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Goodbye, 2004
It has been almost a year since my Mother died. It is still so hard for me to comprehend that she is not here with me. She was my best friend. I have not stopped grieving my loss of her. The moment she died I started to take care of my 85 year old Stepfather in a way that has just consumed my life. I still cry almost everyday for her. Maybe I always will.
This year has passed by so fast. It has been an incredible learning process on so many levels for me. I haven’t had a day off since the moment my Mom died. I haven’t slept passed 6:30 a.m. since February 2004. Every hour of every day has several moments in it that are devoted to thinking about what I must do next, how much time before my Stepfather needs this or that.
I feel much more in control now than I did a year ago. This past summer drilled me into a machine of organization. It was a boot camp for Caregivers. We live on the Gulf Coast of Florida and had to endure 3 hurricanes. We were forced to evacuate for 2 of them and rode Jeanne out at home.
We have two small dogs, a Pug, which is my dog and my Mom’s dog, a Yorkie. In order to evacuate to a shelter my Stepfather requires what is called a “special needs” shelter. He is diabetic, has low vision (blind in one eye), has Parkinson’s Disease which effects his balance, mobility and his ability to swallow, is near deaf and has both high blood pressure and cholesterol. No special needs shelters accept dogs in our area. I love the dogs too much to leave them in the house alone to face possible death, so I had no choice but to evacuate to hotels that accept dogs. After Hurricane Charley this was no easy task. Every pet owner in Florida was pretty much forced to make the same choice.
Hurricane evacuation is beyond stressful for anyone in any circumstance. Packing only what is necessary. Having to make peace with never seeing your home and its contents again is impossible to imagine. It is something you have to experience first hand to comprehend. Then, of course, doing what is necessary, securing the house and property. Then there is the taking of the “before” photos for the insurance companies. All of this is both stressful as well as physically hard. And I am totally alone. I have no help whatsoever. We moved to Florida in October of 2003. My Mom died 4 months later and my Stepfather cannot be left alone, so I have no support system of friends or family. We live in a senior citizen’s community; most of my neighbors are about 80 years old and need me to help them. I haven’t had the opportunity to meet anyone other than my neighbors, so I am, as I mentioned, on my own.
I needed to have 4 suitcases. Two packed with food, one for my Stepfather and one for the dogs. The two others contain clothes, adult diapers, batteries, flashlights and a portable radio. The first evacuation was the hardest. I hadn’t yet figured out how to remove the third seat in our minivan and room was scarce. The dogs take up the second row passenger seat. They are nervous in cars so they have to ride in special car seats. I needed to fit the suitcases, 9 gallons of water, a lantern, a portable file cabinet, my laptop and my Stepfather’s 4 wheel walker (the kind with the seat) and his two claw foot canes, into the car. This first evacuation solidified my undying commitment to the minivan. I love our minivan. The minivan rules.
Our first evacuation was for Hurricane Charley. We stayed at a Marriott Residence Inn. These are hotels that are like small apartments. They have bedrooms and kitchens. This is best possible scenario for evacuation. I had made our reservation a week in advance of the storm’s arrival and changed it about 4 times based on the storm tracking. When we arrived we found the hotel was filled with others like ourselves. The aged, frail and disabled, families with small children, each making countless trips from the parking lot to their rooms with the partial contents of their lives. They carried rabbits, birds and frogs in their cages. They had dogs and cats on leashes. I saw some kids with their fish in a small bowl. Together we all hunkered down for 3 days while Hurricane Charley made a direct hit less than 35 miles south from where we were. Life changing devastation stopped just short of us. To this day hundreds remain homeless. With this storm I experienced what is known as survivors guilt for the first time. The “why them and not me?” is a hard thought to shake.
