The Inevitable



Aunt Shirley in better times just 15 months ago

The moment of truth, the moment we’ve known would eventually arrive, is here. Aunt Shirley is moving to a nursing home. After 2 months in rehab with little to no progress, in large part due to Shirley’s refusal to participate in physical therapy (based on complaints of pain), Medicare has said no more to funding her rehab stay. She’s been a part of the Trinity complex – a sprawling series of buildings containing rehab, assisted living apartments and a nursing home – in a hard to reach location for family and friends. She is being transferred from a Medicare rehab bed in a single room, to a shared T19 room in Trinity’s nursing home.

This autumn, our hope had been for Shirley to achieve the necessary milestones in PT to graduate to assisted living. Shirley’s hope (misguided as it was) was to gain enough strength and mobility to return to her apartment – a dream that we let her know we would not support or endorse based on a significant history of failure (for many reasons, such as not seeking medical care in a timely fashion) in recent years. Now there is no decision to be made. Shirley’s condition, and to some degree her lack of cooperation with treatment protocols, has sealed her fate. Her apartment will need to be surrendered, as all of her social security income will go to pay for nursing home care. It is our hope that she can be transferred to a nursing home closer to family, as we’re not able to visit her too often in her current location.

This story is tragic in many respects. To be 68 years old and this debilitated is frightening. Shirley cannot pull herself to a seated position, though she can sit upright with assistance. She cannot stand or walk. This means she is essentially bed ridden and cannot toilet  or bathe herself. Painful arthritis in her shoulders and knees, as well as frequent bouts of facial neuralgia prevent her from writing or speaking at times. Many of her health conditions that have culminated into this rapid decline over the course of 2012, were/are chronic and of no fault of her own. However, her stubbornness, or denial or who knows what, has played a major role in the severity of her decline. I see in her situation the culmination of a lifetime of choices made – possibly the wrong ones. There were many roads presented to her that she turned away from. The roads she choose led labyrinthly to today’s devastation. And devastation is the best word to describe how Shirley feels.

Somehow, she was surprised by this turn of events. I expect her depression will plummet deeper into a vast hole of demoralization and despair. She is resilient though, and will hopefully find a new way to accept and live with what her life has become. She always told me she could handle anything life threw at her as long as she still had her mental faculties intact. This will surely put that sentiment to test.

My own thoughts and feelings on this matter are variable and conflicting. I am angry with her and feel justified in placing a large amount of blame in her court for this situation. I am sad for her predicament and can imagine how crushing it must be to reach a nursing home level of care so early in life. And her outcome scares me … I don’t want to end up alone in a nursing home too. But as I circle through these thoughts, I always come back to the notion that we have choices everyday with how to live our lives – choices related to what we eat, how we exercise (or not), how we seek medical care, how we interact with others, how we think, how we handle finances, how we pursue meaning in life. I have to believe that making the best possible choices counts for something when it comes to long-term happiness and self-determination.

Name Change



Age 5

Joe and I are in the process of applying for our very first passports, a labor intensive endeavor of filling out forms and providing documentation. In searching for my birth certificate - the official one with a raised seal - I stumbled across my adoption papers, and learned something new about myself. Say what? Adoption? But just hold on, that's not the new thing I learned, I've always known I was adopted and that I wasn't always a Malloy.  

That's right. I was not born with a rhyming last name - would any parent be that cruel? I was born on March 6th, 1971 as Joy Serena Lepak. I was born to a mother only, Juanita Joy Lepak. Lepak was my mother's last name from her first husband. When I was 3 months old, a Brady Street friend introduced my mom to "Crazy Jim" (all the Brady Street folks had special monikers), who'd recently finished his naval deployment to Vietnam. Before long they were sharing an apartment, and within 9 months, on 3/10/72, they were hitched, my mom became Juanita Malloy, while I remained Joy Lepak. 

