At the time of writing this, it’s 12 days since my mother passed away alone in a nursing home. It was my worst fear come true. I’m told that a couple of staff were with her, but it wasn’t the way I envisioned my mother’s last moments on earth.
I guess there really is no ideal way you want a parent to transition, aside from the best-case scenario where you learn that a person “died in the presence of family,” or “peacefully while resting.” Neither was true for my mother. She had been sick. She had been depressed, and she was alone without any family.
This experience has changed me forevermore. Grief takes you to a place where you question your every word and action. I find myself spending hours staring at the black ceiling at night wondering what I could have done differently.
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I feel so much remorse and regret from her being placed in the facility in the first place. For me, it was a death sentence when I learned she was being put inside a private nursing home hundreds of miles away from me—she in Plano and me in Chicago—and there was no way I could visit.
I learned a lot from the experience, and now I want to help you. Here’s what you need to know about having a parent in a nursing home during COVID.
Stay in Constant Communication
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For starters, you have to stay in constant communication with them. If your mother or father is anything like mine, they probably don’t want to be inside of a facility with other elderly people. They’d rather be home in familiar surroundings.
My mother never associated herself with “getting old.” She was the proverbial young-at-heart person. She lived a beautifully glorious life having traveled the world, and it is because of that that being inside the home depressed her to the point she stopped eating—which is my second point.
Make Sure Your Loved One is Eating
You have to make sure they are eating regularly and staying hydrated, as dehydration is a common sign of nursing home neglect, and my mother suffered that as well. Not mentioned here but worth stating is that you have to get along with your family members.
If you do have to surrender to the need for constant care for your parent, that’s no time for sibling rivalry. Siblings must work together to care for a parent so that they continue to feel the bond of love that only family can give and want to live. If there’s discord and strife, parents feel that and it only adds to their feelings of helplessness and powerless predicament.
Get to Know the Staff
When your loved one is in a nursing home during COVID you also have to have a great rapport with the staff. It’s sad but true: Without constant communication and regular visitation, you really have no idea what’s happening within the home and it is a known fact that caregivers attend to the “squeaky wheel.”
No squeak, little service and attention, and your loved one can be sitting for hours in the same disposable undergarment (don’t demean your mom or dad by saying they’re wearing “diapers” either.)
Key an Eye Out For Negligence
Another heartbreaking truth of my story is that my mother died in the same hospital gown she was put in in early January yet she passed on February 10th at the home. I guess they figured because she was in hospice, there was no reason to put soft pajamas on her (my mother’s favorite), so she went unkempt which was hardly an attribute of my beautiful, well-educated, amazing mother. For them, she was less work to have to do.
Stay on Top of Their Medications
Make sure you stay on top of their medications as well. Make note of any changes in emotional behaviors like depression or refusal to eat. Both of these happened to my mom until she was ultimately given a feeding tube against my wishes. They felt it was best so she could receive nourishment. However that just addresses half of the problem.
You must address depression by using every form of technology available. Set up a way for Alexa to answer their phone so you can have regularly scheduled phone calls. Use Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, and Google Duo to actually SEE your loved one.
Communicate Regularly
Insist on regular communication with your loved one. Make sure they are eating and drinking and bathing and feeling clean and refreshed. While I have yet to see my mother’s death certificate or know for certain her ultimate cause of death, for me, she died of a broken heart, and now I live with one—and yet, it’s the faith my mother instilled in me as a little girl that “Divine love always has met, and always will meet, every human need,” that gives me the strength to go on. I
Pray
That being said, stay prayed up. There is power in prayer and it is my faith that has kept me from losing my mind. Now that I’ve gone through this, I am reminded that my mother lived by the power of the pen, and so, her light shines on as I now use our experience to help you.
