Loss
I got a text from the ENT pianist on Monday morning to tell me that a long-time member of our amateur musician group, a soprano who works in higher education, had passed away.
It was a surprise. She was only a few years older than me (though I’d always thought she was a few years younger till I read her obituary), so I was in shock. She didn’t perform with us as often as she used to - last time she sang at the amateur musician group was 3 years ago - but she often volunteered at the Treasurer’s concerts, so I would see her from time to time. I think the last time I saw her was 2 years ago at a Bastille day salon organised by the Treasurer, and I accompanied her singing Poulenc.
She was kind, and warm, but also reserved, carrying herself with a quiet dignity and strength. She had lost her father and got her doctorate in the same year, and I didn’t know about it until a year later.
As the digital director of the amateur musician group, it fell on me to announce her passing to the group. And it was time-sensitive too - her memorial service was the next morning, so I had to get it out before long. It was the hardest communique I had to write, in addition to it being a busy day at work and me still processing the news. But afterwards, many members - mostly old-timers who knew her - wrote to express their condolences and remembered her, so at least that was nice.
I noticed on the live-stream of her memorial service the next day that someone from our group attended virtually, so at least it was for something.
- S
Almost Loss
Last month I got a text from the Treasurer that the Japanese pianist I am playing 8-hands march in the holiday concert with was in the hospital. She had ketoacidosis. The Treasurer contacted her friends and organised a schedule to visit her in the hospital (of course she did) but turned out that wasn’t necessary - the pianist was too weak to receive guests anyway. At least her husband was with her so we know she is being taken care of.
After a few days in the ICU and a few days in inpatient care, she was released home, but still too tired to see people, but I got to visit her a week later. She seemed well then, but her experience was scary - it was the day she was due to leave for Japan to see her mother, she felt lightheaded, and fell unconscious. Her husband knew she was packing for the flight, so when she didn’t answer his text or his calls, he came home from work early, and found her unconscious on the floor. They got her to the hospital then.
She realized how lucky she was - if this had happened while she was on a flight, or in Japan, or if her husband had come back a few hours later, she may not have gotten the medical care in time. An acute ketoacidosis could have killed her.
Her guess was that she just switched to a new diabetes medication, and the dosage wasn’t adjusted right, so hopefully from now on she will keep a keen eye on her blood sugar levels.
She was very philosophical about the whole thing though - she said it made her realize what is important (her friends, her husband, her music), and helped her focus on those.
All this to remind us how fragile we are.
- N
Plan for the long term
I’m at La Professeure’s childhood home now for Thanksgiving. She had warned me about her father’s dementia status, so I was prepared. But while he is noticeably doing worse than before, it didn’t strike me as bad as she made it seem.
He definitely cannot live independently - he wouldn’t know what he’s supposed to do from one moment to the next, but his short-term memory is still intact, while medium and long term memory is highly unreliable. It’s not that he doesn’t remember anything, but the chance of him recalling stuff is random - he asked whether today was Thanksgiving multiple times, but can whistle a TV theme song that we didn’t know. But he has no trouble recognising us.
At least now La Professeure’s mom is considering looking into assisted living facilities designed for memory patients. I’m a bit torn about that; right now he can manage without a dedicated medical team - just his wife and home aide should be manageable, but there is little doubt he’ll need to go to a dedicated facility eventually, and when that happens he will be less equipped to deal with the change, and that can worsen the symptoms for him at that point. On the other hand he is still happy and enjoys time with us and the rabbit, and we don’t know what the change in environment will do.
None of these decisions are easy. At this point we are still gathering information - figuring out which home aides and assisted living communities availability and cost, how much their term life insurance will pay out,
But eventually they’ll have to make the difficult decisions.
- D
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