Allan

Allan with grandson, Dallin

Exactly one week after Valerie died, her son Christopher and his wife Jen had their first child, Dallin Christopher Page (for the record Jen has two daughters from her first marriage, Lisa and Natalie who we all love as our own family, too.  They were Valerie's first granddaughters on the Page side and she was thrilled to finally have some girls nearby.)  We took Allan to meet his new grandson two days after his birth.  A few days later, Valerie's second son, Bryon and his wife, Leslie, had a baby daughter, Evelyn.  Evie was the first Page granddaughter by birth.  We were so grateful that this two little spirits arrived safe and sound to earth and brought a new sweetness to the family.

My sweet brother-in-law Allan was left without his spouse when Valerie passed away but he was also without his main caretaker.  As he is slowly declining in his cognitive and memory abilities, she has been the one to care for him and help him deal with life and his illnesses.  For the past 1 1/2 years he has gone to adult day care when she was at work as it wasn't safe any longer for him to be alone.

It is very hard as he is so young and in many ways he can take care of himself, but there are the things or moments when he can't or he forgets things like something cooking on the stove.  Dementia is a tricky thing as its impact changes almost moment to moment, it seems.  During the week right after Valerie's death, family was there constantly day and night to help him.  However we all knew that we would have to make some permanent arrangements to meet his needs.  As a family we needed to make some hard decisions matching what we need Valerie wanted and also what Allan needed.  It added an additional worry during that week.

I had met with his neurologist right after Valerie's death to get help on how to help Allan.  The doctor encouraged us to quick make permanent plans for his care.  He said that the biggest change of his life has already happened and we can't change that.  It is best to include these changes all together and perhaps consider moving him out of his home which in his case may help lessen the memories of the her death and leave him with happy memories from the past.  The family met together to discuss our options and to review and consider all options for his care.

It was a hard process (not because we disagreed because there was little of that but because these are hard and serious discussions) and was much more emotional for me than I thought.  For the first couple of weeks we had a home care company come and stay with Allan.  He enjoyed these sweet women who helped care for him during an emotional time.  We were in and out every day as well as many other family members.  Other time was spent looking for the appropriate place for Allan to move and to be care for.  I "stumbled" into an organization for senior care help who provided me great support and ideas during this process which I shared with our family.  They also were able to send a social worker to evaluate Allan and determine what kind of care he might benefit from.  They were so helpful.  Even though we visited mostly very nice and new facilities, it was still heart-wrenching to walk into these places and think we were going to move him out of his house into a new place.  I told my kids that if I have dementia they have my permission to put me into a nice memory care unit and visit me once a week and not worry about me in between times.  I don't want them to have some of the struggles and emotions that I had through this process.

We finally selected a spot and made arrangements for Allan to move in on the following Wednesday.  All of these work was done without Allan's involvement.  However he did have conversations with Gary and our nephew Matt asking who was going to take care of him and that he needed help.  That was reassuring for all of us.  As a family we made a plan to gather on Wednesday morning and to talk to Allan about the move.  All of our support staff indicated that telling him too early would only confuse and disturb him so we followed their advice.  Although we were all there, there was a general assumption that Gary would be the one that did the talking.  I don't know if Gary slept at all the night before as he struggled to determine the best way to help Allan understand.  Gary did awesome and although it was hard for Allan and all of us, we made it though.  Allan chose to go bowling with Gary and leave the moving part to us.  My great mother-in-law, sister-in laws, and niece-in laws (is that a word?) were so great in making the move and getting those things we felt were most important for Allan.  It was a fast four hour move but we got it ready just in time for Gary and Allan to show up.

Charon adjusting the family pictures.  They had
recently had family pictures taken at
Layton Park in the summer with the Page boys
and their families.



Allan sitting by his entertainment center
Allan loves movies and has a huge collection.
We tried to move it exactly the way that it
was at their home.  We were thrilled it fit.

We originally brought the two recliners from
their family room, but we all agreed that
Allan really preferred the couch so
we sent the nephews back to get it and it
worked.

This adjustment has been very hard for Allan and he wishes that he could go back to his home.  It isn't a perfect situation...nothing is perfect compared to living with your beloved spouse in a home which you love too.  I think that he is settling down as best as we can expect.  Valerie's sons and their families have been great to visit him and Gary takes him to Taco Time, bowling, and usually a quick trip to Wal-Mart each Tuesday night for needed supplies.  We hope that he will be able to live there the rest of his life.  It is about 10 minutes from us which is nice and allows us to stop in for time to time as well.  Like I have mentioned many times, life just keeps on changing for all of us....