurred both in memory and movement. I rely too much on presumptions. When I put a piece of bread into the toaster I plan, presume that after an allotted time I will have a properly done piece of toast. When the bread and toaster burst into flame I have an emergency. So, it is with so many presumptions like car tires holding their air, not going flat.
I have had a wonderful life succeeding in doing everything I wanted: flying airplanes, running 10 K’s, skiing, sailing, managing companies. Now I see myself on a rehabilitation program of walking and doing, with a goal of reaching being my previous self. I think just in time. Just before I start wearing plaid shorts, white socks and black street shoes. Bernie Suttle
