Update on My 87-Year Old Father With Covid-19

submitted by coffee_addict from self.whatever

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[–]coffee_addict[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

"Yes, you were advocating killing old people, please own up to it. " We are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I think giving the old person an option to live their life the way they want, even if it risks their own health, is humane. You see it as murder. Fine. You are entitled to your perspective, as I am entitled to mine.

"And you were trying to put others at risk by attempting to make the facility take your father against their wishes, please own up to that too." Please copy and paste where you think I wrote this. I think you have mis-read what I wrote. What I said was we considered it and realized that was a bad idea.

"And maybe accept that you feel guilty about your Dad's situation, and that the loss of his sovereignty and how it's impacted him isn't really related to the current crisis, which has only served to highlight a problem that was already there long before." DING DING DING! I am trying to highlight how the system is broken and doesn't necessarily protect people in a way they want to be protected.

"And it sounds like you're still minimizing the costs to others. The high cost of taking care of your father has to fall on SOMEONE, whether or not it's a high cost." What does that mean?????????

"Why post to SaidIt? Why post this at all?" One of my best friends thinks this is a discussion we need to have as a society and she pushed me to post this. And I like SaidIt. It's my favorite social media site. Obviously, I am violating all kinds of HIPPA laws for my dad and his girlfriend, so I have to post it anonymously.

"Why is the post so heavily tied to covid, and so un-tied to discussion about assisted suicide legality?" It's not ONLY about assisted suicide, it is about the sovereignty and rights of old people. The horrible, horrible situation that my dad is living through right now is a direct result of the state forcing him into Assisted Living against his will. I want to highlight how much he is suffering and deteriorating in a situation that is supposed to be for his own protection. I am not mad at either the Assisted Living or Convalescent Homes. Both are doing their very best, but they are seriously restrained in their ability to properly care for him because of these "protections."

"haha covid's all a hoax let's reopen no there's no real risk nevermind anyone who might get hurt by it they're just wrong" line of argument." I already said very clearly in the comments what I think of the situation. I will copy and paste here: "I don't know what to think about the virus itself, and I certainly agree that the severity of the virus/pandemic situation has been wildly overblown. They have taken away our civil liberties, put millions of people into permeant poverty, permanently closed many small businesses while making oligarchies like Amazon more powerful, devalued the dollar so even those of us still working have less purchasing power, and given away billions of dollars in tax funds to businesses that didn't need it/had a long history of irresponsible spending."

"I don't think old people should live in care-homes, personally. I think it's the responsibility of the family to take care of them." I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the state of Nevada disagrees with you on that one. They believe that once old people get to a certain point of deterioration, they MUST be in a facility.

[–]comments 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I don't have much time to reply more, sorry. I feel I've mostly said my piece.

"Yes, you were advocating killing old people, please own up to it. " We are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I think giving the old person an option to live their life the way they want, even if it risks their own health, is humane.

I didn't mean about assisted suicide. (I think people need to stop hyping death up so much, it just makes it so confusing. WE ALL DIE. It's fine, it's normal, it's a beautiful part of life like any other. We should feel free to choose a good death.)

I meant about the part I quoted from your first post:

The majority of people dying are over 80, and I am guessing that my dad and his girlfriend aren’t the only old people who are ready to go. Was saving them worth destroying our economy over?

"[in Nevada] once old people get to a certain point of deterioration, they MUST be in a facility."

They can't be helped at home by qualified people? I guess I didn't realize that, though I ought to have been able to extrapolate it from the other content in your post.

And again, still, "Why is the post so heavily tied to covid"? What's the point of connecting this post about sovreignty in old age to covid, unless you're trying to make a post about covid too?

[–]coffee_addict[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I know, this has gotten time consuming. My son keeps asking why I keep taking school work breaks to type on the computer!

So for clarification on this: "The majority of people dying are over 80, and I am guessing that my dad and his girlfriend aren’t the only old people who are ready to go. Was saving them worth destroying our economy over?" I don't want to make it seem like I was advocating deliberately letting people in facilities get sick with coronavirus. I wish the government had thought things through better before putting regulations in place. In my mind, they could have thought through more make-sense solutions in order to keep the economy going. For example, the virus spreads most indoors, especially on public transit. I think the government should have immediately set up hand washing stations outside of buildings/public transit stops and required that everyone wash their hands before entering a public building/transit and wear a mask while inside. I feel like all retail stores should have been allowed to fill orders called in/ordered online and people could pick them up, much like take-away food,rather than shutting them down altogether. The excuse for crashing the economy and throwing millions of people into permanent poverty was to "save lives," But the lives they are saving is mostly of those who were going to die soon anyway. I guess what I am saying is it wasn't worth destroying the entire economy to save the lives of the elderly; that more make-sense solutions should have been implemented.

As for the rules of living in home: If my sister or I had the "right" kind of home (one story, modified for a handicapped person with wide doors, walk in shower with no step, etc) and we could afford to pay for 24 hour live-in care (which runs about $10,000 per month), NV would have let him live in our home. But neither of us had the right home or budget to allow for that. I am pretty sure CA has similar rules, too, but I can't speak for any other state.

[–]comments 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I feel bad for taking time away from your helping your kids. There literally isn't anything more important in the whole world and you can tell them the internet person said so too.

Thanks for the followup, it doesn't surprise me, and I do think it's into the territory of saying it's an acceptable solution to just let the elderly just die whether they want to or not, which, ... is not ok. Your alternative solution ideas are interesting, and I've been wishing we'd done a lot more stuff too (I wanted to try to get local philanthropists to provide hand sanitizer at public transit stations, but I didn't manage to make it happen). I believe there is still LOTS of room for private actors to make needed solutions happen.

The spin you put on your story notwithstanding, it is an interesting case to know about, so I'm grateful that you chose to share it. (Though honestly I do still remain skeptical that it's real.) I'm sorry if these comments have taken up too much of your time and attention, and I hope going forward it's easy enough for you to share stuff without it taking more of your time than you'd like.

[–]coffee_addict[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I am real. :)

My goal was never to change anyone's mind, it was just to start a conversation to get us all thinking more strategically about the bigger picture. And you and I are probably both thinking more strategically as a result of our intellectually stimulating conversation. I confess that my view is myopic because I am in the middle of it. It's great that we can agree to disagree on points and still talk about how to make the world a better place re: the things we agree on.

We do have something in common! We were both pushing for practical solutions for virus control and we both failed. I was trying to get hand washing stations set up around my community, like at the bus stops. They are only $100 each, so I figured we could GoFundMe and set up as many stations as we raised money for. I ran into several roadblocks and no one was willing to join forced to help me get them set up. Since homeschool takes up most of my time, I didn't have the time/energy to keep pushing for them.