It was harder to find a hotel for Hurricane Frances. She hit over Labor Day weekend. Every hotel in our area was booked. People who hadn’t evacuated for Charley now knew the destruction these storms are capable of and were heeding the call and hitting the road. It was near impossible to find a place to stay. I realized that since it was Labor Day, hotels may have cancellations, so, relentlessly, I kept calling all hotels in our area that accept dogs. Amazingly, I got lucky with The Hyatt. The unbelievably expensive Hyatt. They had a room on the 9th floor. We got a small room with floor to ceiling windows with views of the bay. A view to a hurricane.
There are many, many televised press conferences in the hours before a hurricane hits. We are reminded that once sustained winds reach 45mph emergency vehicles are taken off the road. No ambulances or fire trucks. You can call 911, but they won’t come. They log your call and will get to you when it is again safe to travel. If you are very lucky, some heroic cop will put an EMT into a police car and try to get to you. If you are in a mandatory evacuation zone they will not come at all. This is why if you are special needs you are risking death by riding out a hurricane if evacuation has been declared.
We arrived at the hotel Friday evening. Late Saturday night Frances hit the east coast of Florida and began traveling west across the state. By Sunday afternoon she reached us. The windows of our room began leaking and the wind force was so strong the windows began shaking. I called the front desk to ask if it was safe for us to stay in our room and the response was that it should be, but if the windows crack call them back. Will do. Absolutely. I recall thinking that I’ll try to remember to grab the phone as I’m sucked out the window. The situation remained stable in the room, but I was a nervous wreck. The stress was flowing through my veins and I felt sick. I kept my Stepfather occupied at all times and on his routine eating schedule. Winds had reached near 60mph and emergency vehicles were now off the roads. The rain was coming down so heavy it looked like snow and the palm trees below us were bent sideways in the wind. It was at this time my Stepfather began choking on his sandwich. He has great difficulty swallowing and is only given soft foods to eat. He needs to be reminded to take small bites and to chew them well before swallowing, be he forgets. And now, he was choking and I knew no one would come if I called 911 so I had to give him the Heimlich Maneuver. I had no idea how to really do this. My memory of this life saving technique came from having read posters in restaurants while waiting for my food to arrive. But I did my best and dislodged the food from his throat. It amazes me to this day that I did not die from a heart attack or stroke during that intense moment. I cannot possibly relay the exhaustion I felt that night. At 4 a.m., after only sleeping for a few hours, I was startled awake by the shouting prayers of my Stepfather who didn’t know what time it was and is so hard of hearing he can’t whisper because he cannot hear the sound of his own voice. I got up and started packing, thinking the worst of the storm was over.
I was wrong. By 7am the rain had let up but the drive back home was scary. The winds were still very high, palm fronds and oak branches littered the roadways and the minivan blew around quite a bit. We made it back okay, but spent I spent the rest of the day listening to the constant wave of tornado warnings which were following the storm. Frances turned from a tropical storm back into a hurricane when she went out back on to the Gulf and menaced the Florida panhandle with awful destruction.
By the time Hurricane Jeanne arrived there was no place to go. She was a crazy storm whose path was circular then followed the path Frances had plotted weeks earlier. All hotels were filled with the homeless and rescue workers from earlier storms. We had to ride this one out despite mandatory evacuation. I expected power would be lost at any moment so I got up at 4am the day the storm was to hit and started boiling water. I woke my Stepfather, got him dressed and fed and kept boiling water all day long. Amazingly, with wind speeds up to 80mph we never lost power. Roofs were ripped off homes in our community, oak and palms trees completely uprooted, but we made it without a scratch. Riding out this storm was thrilling and frightening, an awful emotional combination. I held my breath until November 30th, the official end of the Atlantic Hurricane season.
This past year has taught me to rely on myself. To suck up fear and forgive myself when I am less than perfect. This has been the hardest year of my life. I know it has been the hardest year in the lives of thousands of people not only here but the world over. To all of us whose lives have been challenged this past year, to those who have faced painful tragedy and despair, may this new year bring healing and peace.
January 8, 2005 in Venting | Permalink
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