The Bucks Underground Railroad

October 10, 2011   Last night I attended a neighborhood event that announced the creation of a labyrinth to be placed near the Michener Museum in Doylestown.  About a hundred people were there to learn about the project.  A temporary labyrinth was created on the proposed site using tiny clear lights that formed the circled path that guides people to the center and then back out to the entrance.  After all my experiences over the past two and a half months, walking that labyrinth helped transform me back to The Bucks Underground Railroad.

My blog took its unscheduled respite in mid July.  It was around that time when my 77 year-old brother Jimmy was hospitalized for emergency surgery.  It brought a permanent life change for him and a realization to me and my siblings that our big brother Jimmy, who we always looked up to as “all that”, was no longer that lover of jazz, creator of iconoclastic modern art work, amateur photographer, and sophisticated lover to dozens of women.  He’s slipped into short term memory loss as well as a deterioration in his physical health.

My sister and I became the siblings to handle this change in Jimmy’s life.  Being the closest to his home in New Jersey, it became our responsibility to admit him to a care facility, clean out his apartment, initiate legal documents, travel back and forth to his New Jersey care facility, speak and meet with his health caregivers, and monitor his personal finances.  It became an all-consuming part of our every day lives, but he’s now settled in a long term care nursing facility close to our home.  Most days during that time I mused over how to write about this.

I now realize living wills and a power of attorney are important documents to put in place before a medical emergency arises.

Medicare and Medicaid:  health insurance benefits that should never be taken away from any of us.

The social workers who helped us through paperwork were Goddesses.

From the nurses, to the aides, to those in housekeeping, therapy, activities or administrative personnel—they perform thankless jobs all of us take for granted until we or a relative come face to face with the reality of a life-changing illness.   Five Stars to all of them.