Birthday in the hospital

5 years ago, we celebrated Mamig's 90th birthday.

This August, we celebrated her 95th birthday, in an hospital.

Mamig has been living alone since grandpa passed away more than 10 years ago.

She was someone very independent, enjoyed fine cuisine, easy going.

She went to US to visit us when she was 82, and hiked the Jura montain with us at 89 year old.

But she is getting old.

She doesn't sleep well anymore during the nights.

Her skin becomes sensitive, at one point if she bumped into something/someone, she bled.

She has to abandon her daily walk around the beach, as she needs clutches now.

Most importantly, she has partially lost her memory. She couldn't remember if she has eaten, or someone came to see her, or what happened a few minutes ago.

Her doctor declared that she was not capable of living alone anymore, and instructed her to go to the hospital. After hospital, she would have to stay around one month in a recovery center, while trying to place her in an old folk's home. She was not keen with the idea, she wanted to go back to her house.

Mamig has 4 children, one passed away at young age, and the other three are all retired.

In some Asian countries, she would stay with one of the kids, or they take turn, or they hire a maid to take care of her.

Things are done differently in France. They are more in the "Pay it forward" method, it is not a norm that children take in old age parents with them. Everyone has their own life, parents do not want to squat or disturb their children either.

So, it lays two solutions:

She goes back to her house, and hires a nurse and house assistant as she shouldn't stay alone.

She goes to an old folk's home.

My in laws have checked out the two solutions, and discovered that hiring a domestic helper would cost her 300€/day. Someone told me that her coworker hired one, costed her 6000€/month, and this coworker had to fill the gap when the helper was on vacation, and still needed to do some house chores. Labor cost is expensive in France, if you add all the charges you have to pay to the government. In Malaysia, some families hired Indonesian helpers, they probably cost RM1000/month, around 300€/month. As for the old folk's home, it would cost 2000€ to 3000€/month, depending on the location.

At the meantime, Mamig's health improved in the hospital, and another doctor declared that she could eventually go back to her house, with condition that she has someone to take care of her. In the past, she refused to have nurses, helpers but now she has no choice. She would have to accept that a nurse passes by everyday to make sure she takes her medicines, then she has to pay a service that would send people to buy her groceries, do her housework and cook for her. These people would come and go, unlike the domestic helper who would stay the whole day with her.

Celebrating her birthday in the hospital. She was shocked and upset that she could only drink so little champagne. She enjoyed wine and champagne very much, but for her health, she would have to cut it.

Finally happy after we poured a little more champagne into her glass. The hospital food was awful, we had to force her to eat some.

We asked ourselves what could we do for Mamig. Since she was a good cook and enjoyed good food, hubby decided to bake her a cake.

Gâteau Nantais, a cake from Nantes, with the surface covered with rum and sugar mixture. Since Mamig loves rum, she loved it. Hubby also cut the cake into several small pieces, wrapped them with plastic so that she would eat one per meal.

After the hospital visit, we agreed that we would meet again, soon, in her house. Mamig, get well soon.