Update on my parents

Thank you, my dear readers, for all your kind prayers concerning the situation with my parents. I apologize for the silence of the last few days. Here's an update.

I'm here in Southern California with my dad (who will be 90 in July). My mother (who is 93) is currently in a nearby rehabilitation center after being hospitalized a couple weeks ago. She had a severe stroke a couple years ago which took out her dominant (right) side, but despite that she wasn't doing too badly. My father was still able to care for her at home with the help of mobility aids, a wonderful in-home care assistant who came in twice a week to bathe her, etc.

Since I only see my parents about once a year, it was clear to me that my mom was gradually declining, but my father (perhaps stubbornly) was seeing incremental steps and still insisted he could keep her at home and care for her himself.

Last October, God knows how, both my parents got COVID. Dad recuperated at home, but Mom was hospitalized. Both recovered, but we think it was this bout of COVID that precipitated an extremely rapid decline in my mother's health.

My three brothers, one of whom lives an hour away and the other two of whom live in the Bay Area, have been wonderful over the past couple of months, tag-teaming to stay with my parents and assist with my mother's care. Then my dad took a fall (tripped in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom) and received some muscle damage in his arm as well as other bumps and bruises, and it became crystal-clear that my mother could no longer be cared for at home, no matter how much my dad wanted it.

Mom was transferred to a rehab facility which is, thankfully, only a couple of miles away from my parents' house. She is unable to speak coherently, unable to walk, sit up without assistance, etc. Her decline (both mental and physical) is so abrupt that everyone is baffled. Possibly it's due to rapid-onset Alzheimer's resulting from COVID; we don't know.

While originally I thought I would be here to assist with my mother's physical care, the urgency of that reason disappeared when she was transferred to the rehab facility. My job then became convincing my dad that Mom cannot come home, for her own safety.

My dad is a former engineer; he's a logical thinker; but this was his blind spot. My parents have been married 66 years, and he couldn't accept that she had to stay under expert care. My brothers were gently trying to convince him, but he wouldn't agree.

The trouble is, Mom is not responding to any of the therapies offered in the rehab center (speech/physical/occupational), and the staff is recommending she be transferred to the other side of the building, to the long-term care facility. Dad didn't want this; he wanted her home.

Then, on my second evening here, we went to see my mom and feed her dinner (Dad is there twice a day, feeding her both lunch and dinner), and she was so out of it that it became clear even to my dad that she couldn't come home. He had a rough night and a rough follow-up morning as he came to grips with this reality. It was for this reason, if no other, that I'm glad to be here to support him.

Part of the urgency to have my dad accept this is because as long as my mom is a patient at the rehab facility, then she has a smooth and automatic transfer to the long-term care facility. But if she's removed from the rehab center (to come home), then she loses that status and will be placed on a waiting list. And ... she can't wait. For her physical safety, she needs skilled care.

Anyway, that's the status at the moment. Dad and I go to the rehab center twice a day to feed her. I do most of the feeding; as I told Dad, "You'll have a longer chance to feed her. I won't" (since my visit here is fairly short).

My youngest brother, who has been incredible, warned me well about my mother's decline, so her condition wasn't a shock. It's just sad to see her regressing almost to an infantile state. But my dad hasn't wavered in his care for her, even though she's no longer at home. That, dear readers, is marriage.

I don't know how much longer I'll be here, but I'm guessing another 10 days or so. Dad and I have a meeting with my mother's caseworker this week to discuss the financial aspects (all the medi-whatevers: MediCal, MediCaid, MediCare, etc.). They'll transfer my mother to the long-term care side of the facility in the next couple of days.

Then, to make things worse, today we had to get a form notarized. My dad's sister (my aunt) isn't expected to live long. She never married or had children, so my dad is her closest living relative. He had to sign a consent form (and get it notarized) to have her buried in the family plot near my grandparents and great-grandparents. So yeah, it's been a tough month for my dad.

I deeply appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers.

Therapy for happiness?

