Supported

Burt has me and his excellent aides as his support. He gets visit from a very caring OT and PT team.

He also has a fantastic crew of doctors and nurses from Weill Cornell Center on Aging to keep his well-being on track.

It’s not easy maintaining his quality of life at the best it can be.

He can only describe aches and pains in the vocabulary of generalized anxiety.

Otherwise, he is contentedly manic, talking to “his friends in the ceiling” as an aide put it to me.

In short, if anything is awry, we have to catch on.

Emotionally, and we’ve already established just how rampant feelings and moods are, he’s either “scared” or happily gabby.

We go along for that ride. “I got you” is a standard refrain.

His bedbound state makes his physical care harder.

The vigilance has turned from fears of his falling to feats of our strength.

He has to be turned side to side to get him changed. He needs to be placed on his side to mitigate the danger of pressure sores.

He resists the turning both physically and very vocally. We trot out “Don’t be scared” and the old “I got you.”

Clean clothes and the mild exercise he gets in this morning ritual generally put Burt in a good mood.

Yes, Burt, I got you!