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with the appropriate gravity
Monday, November 8 2021
location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, NY
I'd been trying to call my brother Don for days, but he just wasn't answering his phone. With yesterday's news from Josh Furr that our mother (Hoagie) was in the hospital, I'd been trying again, also without success. Today, though, Don finally called me. He launched immediately into a story that seemed to be unrelated to Hoagie's incident, though it turned out that it actually was related. He was just supplying the back story. Hoagie's longtime friend Connie had come over with burgers and such, partly to celebrate Don's 57th birthday (which would be on November 9th). But Hoagie was complaining about back pain and, unusually, didn't want to eat anything. She retreated back across the road (that is, to our childhood home and away from the Creekside trailer), partly because there has been no heat at Creekside. (There isn't heat at our childhood home either, I don't think, though there is an electric space heater there.) Hoagie then lay down on the couch and remained that way, complaining periodically about back and other pain. Somehow she managed to slide down off the couch onto the floor and couldn't get up. Not knowing what else to do, Don called 911 and that was when the incident that Josh learned about on the police scanner began. Hoagie hadn't actually fallen, Don said. She'd gradually slipped down, or at least that was his understanding. I asked if the rescue squad had interviewed him for further information, and he said they hadn't. Apparently Hoagie had been able to sufficiently identify herself, though it was unlikely the hospital would've gotten her Medicare paperwork, since all of that has been lost.
I thanked Don for the information and suggested he call Augusta Health (whose number I looked up for him) to find out more. I then tried to call Augusta Health myself, but couldn't get very far because Hoagie had apparently specified only two contacts: her friend Joy Tarder and Don. I told the nurse that Joy Tarder has been missing in action and Don has psychological problems, and that if they ever actually need a responsible person to contact, I might be the one. And so I left my information. But otherwise the whole situation seemed to be out of my hands. If my mother was going to deliberately exclude me as a possible contact, I was absolved of responsibility. Of course, this might put Don in something of a pickle if Hoagie remains in the hospital and Don no longer has access to the funds necessary to feed himself. So even if Hoagie wanted to spite me or otherwise avoid me in the twilight of her life, she clearly wasn't factoring in how this would affect the most helpless of her two sons.
Meanwhile Don had called the hospital and had been put through to Hoagie. Don isn't great at carrying through on things, but he nevertheless called me to give me an update. He said Hoagie still seemed deeply confused. He said she had expressed concern about the dog and horses and was convinced that when released she'd have to walk home from the hospital. I asked if Don had talked to any of the medical professionals there to get an update on her medical situation, and of course he hadn't. So I stressed to him that Hoagie had made it impossible for me to get such information and that it was all on him to obtain it. He needed to ask to talk to a nurse and then ask questions. Normally Don would say "yeah yeah yeah" and then not do anything, but he seemed to take all this with the appropriate gravity.
Meanwhile Gretchen had received word that Powerful was to be released from the hospital on Wednesday. Since our house has indoor/outdoor cats and chronic mold problems somewhat incompatible with post-transplant hygeine, we'd already arranged for Powerful to go live with his young thrift store friends in Tivoli after he gets out of the hospital, but now apparently they were freaked out because it was all happening too fast. They needed to clean, they said, and nobody had yet had their covid booster shots. But after some consulting with a nurse, Gretchen allayed their fears, talked them down, and it was once again on for Powerful to move in with them.
After talking with Gretchen and catching her up on the news about Hoagie and her catching me up on what was to be done with Powerful, I called Joy Tarder. I managed to catch her when she was out at Creekside visiting Don. She'd just successfully gotten the heat working, a problem that Josh Furr had thought would require a heating contractor to solve. But no, the problem was just that the thermostat on the wall was still set to cooling mode. It just needed to be switched to heating mode. That's the kind of everyday technical skill that nearly everyone has but which both Don and Hoagie completely lack. When it comes to operating such devices, they are no more likely to figure them out than is a housecat.
As for Hoagie, well it turns out that Joy Tarder is now somehow her power of attorney. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but it happened. I think Joy is a good person and unlikely to take advantage of her position, though as we know from the case of the hundreds of IOUs written by Sara Kesterson, Hoagie has been known to be a bit too trusting of people outside the family, partly as a way (it seems) when she really should be trusting me. But if this means I don't have to deal with Hoagie's end-of-life flame-out, this cloud definitely has a silver lining. I do still have to worry what happens to Don, Maple the Dog, and the two horses, so that was the focus of my conversation with Joy. I wanted to be sure that there was enough food for everyone, that the dog was being fed, and that Don had money for shopping while Hoagie (who had controlled all his access to money) was in the hospital. Joy assured me that everything was in order and that Hoagie had even made long-range plans for the horses. As for their short-term future, Don was concerned about the state of the fences, saying that if he had "the capital" he could repair them. I told him that if the horses couldn't be kept on the property, maybe now was the time to execute the long-range plans. Joy didn't think it was yet time for that, suggesting perhaps they could be boarded at a stable. "When is my mother going to be visiting her horses at a stable?" I asked. It didn't make any sense. What made more sense were various care-home options for Hoagie should it prove impossible for her to be released to her own home. In any case, with Hoagie gone, it seemed to Joy like an excellent time to do some cleaning up that she would've never permitted had she been around. I enthusiastically endorsed this idea.
Later this evening, after Gretchen got back from work and while she was on the phone with Powerful's young Tivoli friends talking them down from their freak out, Joy Tarder called me to give me an update. She'd just talked to Hoagie's doctor and couldn't say enough good things about him, partly because he'd been the doctor for one of her friends or relatives. The doctor had told Joy that he wanted to keep Hoagie in the hospital for a week and he also wanted to do an MRI. He'd also prescribed her ativan to help with her anxiety.
She also had news about Don. Apparently the news of Hoagie's hospitalization had somehow reached social services and they'd realized that maybe Don might be in need of assistance. So they'd sent a social worker out to Creekside, and she'd arrived while Joy was still there. She asked Don if there was anything she could do to help, and he'd said he wanted to receive food stamps again. I don't know that if a fairy godmother appeared in front of me and granted me one wish, that would be what I would wish for. But for Don, food stamps would be very helpful indeed.
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