The Beginning

At the age of 66, dad had a major hemorrhagic stroke. He lived alone in a small house in the woods, and led a private life, for the most part. When he had his stroke, no one knew he needed help for about 36 hours. Some employees from Se-Ma-No and other friends there to help literally broke a window out in his home to get to him and then called the ambulance. He spent all of December 2009 in St. John's Hospital.

The damage done to his body is severe, but that is not true of his brain. Even while he was in the ICU for 7 days, he was putting names with dates and remembering stories. He can talk; he can feed himself; he was able to swallow again after about three weeks, and they took out the feeding tube. He can feed himself. He cannot use his left arm or hand, and he cannot walk on his own or for very many steps at once; he lost his sense of balance so someone has to be with him all the time.

When it was time for him to be discharged from the hospital, he could not go home. He needed 24/7 care, so he was taken to Parkview in Bolivar, MO. There, he was in, what they call, a Medicare bed to receive therapy and to get well enough to go home. After the allotted 90 days, he still was not well enough to go home. He was moved to the long-term care wing, and he sobbed for three weeks. It was devastating.


Of course, who would plan this for their life? No one. To add to the sadness, is the fact that he was a very healthy man. He was active, walked 3 miles every day he could, made sure he ate well, and he drank the "right" amount of water. He controlled his cholesterol with his diet, didn't smoke, took vitamins, and saw his physician when we was supposed to. He did have atrial fibrillation, but the stroke was a bleed in the brain, not a clot like AFib might cause. Nothing made sense.


He was getting ready to retire and he wanted to golf every day he could and do some traveling. Instead, he sat in a wheelchair, waiting for someone to take him to the dining room for meals, waiting for someone to help him in the bathroom.


The facility he is in is nice; the workers are caring, many of them there because they love their job and the people they work with every day. However, dad is miserable. He is so profoundly depressed and sad. While I was sitting with him on Father's Day this year, he asked me... "So, are we on a contract here or do we pay by the month?"

I replied: "I pay each month." He mumbled under his breath, "Okay, one more month."

I said: "What do you mean?" He looked at me and said, "I want to go home." I asked him, "how do you think we can do that?" He had some ideas: "Well, I don't know, but there are people who do that kind of thing, who live with people and take care of them. I can't do this much longer. It's getting bad."


I told him I would make some phone calls and see what I could learn. First I sent an e-mail out to dad's friends who I know best. Many of them I met during his stay in the hospital.


When I sent the e-mail out to Dad's friends, one of those people asked me if she could forward it on to others. I told her that was perfectly fine with me... so she did. And the response was absolutely amazing! I got e-mails from all over southwest Missouri from people I had never heard of. Sharing ideas, offering help, telling me about things to consider. It was Amazing!