In my role as a clinical supervisor I often remind mental health professionals natural consequences are good teachers. As professional carers, we have a tendency to want to make everything "okay" - to fix problems people create by their poor behaviors. Rather, natural consequences and sitting with the emotional and very real difficulties created is often what teaches people how to avoid making mistakes in the future. Some natural consequences are difficult to predict, however. As a family, we experienced some very difficult natural consequences last week.
As I wrote about in the prior blog, Paul found keys to one of our vehicles and had an accident while trying to drive. Thankfully, he suffered only minor injuries and just needed to rest, take some pain medicine, and sleep. My mother and my children often tell me I need to share more information with them. I tend to just manage things on my own. This time, especially before publishing the blog post, I called each family member to tell them about Paul's accident. Little did I know what would happen next.
Our youngest son, Wyatt, is so much like Paul. They love cars, motorcycles, tools, and all things greasy and dirty. Wyatt debated for months after graduating high school last year about going to school at Wyotech in Laramie, WY. He wanted to become a diesel mechanic, but was concerned about leaving his Dad. This is not the first time Wyatt experienced this decision. We lived in Salem, OR when Paul was diagnosed. All of our children went to West Salem High School there. Wyatt was in high school when we received the diagnosis. We owned a vacation cabin in La Pine, OR and we noticed when Paul was there, he did much better. We assumed it was the difference in weather. People with AD get "Sundowners." When it is dark or cloudy they tend to get sleepy. Indeed, we had to be vigilant to ensure Paul did not reverse sleep cycles during the really bad Willamette Valley winters because it can be so dark and cloudy in the middle of the day. I made a difficult choice when Wyatt was a junior in high school. I decided I would do whatever it took to help Paul maintain as much alertness and awareness as possible. I moved us to La Pine full time. Together, we decided Wyatt would stay in Salem, eventually live with his sister and brother-in-law, and finish school with his friends. He couldn't stand to be away from his dad and eventually came to spend the summer and part of his senior year in La Pine before returning to Salem to graduate. But it was hard for him to make this transition. He just wanted to be with his dad.
Well, when Wyatt found out about the car accident, he quit his Wyotech program on the spot. Many of you might think of this as quitting. In a world in which parents sacrifice their home mortgages, retirement savings, and work themselves to death to pay for their children's educations, it may seem odd for me to say I am proud of Wyatt. Whereas I want him to have the successful career of his choice, I know he values the limited time with his father moreso than receiving his education at one specific school. I did not ask him to quit. Indeed, I wish this was not a quandry any of our children have, but I am proud to have raised children who understand the value of time and relationship with their father. In their own ways, each of them find ways to take that special time with him. I am really proud of my children.
So in addition to the natural consequence of Wyatt leaving his program, we faced the natural consequence of figuring out how to get him home from Wyoming. The vehicle that got him there, a 1994 Ford Bronco, was not going to get him home. He needed us to come get him. Good thing Paul was on pain medication because we embarked on a four state driving journey of brown nothingness. 16 hours of driving is difficult enough when you have two drivers and when you can handle adventure and change. Not so much when you are the only driver, and your partner does not really know where he is when he wakes up. We made it to Wyoming pretty quickly, within 1-1/2 days in fact. But Laramie was a bit of a challenge for all of us. We thought we would rent a truck and trailer his vehicle home but there were not trucks and trailers in a 500 mile radius of that town. Trying to figure out how to get his stuff and his truck and him home became a comedy of errors, which as you can imagine, does not go over well with an AD sufferer. While facing barrier after barrier, we had to keep calm and positive. Even then Paul became so distressed he had to spend one whole day in the hotel room sleeping.
We finally gave up our efforts to keep that darned Bronco and decided to buy a new truck. Enter White's University Motors in Laramie Wyoming (whitesuniversitymotors.com). Brian, our salesman, and Cody, the finance manager, did everything they could to get us into the used truck of our choice within our budget and in the timeline we needed to get back to Oregon - and I mean everything! They gave us a fair trade-in price for Wyatt's Bronco. They agreed to accept my word for my income as I could not access any of my paystubs from Wyoming. And, although we came to an agreement on the price of the truck, when it did not end up fitting Wyatt's payment ability, they lowered the price of the truck by $7,000 and took the hit so they could get us home. They did this without us even knowing about it or us asking for a lower price. Who does this? A couple nice men who understood why we needed to get Paul and Wyatt home. There really are wonderful people in the world.
Despite all the difficulties that come with caring for someone with Alzheimer's I am still floored by the kindness of people who want to help and do help when they can. This includes my clinical staff at Deschutes County Behavioral Health who just stepped up so I could be gone for a week to take care of all these natural consequences. Even within the distress of the moment, day, or week, it is important for caregivers to see the good - to focus on the good in the world. Here was the good from our week:
1. Paul was not hurt worse.
2. Wyatt loves his Dad and wants to be with him.
3. My mother, daughter, and oldest son checked in on us constantly, worried about our progress and safety.
4. Brian and Cody and White's University Motors in Laramie.
5. The truck we bought drove beautifully all the way home.
6. We got there and back safely without too many issues for Paul.
7. The dogs were really happy to see us when we got home.
8. My staff was supportive and provided supervision for our interns at work.
It's been a whirlwind of a week, but 9. the weeks is over today!
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