Frozen Grief

By Roger H. Panzer

Inside cover
When a persons life ends; there is a grieving process for family and friends. The closer your relationship is to the person the longer the grieving. The grieving of your loss doesnt go on forever and the person is not forgotten. From time to time memories of past events will come back. Those memories for the most part are good for you.

In my case I am still grieving the loss of my wife. My wife is alive but her life is a long way away from what she or I would want it to be or thought we would have. She is not able to do the many things a grandma would do for her grandchildren. She is not able to do many things for herself, plus, she cant live in her own house with me.

Life sucks sometimes. Many people have a tragedy happen in their lives. For me, in my situation, what could I do? I only had two choices. I could stay and deal with the problems and frustrations of being a husband/caregiver or I could leave. I chose to stay!

What choice did I have really? My wife needed me and I needed to honor and fulfill those marriage vows I took so long ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469165066

Roger H. Panzer

My K-12 grade school years were spent in St. James, MN. After graduating from high school I attended an Automotive Repair program in Mankato, MN. A year after graduating from the automotive repair program I took a job in Albert Lea. I worked for the local Ford/Lincoln Mercury dealer for twenty-one years. An opportunity to teach automotive repair at the local vocational school presented itself. I had done some teaching before but only Sunday school for our church. I was also involved in Boy Scouts. I was a Cub Scout master and a Webelos leader. We had three boys who became Eagle Scouts. My wife thought I would be good at teaching and she encouraged me to apply for the teaching job and I received it. I had a good job repairing Ford/Lincoln Mercury vehicles, but felt a call to teach. I enjoyed my twenty years of teaching Automotive Service Technology at Riverland Community College. I helped promote the program to become NATEF certified and the program received national recognition from the Automotive Industry Planning Council. As of now I have retired from that teaching position and enjoy spending time with my family.

Book preview

Frozen Grief

A memoir by

Roger Panzer

a husband and caregiver

Copyright © 2012 by Roger H. Panzer.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012902658

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4691-6505-9

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4691-6504-2

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-6506-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Acknowledgements

In the time frame of this memoir there were many people that sent cards and came to see Sylvia while she was in the hospital or during her stay at each of the nursing homes. I haven’t mentioned all of them by name in this memoir, but thanks for the visits.

Many church members brought meals to our house when I had Sylvia at home. Thanks.

Donna Bailey, I couldn’t have completed this memoir without your help. Your willingness to proof read; fix the grammar; and the punctuation. Wow! Thank You.

Kathy Reim, Sylvia and I looked forward to your Wednesday visits. You gave me the encouragement to write this memoir. Thank You.

Sylvia and I interacted with many people throughout the 36 month time period that this memoir is written about. Thank You to all of you who were so good to Sylvia and me.

Especially thanks to my children, my son in law, my grandchildren, and Sylvia’s mother and brother. All of them kept me strong. Family; what is life without them.

My family in 2004:

Sylvia; stroke victim and my wife of Roger.

Jon    First child of Sylvia and Roger

Julie    Second child of Sylvia and Roger

Chad    Husband of Julie

Maddison   Daughter

Ethan   Son

Jeff   Third child Sylvia and Roger

Jason   Fourth child of Sylvia and Roger

Chapter One

Life is good

It is spring 2011; at this point in my life I am thankful for each day I have. I am thankful for my wife, my children, my grandchildren, and my health. I rely on my religious faith to help me through the troubled times.

Sylvia attended a Cosmetology School in Mankato, MN and I attended an Automotive Repair school in Mankato. We had mutual friends who brought us together on a blind date. In the late 90’s life is good for Sylvia and me. I had a good job teaching Automotive Service Technology at Riverland Community College. Before I started teaching in 1987 I worked as a mechanic for 21 years at the Ford/Lincoln Mercury dealership in Albert Lea, MN. Sylvia started out her life working as a beautician. She worked for various places in Albert Lea. With raising four children she worked part-time. At the end of 90’s she was working at Wendy’s and not doing any hair styling. We seemed to have life made, so to speak.

