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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 18, 2015)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, July 18, 2015 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor EO MEDIA GROUP East Oregonian • The Daily Astorian • Capital Press • Hermiston Herald Blue Mountain Eagle • Wallowa County Chieftain • Chinook Observer • Coast River Business Journal Oregon Coast Today • Coast Weekend • Seaside Signal • Cannon Beach Gazette Eastern Oregon Real Estate Guide • Eastern Oregon Marketplace • Coast Marketplace OnlyAg.com • FarmSeller.com • Seaside-Sun.com • NorthwestOpinions.com • DiscoverOurCoast.com MIKE FORRESTER Pendleton Chairman of the Board STEVE FORRESTER Astoria President TOM BROWN Bigfork, Mont. Director KATHRYN B. BROWN Pendleton Secretary/Treasurer JEFF ROGERS Indianapolis, Ind. Director OUR VIEW Down the rabbit hole Alzheimer’s caregivers struggle with exhaustion, isolation H ello Alzheimer’s. residents. About six years ago, “Some people are military my mother-in-law’s brats,” said Eshbaugh, speaking neurologist gave her news that Thursday by phone. “I was a nursing home brat.” no one wants to hear — she The little girl especially had Alzheimer’s disease. The connected with residents who heartbreaking diagnosis was a had dementia. gut punch. We tried to imagine “They were in a different this outgoing, savvy woman Kathy just sliding away into oblivion time and place,” Eshbaugh said. Aney — this mother of three, gourmet “They were the best playmates Comment cook, singer, outdoorswoman, ever.” retired travel agent and center of Her unique blend of family life. experience, education, research and Joyce Johnson and Warren Aney met counseling means Eshbaugh has plenty at age 14 at a church summer camp. of road-tested advice for caregivers. To 7KH6WDQ¿HOGJLUODQGWKH8PDWLOODER\ stay sane, she advises family caregivers immediately connected. to: “She was the second girl I kissed,” • Take care of yourself. “We have VDLG:DUUHQÀDVKLQJEDFNRQKLV a culture of independence and a WHHQDJHVHOI³7KH¿UVWJLUOZDVDFRXSOH superhero mentality. Your health has to days before.” be as important as their health. This is a Their personalities meshed in marathon, not a sprint.” interesting and lovely ways, he said, • Pick your battles. She tells the story and they married at age 19. The couple of a woman with Alzheimer’s who spent raised a family in Portland that included three hours a day loading the dishwasher several foster children. They took the with clean dishes, then unloading and kids on cross-country ski trips and repeating. “It drove her family crazy, but camping adventures in their Volkswagen it made her feel useful. In the end, they minivan. They were a team. came to terms with it.” Another person After 55 years, the relationship read the same chapter of a book over shifted. Warren, a retired regional and over. Eshbaugh sees no problem manager for Oregon Fish & Wildlife, with this behavior. “Sometimes we spends his days taking care of Joyce. She create problems when there aren’t any is wheelchair-bound, so he shuttles her problems.” between different spots in the house — • Learn that being totally honest the bed, the toilet, the dining room table is sometimes not the right thing. She and the easy chair in the family room. told of a woman who repeatedly asked He feeds her and makes sure she gets when her long-deceased mom would her medications. He takes her to church be coming home. Instead of setting and parks her in the front row because “I her right, her caregiver learned to say, want her in the center of things.” He is “She will be back soon.” “We call this constantly tired, but committed. µWKHUDSHXWLF¿EELQJ¶RUVWHSSLQJLQWR “The alternative is not to have her their reality.” here and that’s worse — not to be with Eshbaugh also urges caregivers to do her,” Warren said. as Warren does and focus on the day. In So he concentrates on each day, addition, she advises caregivers to forget one at a time. He knows the ultimate about people who aren’t supportive, to trajectory down this rabbit hole, accept help, forget feeling guilty and however, and says when the time is right have a sense of humor. for Joyce to move to a nursing facility, “Figure out what makes you laugh he will let her go. He refuses to dwell on and actively seek that out,” she said. that future. “And don’t feel guilty for laughing.” “If you dwell on it, it could be Warren echoed Eshbaugh’s advice depressing, but I don’t have time WRWDNHFDUHRI\RXUVHOI¿UVW$IWHU to dwell on it,” Warren said. “My injuring his back during a lift, he learned obligation — my opportunity — is to lift techniques and vowed not to take take care of her as long as I can.” chances with his own health. Warren and Joyce aren’t alone in Joyce’s short-term memory