Nancy's Notes

My brothers and sisters-in-law have spent more time together recently than usual as my dad moved into an assisted-living room at Bethesda, the nursing home in Goessel. He has been living in a duplex apartment, owned by Bethesda, one of multiple duplex units that surround the nursing home campus. Since my mother’s passing in 2014, and all of us kids and grands living some distance away, Dad has been very lonely and, in the last two years, has talked frequently of moving into “the Big House.” Then, when COVID blew up and the nursing home was in lockdown, with residents basically confined to their own rooms 24/7, he admitted that he was glad he had not moved. Still, every time he had a doctor appointment, he would ask his doctors if they would give the directive that he needed to move to the nursing home; but his doctors would always say, “No, Irvin, be happy you don’t have to go there now.” And he would agree and return to his comfortable, but lonely, apartment.

At 94 years of age, my dad is amazing and inspirational, with relatively-good health in spite of a bout with esophageal cancer two years ago. He came through that like a trooper, driving himself to Newton Med Center for his treatments and numerous appointments.

But towards the end of March, Dad suffered an eye stroke. None of us had ever heard of this, but, as he described it, he was watching a game on TV when there was suddenly a bright flash in his right eye, and then he went blind in that eye. My brother Keith, who lives the closest to Dad but still about an hour away (in So. Hutch), was planning on taking Dad to a doctor’s appointment the following day in Wichita. Dad called Keith and asked if they could leave about an hour earlier in the morning so they could also stop at Greene Vision Group, his eye doctor; and he told my brother that he was suddenly blind in his right eye. Keith fired off a group message to us siblings and several of us agreed that Dad had probably had a stroke, and he needed to get emergency care. My little hometown of Goessel used to have ambulance service of its own but now has only emergency responders who were summoned by a 9-1-1 call, and an ambulance was dispatched from Hillsboro, about 20 minutes away. Dad was completely himself the entire time, trying to make light of the situation with the emergency responders as they took all his vitals while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. In the meantime, Keith and his wife Cynde started out for Newton but then received a call that the ambulance was taking him on to Wichita.

When Dad returned home two days later, he was fine, just blind in one eye. But he was frustrated because his doctors still saw no reason to say he needed to move to the Big House. But he continued to talk of moving, and we siblings knew we would really feel better having him there, knowing he was not alone. Plus, as luck would have it, there were two rooms available in the assisted living unit for him to choose from. The first room he looked at had a view of the exterior of an adjoining wing. The one he chose has a nice view of Goessel’s busy Main Street and the shortest state highway in Kansas, K-215, and the front part of Goessel Grade School. Plus he will get to supervise the construction of two homes going up across the highway from the grade school.

His first weekend in the Big House, Dad got in trouble with management and was scolded by three different people after another resident (probably in that adjoining wing) ratted him out for cranking open his window to visit through the screen with all of us siblings. He didn’t know he couldn’t talk to us through the window, and none of us knew the rules yet, either. Now they know they’ve got to keep an eye on him (and they all know him well!), and we know that we can visit him at his window, but we must visit by phone, through the closed window. Even better, if we call ahead and make an appointment, and then go through their screening process at a specified entrance, we are able to visit him— in person—in one of several private visiting rooms Bethesda has set up. We cannot go to his room or stray anywhere from the path from the entrance to the visiting room, but we are thankful for the opportunity to visit in person.

Throughout April, my brothers and I, and our spouses, have made several trips to Goessel, working on clearing out his duplex apartment. We hadn’t known it but soon found out that a cousin of ours had scheduled an auction on April 24, in Goessel, and we were able to take some furniture and a whole lot of “et cetera” there to add to her auction. It couldn’t have been more perfect timing.

We are all relieved to know Dad is being taken care of, eating three meals a day (he says he doesn’t like the food, but he’s already gained weight), and he has people to visit with and staff to dote on him... in the Big House.