Our children seemed to be doing okay also. Our oldest son worked for a PBS TV station in Appleton, MN; our daughter worked in Bloomington, MN; and our two youngest sons worked in a factory in Lake Mills, IA. In 1993 our daughter married and a few years later she and her husband had a daughter; in 2000 they had a son. It was after our first grandchild was born that I realized how much grandchildren improved our lives. Christmases, birthdays, and holidays took on a different meaning. Having a grandchild was different than having our own children. It is hard to explain but there is a different relationship between a grandparent and grandchild than there is with parent/child relationship. We love the grandchildren but not more than our children; the grandchildren are miniatures of our children. They have similar looks and mannerism of the parents when they were small.

In 1998 our whole family started spending one week together camping and boating. Our oldest son Jon had a boat and the kids would go tubing and water skiing. We went to a lake in northern MN and camped. I remember the first time Julie and Chad came. Chad had never really done any camping before. They drove from Omaha, NE to Alexandria, MN. It was a long drive and Chad almost backed out of coming. But after the week was over he enjoyed it. Now the week of camping together has became a yearly tradition for all of us. Chad and Julie have their own camper now and take their children camping as much as they can during the summer. It is a good family thing to do.

I remember Y2K and how the beginning of the year 2000 was to bring all kinds of turmoil into our lives; computers would fail to function properly and all kinds of problems would occur. Sylvia and I spent New Year’s Eve 1999 with our daughter and son in law playing cards and watching TV. We watched as the ball dropped at Times Square; the year 2000 came and we all survived; now eleven years have gone by.

In the 90’s Sylvia and I took several trips together. We flew to Dallas, TX to attend the wedding of our son-in-law Chad’s sister; before coming home we spent time in Dallas. We saw the place where John F Kennedy was shot and drove out to South Fork where the weekly TV series Dallas was filmed. We traveled to Atlanta, GA to see friends; Missouri to see relatives; Tennessee to see relatives and stopped at Nashville; we stopped in St. Louis to see the Gateway Arch. We spent time with our children at their homes. When possible we pulled a camper and camped at various places. Life was good.

Early in the spring 2001 Sylvia and I decided to take a trip out east. We traveled along the west side of Lake Michigan toward St. Ignace, Michigan. We camped there a few days and went to Mackinac Island for a day. The next day we drove to Sault Ste Marie and watched a ship go through the locks. After leaving St. Ignace we drove through part of Canada and stopped at Niagara Falls.

In New York State close to Rochester, New York, Sylvia got ill and we had to go to a hospital ER to see what was wrong. It was minor; as I remember it had something to do with her breathing. She was released and we continued on our way to Watkins Glen, NY. At Watkins Glen we camped in Watkins Glen State Park and walked in Watkins Glen. From Watkins Glen we continued on through Vermont and New Hampshire to Bar Harbor Maine. At Bar Harbor we camped on the ocean front; it was a neat experience seeing the tide come in and go out. We drove around Acadia National Park. At Bar Harbor we ate live lobster at an open air restaurant. From Maine we drove to Massachusetts and camped outside of Boston. We took a train into Boston and got off at Boston Commons; we saw Old Ironsides, Paul Revere’s home, and many other historic sites. We went to Plymouth Rock; it wasn’t as neat as we thought it would be. On our drive to the point of Cape Cod, Sylvia wasn’t feeling well and slept most of the way out to the point. We went on to Philadelphia where we saw more historic sites and met our son Jon. He was attending a PBS conference there. We found an Italian restaurant in Philadelphia; they served some great food. From Philadelphia we went home stopping at different places along the way. We stopped in Illinois to see my mother and my brother and his family.

Pic-1.jpgPic-1_A.jpg

Our family in 2001

In July of 2001 our whole family attended the Panzer family reunion in St. James, MN. In early August we camped in a Dakota County campground (Lebanon Hills) with our children and grandchildren; we went swimming with the grandkids in the pool of the apartment Julie and Chad lived in.

In August of 2001 Sylvia’s illness that she had would get worse and because of that illness her life and the lives of her family would change drastically.

This journey that I have been on for these last ten years has made me tired and weary; on some days I feel my strength weakening. I am envious of other people and the freedoms they seem to have even though I really don’t know what restrictions those other people may have on their freedoms.