has faded, their daily struggle. As America ages, though she still has some long-term the number of people with Alzheimer’s recollections. She stays quiet most of the rises. According to Stephanie Barnhart- time, but pipes up unexpectedly. Herro, program director of Oregon Care The other day, Warren toiled over Partners, there are 60,000 Oregonians a crossword puzzle. When he couldn’t with the disease. remember the name of “Lucy’s “The population is aging really husband,” he asked Joyce. rapidly,” she said. “By 2020, the number “Desi,” she said. of Oregonians over the age of 65 will Warren has learned to celebrate those increase by 63 percent. The biggest moments of connection. He smiled. known risk factor for Alzheimer’s is In a poem Joyce penned shortly age.” after her diagnosis, she wrote “They She said a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s say that eventually I won’t recognize can feel like having your world pulled my sweetheart of 50-plus years. What out from under you. a heartbreak ... Remember me as a “They’ve been given this really compassionate, creative, giving soul who scary diagnosis, but are not really told loves her life as it is, but not as it will what to do,” Barnhart-Herro said. “For become. Maybe this is just a bad dream. caregivers, the stress is huge. That’s the Please I’m ready to wake up now.” other side of this disease.” Warren once asked himself whether Caring for someone with Alzheimer’s he would have married his high school is a daily slog. There’s no manual, sweetheart had he known she would though Oregon Care Partners offers get Alzheimer’s and require years of online classes and trainings in various caregiving. The answer, he said, came cities around the state. without hesitation. “It’s a 24-hour-a-day job and “Our life together has been greatly oftentimes caregivers don’t have enriched with wonderful children and time to care for themselves,” she grandchildren, with shared adventures said. “According to the Alzheimer’s and experiences, with jointly developed Association, it can last from two to 20 social and religious linkups, with similar years. The way it progresses is different but complementary appreciation and for everyone.” celebration of arts and nature,” he Elaine Eshbaugh writes about the said. “Given this rich and rewarding disease in her blog, “Dementialand.” relationship over so many years and The associate professor at Northern the realization that Joyce is still partly ,RZD8QLYHUVLW\LVWKH'LYLVLRQ&KDLU able to maintain and appreciate this of Family Services and Gerontology relationship, I would not have done it and the daughter of my friend, Sue differently.” Dwyer. When Sue worked as activities Ŷ director at a nursing home many years Kathy Aney is reporter for the East ago, young Elaine wandered among the Oregonian. OTHER VIEWS Listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates while white D ear Ta-Nehisi Coates, dominate and control our bodies. The last year has been an Sometimes this power is direct education for white people. (lynching), and sometimes it is There has been a depth, power and insidious (redlining).” In what is bound richness to the African-American to be the most quoted passage from the conversation about Ferguson, book, you write that you watched the Baltimore, Charleston and the other smoldering towers of 9/11 with a cold killings that has been humbling and heart. At the time you felt the police and instructive. ¿UH¿JKWHUVZKRGLHG³ZHUHPHQDFHV David Your new book, “Between the RIQDWXUHWKH\ZHUHWKH¿UHWKHFRPHW Brooks World and Me,” is a great and searing the storm, which could — with no Comment contribution to this public education. It MXVWL¿FDWLRQ²VKDWWHUP\ERG\´ is a mind-altering account of the black You obviously do not mean that male experience. Every conscientious American literally today (sometimes in your phrasing you should read it. seem determined to be misunderstood). You are There is a pervasive physicality to your illustrating the perspective born of the rage “that memoir — the elemental burned in me then, animates vulnerability of living in me now, and will likely leave a black body in America. PHRQ¿UHIRUWKHUHVWRIP\ Outside African-American days.” nightclubs, you write, “black I read this all like a slap people controlled nothing, and a revelation. I suppose least of all the fate of their WKH¿UVWREOLJDWLRQLVWR bodies, which could be sit with it, to make sure commandeered by the police; the testimony is respected which could be erased by and sinks in. But I have to the guns, which were so ask, Am I displaying my SURÀLJDWHZKLFKFRXOGEH privilege if I disagree? Is raped, beaten, jailed.” my job just to respect your Written as a letter to your experience and accept your son, you talk about the effects conclusions? Does a white of pervasive fear. “When I