My dad settled into fatherhood as a natural - generally a good natured, patient, fun loving sorta guy that handles small children well. He recently shared with me that as a wee little one (one of my nicknames was "Pumpkin", another was "Joy-ella") he'd sing me to sleep with "Red Rubber Ball" (click this link to re-familiarize yourself with this happy little song from the 60's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbDKN0dk54M) So it wasn't long before talk of him legally adopting me began. More daunting than applying for a passport, my folks initiated the drawn out adoption process, finally succeeding on July 8th, 1976. This date is the new thing I learned - I officially became Joy Serena Malloy at the age of 5 years, 4 months and 2 days.

Years of harmless teasing would ensue... Joy Malloy likes boys! (No I don't! I hate boys!), "Joy To the World" serenades, and of course the most original of all - "Hey! Your name rhymes!" ( to quote one of my dad's sayings, "No shit Sherlock!"). I used to fantasize changing my name as an adult, but by the time adulthood arrived, I'd grown into and fully owned Joy Malloy. The name is my essence, my essence my name :)

Stragglers

Today's blog is a catch up posting to share miscellaneous tidbits and to update straggling story lines. The longest on-going story seems to involve Aunt Shirley. My last report talked about the meeting we had with her and the staff at Trinity Rehab, where we made it clear to Shirley we don't envision her ever living alone again - that assisted living will be the most realistic option, IF she can even start doing the most basic self-cares first. Five days after that meeting, she was admitted to St. Joe's hospital (that's where her current doctor has admitting privileges) with pneumonia and A-fib (Atrial Fibrillation) - fast and irregular heart beats that can lead to a heart attack or stroke. Treated with a plethora of meds and oxygen, Shirley will return to Trinity tomorrow, after 10 days in the hospital. Doctors have told her she will likely need to stay on O2 the rest of her life.

On a lighter, brighter note, I was selected (at random) to be the Waukesha Athletic Club Member of the Month. This means my picture, along with a little 5-question/answer blurb about me is posted in the gym, AND I get to select a "prize" from a vast array of options. Not surprisingly, I selected the one free session with a personal trainer. Since my hour long training sessions with Aaron cost about $34 each, this is a nice treat. Several of my gym friends have had this distinction this year, so it's fun to be part of the winner's club now :)

Joe and I have taken extended weekends for the past two weeks. In part this is due to our race schedule - racing somehow eats up an entire day with driving to the race, waiting for the race to start, racing, hanging out after the race, driving home, eating, stretching, showering and POOF, it's almost evening. So, we've used remaining vacation days to buffer our weekends. Last weekend was awesome cause we had time for racing, resting (ahhh...sleeping in, reading books in reclined positions, etc.), obligations (i.e., mowing one last time, having the annual furnace service, etc.), and fun (a friend's surprise 40th birthday party, going to the theater to see Argo -AWESOME movie, highly recommend it). This past weekend we had time to get ready for winter. This included bringing in the bench, bleeding water lines, removing screens from windows for added brightness, washing windows .... and filling holes from woodpeckers!!! We've had this problem in previous autumns. These woodpeckers are industrious, drilling holes at night above our bedroom wall, keeping us awake, and leaving large voids in the side of the house. In this picture you can see all the beige spots where Joe filled holes with wood putty, and the newly crafted reflective streamers he made to deter the 'peckers from returning. In the spring we will repaint this side of the house.

Woodpecker Damage

Some of you may be wondering how Joe's health is doing. You may assume no news is good news. You may also take his steady and impressive running achievements as a sign that he is well. Joe recently saw his GI PA (since there's no big problem right now, he sees her rather than the doctor). Joe's labs continue to look good, he continues to respond well to his med regime, and remains an inexplicable miracle to the GI staff given his status in summer of 2011.

On to the national stage. Most of you know that Joe is from Queens, NY, and with the exception of his parents and sister, his large extended Sicilian family (lotsa cousins around our age) all live in NY or NJ. Many of them were without power as a result of Hurricane Sandy, and some had rivers running down their streets, but everyone is okay and no one lost their homes. That is a relief. It seems Hurricane Sandy may have boosted Obama's poll numbers as well. I anxiously await the outcome of tomorrow's election and I pray that we have a clear cut winner when I wake up Wednesday morning. A recent Facebook posting said, "We survived Bush, You will survive Obama." I hope this comes to pass. I cannot bare the thought of a Romney-Ryan White House. That said, regardless of where your politics lie, VOTE!!! 