I applaud psychological counseling. The field has helped endless millions of people cope with trauma, deal with grief, adjust bad behaviors, address anxiety and depression, and improve relationships between family members. My understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) is many therapists and counselors enter the discipline to help others cope with issues from which they themselves have suffered, bringing experience and empathy as well as training to the profession.

Clearly therapy takes time to achieve its goals – it's seldom a "one and done" process. In addition to the skill of the therapist or psychologist, the cooperation of the patient dramatically improves the chances of successfully reaching goals.

I've never had therapy of any sort, so I'm unfamiliar with the nitty gritty of how these transformations take place. However this headline startled me when I saw it, because I couldn't grasp the purpose: "Therapy Is Important, Even If You're Happy."

The author of this piece, Keah Brown, sought counseling to cope with depression, and outlines the process by which she was able to achieve some measure of relief from this affliction. She also described the maintenance and newly learned techniques required to sustain the strides she had made and avoid relapses.

What startled me about the article was the quote from a social worker and therapist named Brynna Pawlows (not the author's therapist) who made this stand-alone observation: "I believe people should attend therapy for a significant period of time – typically six to eight months – at some point in their lives, even if they are relatively happy. It's important to take a real look at ourselves, unpack some maladaptive behaviors or thoughts, and then use the skills taught in therapy to tackle any future issues, adjustments, or lapses in mental health. Therapy isn't a cure-all, but rather a space to open up, explore, learn new skills, and find the connections to presenting problems and how they connect with early-to-late childhood themes and family dynamics." [Emphasis added.]

Keep in mind, the above quote was not from one of Brown's therapists, but rather a statement that applies to the general public. And that's where my question arises: Is therapy necessary to achieve or maintain happiness if you've never experienced anything that would require counseling in the first place? Maybe I'm reading too much into the statement, but that's sure what it sounds like.

This same therapist notes, "Everyone is in need of 'work' in terms of mental health. What we see as people who are 'fine' is typically people who are just highly functional, though still struggling in some way. Many of my patients report being seen as 'totally put together' and 'stable' by their friends and loved ones. This is not because they don't have anxiety or trauma, but rather because they are extremely high functioning with anxiety, trauma, or other issues."

Another therapist quoted in the article, Aimee Lori Garrot, agrees that going to therapy when you're relatively happy is as important as seeking help in times of distress. "I think if a person is in a good space, they can often work on things in a more successful manner than if they are in the middle of a horrible depression. ... There are clear benefits to starting therapy wherever you are in life. There is no need to wait until things get bad before beginning, and there is no reason to wait for them to get better first either; you just have to start." She also notes that therapy is just as much about learning all the coping skills that you weren't taught."

I don't mean to make it sound like I'm mocking or making light of therapy, because I'm not. I consider it an essential medical procedure, just like any other medical procedure. But I genuinely want to know how therapy can help someone who is already "relatively happy" maintain that state of mind. What am I missing here?

Part of my confusion may stem from my unfamiliarity with mental health issues. In another article entitled, "Temperamentally Blessed," the author (Elizabeth Svoboda) discusses the unusual condition of those who don't suffer from any mental distress at all. "I regard such temperamentally blessed people with awe, and I'm more than a little curious about the source of their endurance," she writes. "Why is it that, after what psychologists call an 'adverse event,' I have a near-irresistible urge to wallow and curl into myself, while the temperamentally blessed deploy their emotional stabilizers and sail on blithely? Is it genes, upbringing or something less easily defined? And should we seek to follow their example – or are emotional ups and downs a natural and integral part of a life well-lived? Is it even mentally healthy to stay so even-keeled when chaos descends?"

In an effort to dig deeper into this character trait, Svoboda turned to the work of a then-graduate student in psychology named Jonathan Schaefer (now an assistant professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University). Using data from the famous Dunedin cohort study, Schaefer found that evidence of mental disorders in the general population is shockingly high.

"One thing that jumped out at [Schaefer] was that the vast majority of cohort members had met criteria for a mental illness at some point in their lives," writes Svoboda. "In the turbulent years leading up to middle age, 83 per cent had suffered from either short-lived or longer-lasting mental disorders. 'Experiencing these conditions is actually the norm,' Schaefer says. 'It's kind of weird not to.'"

