home alone

There was a wound on the top of my head, the result of an excision of a growth. First it needed a big bandage, then a band-aid, but I couldn’t see the wound or exactly where to place the band-aid since it was all the way at the top, near the back. The mirror didn’t help. Still couldn’t see it.

So, my wife — or as she’s known in the family, Dr. Mom — cleaned the wound, which I couldn’t reach, applied the ointment to where I couldn’t see and put on the bandage, then later the band-aid. Did that day after day, until the wound healed.

How, I wonder, would this work if I were alone? How would I be able to do it?

The revelation reminded me of what happened a couple of years ago. I was in the hospital and the man in the next bed was scheduled for multiple coronary bypass surgery the next morning. The medical team had gathered at the foot of his bed to talk to him about it. I couldn’t see them but I could hear the conversation.

There was no one in the room with the man to ask the medical team pertinent questions he had forgotten to ask about the impending complicated procedure or what would come after. No one with him to take notes, to synthesize the information or to precisely recall the instructions he was given. He was alone, no spouse or partner, no children or friend, to help him out. No one there, most of all, for essential emotional support at an emotional moment.

And I wondered, how would this work if I were alone?

At that moment, I was one bed over, and my wife was there to provide the emotional support and to ask the questions I didn’t think of asking. My daughter was there taking notes, writing everything down in remarkably clear handwriting. My son was taking turns walking me down the hospital corridors.

How, I wondered, would all this work if I were alone?

It’s a question many of us are increasingly facing. According to the latest U.S. census data, more than a third of Americans over the age of 70 live alone. Twenty-two percent of American men over the age of 65 live alone; 33 percent of American women over that age live alone. Past the age of 75, it’s 23 percent of men and a whopping 42 percent of women who live alone.

That doesn’t mean, of course, they are completely alone — that if they are, say, in the hospital or at the urgent care or need a wound repeatedly bandaged, they will necessarily be by themselves. Relatives might be around, friends and neighbors, too. Help could be nearby, especially when acutely needed. And for those of us who can afford it, there’s the possibility of hiring caregivers.

But the odds of finding ourselves alone while dealing with even the simple kind of health issues or related, sometimes mundane daily living issues, like helping to get a shirt up over a thick bandage, obviously greatly increase with age. And when they do, equally obviously, we find a way to deal with them. We have to. As I guess I would have, with the bandage — probably. Maybe. Hopefully.

But boy, it’s a lot easier when Dr. Mom — or somebody competently filling that role — is around.