Chapter Two

In Sickness & In Health

When Sylvia and I were married; we used the traditional marriage vows; they read something like this:

Do you Sylvia/Roger take Sylvia/Roger to be your wife/husband to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love her/him, comfort her/him, honor and keep her/him, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, to cherish and continually bestow upon her/him your heart’s deepest devotion, forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto her/him as long as you both shall live?

Sylvia and I said those marriage vows. I don’t think we really thought about what the words said; especially the words: sickness, poorer, worse, and sadness. I think we were caught up in the excitement of the moment; I think we felt like we were invincible. Most couples take the marriage vows seriously and stay married their whole life so later on when some tragedy strikes they will honor those words and care for a spouse who is ill, whatever that illness may be.

We live close to Rochester, MN. It is only an hour drive for us. So we have been to the Mayo Clinic many times; once in 1979 when our five year old son’s foot was run over at a drive in Movie Theater. We spent a lot of time there with him. Sylvia also has been to Rochester and the Mayo Clinic many times before August 2001. She had Graves’s disease and she received regular check-ups for that plus she had her lungs checked and also had a heart condition. In August of 2001 Sylvia became ill and as a result of that illness there would be major change in her life. My life and the lives of our children, grandchildren, and other family members would change as a result of the illness as well. The change to Sylvia didn’t happen all at once like it sometimes does to other people; it progressed over a period of twelve days. In the beginning; there were times when I had hope. I hoped Sylvia and I would be able to get back to a normal life; but; normal would take on a different meaning.

I began keeping a journal shortly after my wife had her surgery in August 2001 with the hope that she would be able to read it and understand what it was like for the rest of her family during this trying time. It is now 2011 and looking back I didn’t realize I would still be writing about the intimate and not so intimate details of our life as they happen from day to day. As I wrote, many of my feelings show, I may have been depressed, cheerful, hopeful, sad, happy, angry, or upset. The emotions may have been caused by a situation or a particular person, or I was just plain lonely.

I have thought a lot about writing this story; how to organize it, who would read it, what people would think, how I should start, how our lives would not be private anymore. Writing this memoir is constantly on my mind; it seems to possess all my thoughts as I am thinking about writing about my wife and me. A lot of times I look back and remember how good it was, when I should really be concentrating on how good I have it now compared to what it could be. Today is all I have, nothing less nothing more; yesterday is gone and tomorrow isn’t here. So that is what I am going to do, get it all down on paper. There will always be some event that I could add, but those events can go into my journal.

Lots of events in our lives seem to have no end at the time they are occurring. Some examples that I can think of are: Tornadoes, the oil spill in the gulf in 2010, when you are out of a job and looking for a new one and they are hard to find, waiting for the birth of your first child or grandchild, anticipating a wedding day, waiting for someone to come back to the hospital recovery room after surgery. Sometimes this waiting for some event to happen occurs faster for one person than another. Like a child waiting to go to a birthday party and the parent realizing the party day is here already and a present wasn’t bought. Then there is having a stroke; some people gain almost all their functions back, some never survive, some only regain a small portion of their functions. The affects of the stroke never go away no matter how long you wait.

These have been extremely difficult times with some really good times as well. My Missouri Synod Lutheran faith has helped me through all this. There have been many ups and downs; my faith has been tested many times and I feel it has survived. I know when this all started I had better expectations of what the final results would be, but God has a plan for us and this is one plan that I need to live with.

I have changed in many ways since my wife had her heart surgery and stroke. At first I had a big chip on my shoulder and it showed in how I treated my children and other people. I felt that I was the only person in the world with problems. As I think about my personality, a couple of things come to my mind lately that describes it; one is related to an old TV show I Led Three Lives and the other is a book written in 1886 made into a movie in 1931 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I Led Three Lives was aired on TV from 1953-1956. It was about Herbert A. Philbrick a person who leads three lives; by day he was an advertising executive in Boston and by night he was an undercover agent for the FBI and a counter spy during the anti-communist cold war years.

