INTERVENTIONS

The term “intervention” has come to be used to describe a collective act of familial tough love. A member of the family is behaving in a self-destructive manner, and the sons and daughters, or fathers and mothers, or aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents get together to sit down with the loved one and talk a little tough common sense to him or her.  Interventions are painful and do not always work, but they are usually well-meaning expressions of genuine concern for a troubled family member. When I was a boy, my father became an alcoholic. He was a quiet drunk and simply became sleepy rather than rambunctious when he had had too much to drink. The subject of his drinking was never mentioned because in a Jewish family heavy drinking was a schande, a shame, something not to be spoken of. I do not know whether he would have benefited from an intervention, but none was ever organized.

 

Two days ago I was the object of an intervention. I had asked my niece to arrange a zoom call with my big sister who is 91 years old and lives in a Southern California retirement community. I have not actually seen Barbara in person in several years and I miss her. At 2 PM my time (11 AM on the West Coast) we had a little get together via zoom. In addition to myself and Barbara there were Linnea, who arranged the zoom call, and her brother Josh who was, I think, somewhere in upstate New York.

 

I had sent a circular email around to the family members telling them of my bad fall and assuring them that both my right hand and my side were now feeling much better, although my cell phone was not and would have to be replaced. When the call started, Barbara and Linnea started urging me to use a cane or walker in order to avoid another fall – falls at my age are a principal source of life-changing injury and are best avoided if at all possible. I replied casually that I had tried walking sticks and a cane when taking my morning walks and had found that they did not really help me at all, so I had stopped using them.

 

I was just chatting, making customary family talk, but Barbara and Linnea kept at it about the walker and all of a sudden it dawned on me what was happening. I asked, only half in jest, “Is this an intervention?” They allowed as how it was. (Josh commented that he was not in on it.) The tone was a light and casual, but it was clear that my sister and my niece meant it and had spoken to each other about it before initiating the call.

 

It was hard for me to hear, and I know exactly why. As I have grown older, it has become a point of pride for me to continue to be active and effective, to be my wife’s principal caregiver, to be the one who can always handle what is coming up, who can protect my wife (who is, after all, a year older than I am, as she has been since I met her 74 years ago.) I am aware, however embarrassing it may be, that I take great pride in having become known around Carolina Meadows as someone who takes a long walk every morning, winter or summer, getting to know the early morning walkers and dog owners whom I see and say hello to on my way. All around me are men and women using canes, using walkers, or in wheelchairs and I try with a certain quiet desperation to hold off the time when I will be reduced to that condition.

 

Well, I am a great believer in pride, in keeping up a good face, but a serious fall causing broken bones would really be a disaster in my life. Let us face it, I was lucky to suffer no more than a fractured cell phone as a consequence of this last incident. Susie has several walkers in our apartment and so, with considerable reluctance, I appropriated one. It is a four wheel roller and in the last day and a half, I have been using it around the apartment. Later this morning, when it warms up a bit, I will go for a walk using the roller. I cringe at what people will think when they see me go by. “Isn't that Bob? He must have declined a good deal to have to use a roller. Oh well, it comes to all of us.”

 

I continue to ride my exercycle five mornings a week, increasing by 30 seconds each week the portion of that spent at a higher level of difficulty. I am now up to 7 ½ minutes at the higher level and I will continue as long as I can increasing the difficulty. I do this not because I enjoy it, God knows, but because I have been told that aerobic exercise 150 minutes a week has proven to be successful in delaying the progress of Parkinson’s disease.

 

Since Barbara reads my blog each day, she will know that her intervention was successful. I have been trying all my life to live up to my sister’s brilliant successes and her approval, which I hope I shall have earned, will go some way to easing the pain of the intervention.