Two Years Already!

The Boys have warmed our home for two years - arriving here 11/4/10 from Marion, WI at the age of 6 months. Here's a picture gallery of the past 2 years....

2010



2010



2010

2011

2011

2011

2012

2012





2012



Mountain King

Pre- Race: Martha, Julie, Danielle, Me, Joe

Yesterday we ran our final race of the year, the Bergkonig (Mountain King), in chilly, snow flurrying, late-autumn air. Several months ago, I'd convinced a couple co-worker friends (Martha & Julie) and my supervisor, Danielle, to join us in pushing themselves outside of their comfort zone. When the picture above was taken, they were feeling dubious of what would soon transpire on the steep trails of Lapham Peak, and while Joe and I felt confident in doing this, we had no real expectations for our performance since we'd just run a half marathon 6 days ago. The start gun fired at 11:00a.m. for the 5k racers to begin - Martha and Julie took off. Five minutes later, the gun signaled the start of the 10k race - me, Joe and Danielle took off, each of us to not see the other until the finish line.



Post-Race

The course was rigorous to say the least. It's hard to fathom, but the route designed for us was more difficult than the difficult black trail we trained on. If we weren't going uphill at a sharp incline, we were running precipitously downhill over crunchy dry leaves concealing possibly treacherous tree roots, holes and rocks (Danielle did take a tumble, but was okay) - there simply was no flat terrain. Going into this race with no expectations but to finish, made it fun. It was also nice to run 6 miles instead of 13. I pleased myself by passing people throughout the race and feeling strong to the finish line. I anticipated the course would take me 1:15 to complete, so I was excited with my time of 1:09 - an all time best for me at that distance in Lapham Peak. In the picture of competition, with mega hardcore cross country runners, my number is not impressive. Out of 178 racers, I finished 160, but .... I wasn't last! Joe on the other hand was in the leading pack per usual. Out of 178 racers, he finished 26. He placed 4th out of 31 in his age group, completing the course in 49 minutes. He's an official badass.



At the finish line there were bananas and bagels galore (last week I forgot to mention that the Skeleton Skamper ran out of bagels before I reached the food tent - poor planning on their part, as races should never run out of food), warm water, Gatorade, hot cider and beer (yuck). Hypothermic sweaty shivers set in quickly, sending us to our cars for additional clothing before heading to the awards ceremony. The main draw for the awards ceremony (aside from seeing the phenoms that ran over the course like deer instead of humans) was hearing Lynn Jennings speak. Lynn is a world class runner. She won an Olympic bronze medal in the women's 10,000 meter in the 1992 Barcelona games, and holds 39 world championships in race distances from 5k to the marathon. She offered inspiration and food for thought- especially about our need to cultivate mental toughness - we train our bodies well for running, but our minds tend to be sloppy, slowing us down or telling us to quit long before our bodies need to. She advises that you acknowledge the pain and discomfort, then set it aside and keep pushing. I have resolved to work on my mental strength in 2013. Lynn also passed around her Olympic medal - not as heavy or imposing an object as I would have suspected it to be. How many of us get to hold an Olympic medal - whether it's ours or not? That was very cool.

Once home and showered it was time to grab some dinner and head to a belated Halloween party (we dressed up as freshly showered post-race runners). Joe's mom has started a tradition of sending us money for a special dinner in honor of our October half marathons. We used that money to indulge our Thai sensibilities. Kang Dang (bamboo shoots, snow peas, jalapenos, basil leaves and tofu in a warm creamy red curry coconut milk sauce) never tasted so good! By the time we arrived to the party, the day and the events of the past 2 weeks were catching up to us. Yawning was like breathing - a constant. We stayed about 90 minutes before making our way home to the couch, a cup of warming cocoa and the indulgence of getting an extra hour of sleep with the initiation of Daylight Savings Time.