In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Dr. Jekyll has a split personality; he is a normal person who is good for the most part. I said normal, not perfect but; he has another personality, Mr. Hyde, who is a rather evil person.

I am not unlike like Herbert A. Philbrick; I lead three lives. I am myself, Roger Panzer a normal person, similar to Philbrick and Dr. Jekyll. I do things for myself just like I would if Sylvia still lived at home; I meet friends; I attend church meetings; and I go to choir practice. The other person I have to be is my wife Sylvia Panzer, a grandmother and mother. I have to do some of the things she would do if she could, sending out greeting cards and thank you notes, buying gifts, keeping the house clean, cooking for family events like this last Easter (2011), and other duties that she would normally perform. As I thought about who the third person would be like in Herbert Philbrick’s life, I thought that other personality might be similar to Mr. Hyde. I am not as evil as Mr. Hyde was but there are times that I am not a nice person. Let me explain:

At the beginning when this all started there were times when I was not a very nice. I wasn’t always the nicest to the nursing home staff in accessing the care I thought that Sylvia needed or was lacking in getting. I felt that Sylvia and I should be a priority when compared to other patients. I complained about Good Samaritan employees when things didn’t go the way I thought they should. Sometimes it was about simple things that could have been taken care of very easy, like the various glasses of water setting around Sylvia’s room or Sylvia’s clothes not hung up properly. I thought the aids or nurses could at least take care of this. Other times it was not as simple, like when the call light was not answered in over thirty minutes or forgetting to take Sylvia to eat after her insulin shot was given. Sometimes she waited over thirty minutes to go to eat. These things that didn’t get done were important to me. It is hard to decide which battle is most important to fight.

It took me awhile, but I have learned that the life Sylvia and I have is not other people’s problem. They, the medical staff are there to help, but can’t carry my burden. In all this I have not lost sight of my job as husband/caregiver and advocate for my wife. I will speak up when I need to.

I haven’t always been nice to my children either; I was very demanding of them. I thought my children should do more for their mother and I told them so. I recall one time when our children were in the eating area of Good Samaritan with Sylvia and me. I think it was shortly after Sylvia was admitted to Good Samaritan in the early part of 2002. I guess I was just angry with the world. I told Julie that she should be around more; that I could use her help and her mother wanted to spend more time with her. Chad jumped to her defense and even seemed a little angry with me. He was just protecting his wife which is something I would want him to do.

I thought my daughter should help her mother more than she was doing even though she had two young children that needed her to care for them. At that time my three boys were single and could give more time. But even they could only give so much; they had jobs to go to. The main responsibility for being a caregiver was only mine. I had expectations of my children, and other people for that matter, that could not be fulfilled. From it all I have come to appreciate my children more than I ever used to. I even appreciate the employees at Good Samaritan.

It took awhile but I finally realized that all people have problems, some of them are pretty bad and others not so bad. Many times those problems aren’t viewable to the public but they are there. Sylvia’s problems are obvious; she has to be in a wheelchair all the time and when she eats she spills her food and must wear a clothing protector. Other people may have an illness that doesn’t show; like cancer. Usually people don’t want to take these problems out and show everybody. It is a personal thing.

But through all this I have learned to treat my children better. I try not to interfere with their lives. I may not always approve of what they do, but it is not for me to decide how they should live their lives. I try to treat my children with the respect they deserve. I am not as vocal as I used to be with the nursing home staff. That doesn’t mean that I quit being an advocate for my wife. I still get my point across about how I think her care is lacking without being extremely vocal about it. I also give compliments where I think they are needed. I am not perfect, just frustrated with my life.

So I ask myself How can my wife be fortunate when she had a severe brain injury? I guess her good fortune lies in the fact that she can see, talk, feel pain, (yes that is a good thing) reason (that’s another good thing), and feed herself. She has a very supporting family that tries to make her life as normal as it can be.

In all this turmoil I have dealt with the other so called normal things in my life as well; working until retirement on May/2009, taking care of a house, plus others. It was very hard for me to accept help from church people, friends and neighbors; I thought I could do everything myself; I was wrong.

Even though I am married and my spouse does not