Read that again: Having a mental disorder is the norm by a wide margin, not the exception.

Those that didn't experience mental illness were dubbed "the temperamentally blessed," and the condition was found to be independent of wealth, physical health, or intelligence, though it does appear to have a genetic component in that first-degree relatives similarly experience solid mental health.

"A live-and-let-live attitude is probably teachable, at least to some degree," notes Svoboda. "Dialectical behavior therapy – designed to teach emotional regulation – is geared toward boosting clients' tolerance and acceptance of others. Studies show that this therapy improves their functioning in the real world, inching them closer to the temperamentally blessed category even if they don't always reach it."

However, Svoboda quotes other psychologists who speculate certain benefits which can derive from mental anguish: It may drive effective problem-solving in a variety of situations; it can foster highly analytical problem-solving which allows people to incisively evaluate the pros and cons of potential solutions; it can sustain superior empathy; and – oddly – it often promotes flourishing creativity. (Perhaps the cliché of the angst-driven artist or writer has a solid basis in fact.)

"What does seem clear, though, is that being temperamentally blessed is not the same as being happy in a deeper sense," adds Svoboda. "However even-keeled they might be, the temperamentally blessed don't score much higher on life-satisfaction scales than those who are not as blessed. 'There's more to life than not experiencing mental disorder,' Schaefer says. 'There are some people in the enduring mental-health group who rate their life satisfaction as pretty low.'"

Maybe this is why happy people need therapy?

The writer of the original piece kept going to therapy to maintain the happiness she'd found, which strikes me as a perfectly legitimate reason. But the recommendation to attend therapy even if you're happy to begin with seems ... odd. I can't imagine what my opening session under such conditions would be. "I'm here because I'm happy. Can you fix me?"

So I'd like to open this up for discussion. Is therapy in this context helpful?

Health kick

The Lewis family has been on a health kick lately.

We all needed to lose weight anyway. That's the trouble with being hobbits – by our nature, we're inclined to stoutness. In late January during a checkup, Don's doctor suggested he start taking medicine to control his cholesterol. Instead, Don offered to lose weight: thirty pounds in three months.

And that's what started it. We had all been eating healthier anyway, thanks to Older Daughter's culinary expertise, but we took up intermittent fasting (eating one meal a day, usually around 1 pm) and ramped up our fitness routine.

Don and I keep weights in our bedroom, snugged against the wall. He does a workout five or six days a week, alternately between upper body and lower body. I do a workout every day, alternately between ballet stretches (I used to be a dancer) and weights (lighter than Don's, of course) on a three-day rotation of various exercises.

Here are some of the hand weights:

We also have a fold-up weight bench (with some more weights tucked beneath it).

And we've all been walking, weather permitting. Every morning we take Mr. Darcy on a half-mile walk (level ground) in the morning. In the afternoon, we've taken to "climbing the mountain," as we call it, a two-mile round trip up a steep road (Mr. Darcy loves this!). About forty percent of this walk is purely uphill with an average grade of nine percent, so we're puffing pretty hard by the time we get to the top. (The breakdown: 10% flat, 40% steep uphill, 40% steep downhill, 10% flat.)

Here's the uphill slope. A photo, of course, never seems to do justice to the steepness.

And the downhill:

And it's working. My goodness, it feels good to get more fit. I'll scratch a random itch and feel muscle. Don's lost 23.5 pounds (his three-month checkup is in a couple weeks, so while he may not make a full 30 lbs., he'll be close). Older Daughter has lost 25 pounds, and I've lost 20 pounds.

I have a longer weight-loss journey than the rest of the family, but that's okay. So far it's been a fairly painless process, and I'm satisfied to settle into this for the long run. Slow and steady – as they say – wins the race.

Does anyone have a kidney?

I was in Coeur d'Alene doing errands last week when I saw this desperate plea:

I have no idea who this person is, of course, but I thought I'd do my part to help spread the word.