By Linda Singer
Last year I went through a life-defining experience that changed my world and my view of the local health care systems on Cape Cod. My 85-year-old mother, Mollie, fell while visiting the Truro home where I stay when I’m on the Outer Cape, shattering her hip and shoulder. The shock of seeing her lying on the bathroom floor at 3 a.m., dazed and bleeding, was almost more than I could bear. “She is going to die,” I thought.
The medical community on Cape Cod, however, made sure these fears would never be realized. The caring started with the EMTs who answered the emergency call, gently tended to my mother and whisked her away to Cape Cod Hospital (CCH). It continued with the doctors who performed the surgery to mend her broken bones and with the hospital staff who watched over her in the following critical days.
As my mother began to recover, a non-medical crisis arose. She needed rehabilitation to get back on her feet, but lacked the financial resources and insurance to pay for it. She could no longer stay in the hospital, yet she was too frail to make the six-hour journey home to Montreal and Canada’s universal health care coverage.
Nurse Case Manager Lynne Scannevin at CCH reassured me that something would work out and she arranged with the Associate Executive Director at Liberty Commons in Chatham, Jerilyn Lemont, about transferring my mother there. The lack of adequate insurance remained a critical issue, but then, I had a brainstorm. I am an artist and I offered to paint at mural at the center and also teach some art classes as partial payment.
While Mom was settling in, I discussed various options for the mural with the nursing home directors. They agreed that I could paint the bare walls of the hallway that leads to the rehabilitation wing so patients could be inspired by the colorful and healing images.
Meanwhile, although some skeptics insisted my mother was too old and her injuries too severe for her to ever walk again, the staff at Liberty Commons never gave up. They continued her treatments as if she was a full-paying patient even though the chosen walls remained bare as I struggled to come up with a concept for my mural.
Finally I came up with inspirational images during the bleak, gray November. I went out, took photographs, and started poring over art books until the vision of the mural emerged in my mind. I was exhilarated to begin. I painted all day, everyday, five days a week as my mother and the other patients, many of whom made suggestions, looked on.
Everyone seemed to be enjoying—and benefiting from—the process and their encouragement in turn kept me going. The evolution of the large mural—floor to ceiling, some 35 feet long on both sides—with its multiple Cape and Chatham scenes covering all seasons coincided with my mother’s improvement. It turned out to be quite a bonding experience for us as well during the weeks it took to complete the work.
Mom celebrated her 86th birthday at the center with a big party that also served as an unofficial unveiling surrounded by her many new friends. We had the biggest Thanksgiving ever as we had so much to be thankful for.
Mom is back in her apartment in a senior complex and living on her own now. She dresses herself, participates in activities and walks everywhere. That she is walking again is a testament to the staff at both Cape Cod Hospital and Liberty Commons who gave new hope to a stranger from another country who might never have recovered without them.