Growing Old
April 7th, 2006While working with my best friend and partner one night, we were dispatched to a small farm house in the country. The owner was a middle aged lady, and was calling to report a confused old man at her house. Since the man did not pose any danger to the woman, they sent an ambulance to check out the situation.
Upon our arrival, we found a man to be about 70-80 years old sitting on the front porch. As we approached the man, the scared resident of the home stepped outside, and told use the man had been found in her living room sitting in a recliner watching television.
The man was a small framed man, and obviously didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He was simply confused and thought he was at his own home.
Trying to convince the man became a bit of a problem. Obviously we didn’t want to get him very upset, and he really did think he was at his home. No matter what we did, he would just clutch his cigar box and tell us he was home and we should leave.
Eventually we convinced the man to get into our ambulance and to allow us to check him out. Once inside, we tried to find some identification, but he had none. As I mentioned earlier, he was holding a cigar box. He was reluctant to open it for us, but he did after we begged him long enough. We were hoping he had his ID inside. What we found was much more than just ID.
The box contained his expired driver’s license, along with about 15,000 in cash. This man appeared to be carrying his life savings with him, and he was lost.
After a couple of hours, an officer found the man’s car parked on a back country road about 3 miles away. The man must have walked from there after he ran out of gas. Why he chose this house is about to be discovered.
Shortly after finding the man’s car, the police were able to track down the man’s wife. She lived about 75 miles away, and had been searching for her husband all day. When told where she could pick him up, she informed the officer that the man had indeed gone home. This old farm house in the country had been the couple’s home for 50 years, and only moved to “The big city” about 5 years ago, so they could be close to their children.
We took the old man to the hospital, and there we met up with his wife. The ER doc had determined that the man had suffered a mild stroke, and it resulted in memory loss. This old man had forgotten the last 25 years of his life, and truly thought he had gone to work and back home.
All of us will eventually require a little help. Some of us will grow old and maybe even become confused enough in our old age to forget who we are. I truly think that a person should live there lives NOW. After spending so many years in medicine I have learned that nothing in life is guaranteed. We may grow old gracefully and watch our grandkids grow up, or we may never see retirement or even worse, we may become confused of our surroundings and simply forget all of our history. Live you life now, and enjoy what you have. You just never know.
