My 75 year old mother has always had health issues (diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol) and has never been active. She is overweight and has complained of back problems for years. As she aged, she became more and more sedentary and spent most of her days sitting on the couch watching television. Our pleas for her to walk and exercise were met with disgust and indifference. Her mobility and balance declined with her activity level until she could only walk with a walker and would fall frequently. She never understood why I liked to ride a bike for miles or why I would ever do something as foolish as run a marathon or race in a triathlon.
She took a really nasty spill in February and suffered a broken nose, busted tooth and mouth and spent the next couple of days in the hospital. She was very weak and unable to walk without assistance when she was discharged and we placed her in a senior care center so she could get receive physical therapy, get stronger and come home.
The whole family thought this would only be temporary and that she would be home within a few weeks. We were wrong. She doesn't want to be there, regularly refused physical therapy, and doesn't understand why she can't just come home. It's a very sad situation. Today, the physical therapist told me they are terminating her therapy because she is not progressing. Medicare will only pay for therapy as long as the patient shows progress. It takes two people to get her from the chair to the wheelchair and her future looks very grim.
My point in sharing all this is that I want each and every one of you to keep moving. It's been heartbreaking to watch my mother lose her ability to walk and with it her quality of life because of her inactivity. Every time I drive home from visiting her, I try to figure out what I can do to keep from ending up in the same situation and remind myself that I need to keep moving. I'm very sad and frustrated by the whole situation but don't know what, if anything else, can be done for her.
Please excuse the long vent. Thanks for listening and letting me share.