person have standing to was your age the only people respond? I knew were black and all If I do have standing, I of them were powerfully, ¿QGWKHFDXVDWLRQEHWZHHQ adamantly, dangerously the legacy of lynching and afraid.” some guy’s decision to But the disturbing challenge of your book commit a crime inadequate to the complexity is your rejection of the American dream. of most individual choices. My ancestors chose to come here. For them, I think you distort American history. This America was the antidote to the crushing country, like each person in it, is a mixture of restrictiveness of European life, to the glory and shame. There’s a Lincoln for every pogroms. For them, the American dream was Jefferson Davis and a Harlem Children’s Zone an uplifting spiritual creed that offered dignity, for every KKK — and usually vastly more than the chance to rise. one. Violence is embedded in America, but it is Your ancestors came in chains. In your book not close to the totality of America. the dream of the comfortable suburban life is a In your anger at the tone of innocence some “fairy tale.” people adopt to describe the American dream, For you, slavery is the original American \RXUHMHFWWKHGUHDPLWVHOIDVÀLPÀDP%XWD sin, from which there is no redemption. dream sullied is not a lie. The American dream America is Egypt without the possibility of the of equal opportunity, social mobility and ever Exodus. African-American men are caught in more perfect democracy cherishes the future a crushing logic, determined by the past, from more than the past. It abandons old wrongs which there is no escape. and transcends old sins for the sake of a better You write to your son, “Here is what I tomorrow. would like for you to know: In America, it is 7KLVGUHDPLVDVHFXODUIDLWKWKDWKDVXQL¿HG traditional to destroy the black body — it is people across every known divide. It has heritage.” The innocent world of the dream unleashed ennobling energies and mobilized is actually built on the broken bodies of those heroic social reform movements. By dissolving kept down below. the dream under the acid of an excessive If there were no black bodies to oppress, realism, you trap generations in the past and WKHDIÀXHQWGUHDPHUV³ZRXOGKDYHWR destroy the guiding star that points to a better determine how to build their suburbs on future. something other than human bones, how to 0D\EH\RXZLOO¿QGP\UHDFWLRQVLUNVRPH angle their jails toward something other than Maybe the right white response is just silence a human stockyard, how to erect a democracy IRUDFKDQJH,QDQ\FDVH\RX¶YH¿OOHGP\HDUV independent of cannibalism.” unforgettably. <RXUGH¿QLWLRQRI³ZKLWH´LVFRPSOLFDWHG Ŷ But you write “‘White America’ is a syndicate David Brooks became a New York Times arrayed to protect its exclusive power to Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. I think you distort American history. This country, like each person in it, is a mixture of glory and shame. There’s a Lincoln for every Jefferson Davis. YOUR VIEWS City can’t track committees, can’t track our money either Can we trust the city with all this new tax money if they cannot keep track of a phantom committee? At one time Pendleton was the largest city When is a committee not a committee? I between Portland and Salt Lake City. Those thought since April that I was attending the times are long gone. We have to compete for Capitol Improvement Committee. At the July jobs, business and industry with cities that 7 council meeting Mayor Houk informed me do a better job of managing their money. It that I had been attending Capitol Investment already costs more to live in Pendleton than Advisory Committee. surrounding cities. Can we afford to add If you are confused, so is the city staff. to this burden? The city collects over $2.5 The next morning I asked the city attorney million from us in franchise fees, this is for when this committee was formed. They use of the public rights of way (roads). I think GLGDFRPSXWHUVHDUFKEXWFRXOGRQO\¿QGD reference to the committee last November, not at least half of this amount should be used for street repair. What do you think? when it was formed. That afternoon I asked Finally, we have spent a few hundred WKHFLW\VWDIILIWKH\FRXOG¿QGZKRZDVRQ WKLVVRFDOOHGFRPPLWWHH7KH\FRXOGQRW¿QG thousand dollars on Portland consultants for things that never happened. How about any record of who was on this committee. ,IWKLVLVQRWDQRI¿FLDOFRPPLWWHHKRZFDQ spending a little money on a consultant from Eastern Oregon on how to cut city spending? it recommend anything to the city council? Rex J. Morehouse But this happened at the July 7 meeting under Pendleton the names of Bob Paterson and Robb Corbett. LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned let- ters will not be published. Send letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
