Wednesday, June 13, 2012

The Aunt Adele's Medicine Story (Long)


                                                                    The Aunt Adele’s Medicine Story (Long)

                                 A true story regarding my aunt Adele that took place in the late 1990’s
                                                      Written 2015 and rewritten 01/28/2019
                                                                            Howard Yasgar

      My aunt Adele was one of the sweetest people you could ever want to meet.
      Aunt Adele was one of three sisters, with my mother being the oldest, and my aunt Lillian being the youngest. Adele was the middle sister.
      Adele married a Merchant Seaman named Jim Nelson, and in 1940 they had a son they named Allen. Allen was about a year younger than I was,
      As I was growing up in New Haven Connecticut, I would see my aunt Adele (Allen’s Mom) quite often, and our conversations were always quite normal, as any conversation would be  between a young boy and his aunt.
     As the years passed, by 1964, I had married and moved Florida.
     My father had passed away in 1961.
     By 1963, my mom Betty had leased a small 24 room hotel located on Collins Avenue on Miami Beach.
     My mother had a lot of fun running  the hotel for two years, so by 1965 she decided to give up the hotel business. However she still wanted to remain on Miami Beach.
     By that time this happened, Adel’s husband Jimmy had passed away and so had her younger sister r Lillian’s husband Norman.  
    So now, all three widowed sisters, moved into a condo together on Miami Beach.
    Because I lived only an hour away, I was able to see them whenever I could.
    By the mid 1990’s, my Aunt Lillian (the youngest Sister) had moved back up to Connecticut  and my mother and my Aunt Adele each had rented their own rooms in the Cadillac Hotel also on Miami Beach.  My mother met a dance instructor, and kept herself busy doing exhibition dancing with him.
    My Aunt Adele met a retired electrician from New York City named Al.
    Eventually my Aunt Adele moved in with Al, living in the Casa Blanca Hotel, but later they moved to
A room at the Sherry Frontenac hotel on Miami Beach.
    Whenever I visited her, aunt Adele appeared to be happy living with Al. I found Al to be a very nice  retired as an electrician from the New York.
    Now whenever My Wife and I visited them,  I began to notice that my Aunt Adele’s conversational ability was declining.
    Any time I spoke with her our conversation was down to only a few words,  I would say, Hello Auntie Adele, and she would always reply “Hello Dear”, then I would say, how are you?  Adele would reply “Fine dear”, and that was pretty much the extent of the conversation.
    While all this was happening, Adele’s son Allen, had received a doctorate degree, and had gone on to teaching. He eventually taught at the University of Colorado, where he met and married his wife Diana and they built a solar home the Colorado mountains.
    It was around 1983 when my Cousin Allen and his wife Diana, started sailing, Allen’s intentions were to eventually buy a larger sailing vessel to cruise the Caribbean, which he did.
    As Allen and Diana sailed the Caribbean, they would always stop at our place in Miami and stay with us before returning  to Colorado.
     So usually when  Allen and Diana stayed with us, we all would go to visit Allen’s mom, my aunt Adele.
     One evening, while we were all visiting with Adele,  we couldn’t help but notice all the medicine bottles she had on her night stand, there were at least thirty prescription pill bottles there.
     Allen had also noticed all the pill bottles and he started looking at them.
     Allen said, “Mom, what are all these medications you are taking?” Adele replied, “I don’t know dear,
She had been taking some of them forever.  
    It appears that over the past forty years her various Medicare and Medicaid doctors had prescribed medications for maladies she had at the time.
    Allen picked up a few bottles and started to read them, then he asked  “Which doctor prescribed this?” again Adele said “I don’t know dear “, so Allen read the doctor’s name on the bottle, he was from New Haven Connecticut, and Adele, hadn’t been back to New Haven in many years, but she was still taking the prescription.
    On their very next return from the Caribbean,  Allen made a complete list of Adele’s medications, and he made an appointment to see Adele’s Medicare doctor.
    At the meeting, Allen asked the doctor, “Doctor, I would like to know what all these medications are for”. The doctor looked at Allen, and said “And Who are you”?  
    Allen replied, “I am your patient’s son, and I would like to know what all these medications my mother is taking are for, it appears that she has been taking some of the prescriptions for years”.
    The Medicare doctor was irritated with Allen’s question, and asked “Are you a doctor?”
    Allen detecting that the doctor was getting slightly belligerent, so saw his chance of irritating the doctor even a little more and he said, “Yes as a matter of fact I am a doctor, and he wasn’t lying, Allen did have a doctorate degree.
    The doctor replied, “But you are not a medical doctor?” “No”, Allen replied, so the doctor said leave the list with me.   
    Allen left the doctors office leaving his  list, but as he expected, that was the last he ever heard from the Medicare doctor.
    A few months later, when Allen and Diana were back in Miami, Allen took each of Adele’s medications and then he researched it on the internet.
    Just as he suspected, most of the oldest medications were for illnesses his mother Adele, no longer had.
     You can guess what came next, Allen had eliminated about eighty percent of all the old medications that he felt Adele  longer needed.
     After several months had passed, My Aunt Adele had minor surgery and was in a convalescent home for a few days before returning to her condo on Miami Beach.
     Allen and Diana were staying with us so we all decided to go visit Adele at the convalescent home.
     Adele had now been off all her old medication for several months.
     We all met in the convalescent homes dining room.
     We were astounded, Adele, talked to us about everything going on including current world events.
     There was no question that because of  my Cousin Allen’s diligence, his mother, my Aunt Adele, now had complete mental clarity for the rest of her life.                                               




        

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