A New Chapter

My husband and I have been doing this post-stroke life for almost 8 years. During that time, on two occasions, very trusted members of my support team encouraged me that it was the time to put him in a nursing home. Both times I fought it, and in one instance, fought hard. I knew deep down that it was not the right thing then.

Last August after one of these times, he came home from rehab with more home support put into place to make caregiving sustainable for me while also working fulltime. Since December, he’s had five falls, two of which resulted in trips to the ER. With one, he looked like he had been in a fight with the black eye he was sporting. And with the most recent one, at the end of June, he broke a bone spur on his spine. 

He was in a lot of pain, and with that, the wheelchair made its way into our house. Here’s the thing - that has always been my limit. He needed to be able to walk in and out of the house by the ramp and walk around the house with his walker. We are so fortunate to live in a house that is accessible and can be maneuvered in a wheelchair, but for whatever reason, that has been my limit. 

In April he came home from a stay in rehab after having Covid. He had a fall while he was there, and the morning after he came home, he had another fall. At that time, we started having the difficult conversations - I want him to be safe and is that possible staying at home? What are the options out there? We decided we would tour an assisted living facility that opened last year in a neighboring town. 

We toured the facility at the beginning of June, and I was surprised to hear him say he liked it. He even told his favorite nurse at the adult day center that he had toured it. With the fall just a few weeks later, I reached back out to them about the process of becoming a resident. 

Long story short, he is moving to assisted living on Tuesday. I’ve spent the last week and a half alternating between tears and looking forward to what my life could look like without the daily responsibilities of his care. 

But there’s so much more that I’m feeling. Once again I’m confronted with the grief and loss of all those dreams about our marriage and future together. I’ve dealt with all of the changes in our relationship and the loneliness I feel in the silence while he sits hour after hour on his ipad. And even when he was in rehab multiple times for extended stays, this house was always his home. But that will be changing. 

We’re also saying goodbye to the people we love at the adult day center. He has been going there for the last seven years and they have become our family. During the Covid closure when they began Zoom programming, I got to know the other participants and the staff, and there were moments of such laughter and fun. I know how blessed we are that we have this resource in our community, and I’ve always been vocal that I couldn’t have done this without them. They have been my partner in so many ways when it came to his care and our lives. Saying goodbye is heartbreaking. We’re both starting over with the new staff at assisted living, and even though I will be there often, I know I will never develop the same type of relationships that I had with the staff at the day center. 

Deep down, I also wonder what people will think when they find out. Will they think I couldn’t handle it anymore or that I should have done more? I have these thoughts daily, and I have to consciously tell myself that I have done everything I could, and we are making this change because we want him to be safe. The nurse at the day center called it “a decision of choice rather than a decision of crisis.” 

As I look back on the last eight years, there have been different phases of this caregiving journey, and I don’t know yet what this next phase looks like exactly. But it’s time. I know Tuesday will be heartbreaking, I know I will probably spend the whole day crying, and I can’t quite picture how I’ll leave him there that night. But I have to keep telling myself that we’ve been through so much, we’ve adjusted and overcome all the challenges, and we’ll do that again now.