Rick Boettger

The Ecstasy and the Agony

I have traveled to strange and wondrous foreign lands and return to you with tales of glory and horror. We should be inspired by the luxuriously undefiled reefs of Indonesia’s Raja Ampat archipelago and the politically protected beauty of Hawaii’s natural wonders to save what’s left of our own marine heritage in the Keys. We might learn from the horror of my paralyzed Goddaughter’s care giving in her final months of life what we must do to keep Bayshore Manor open to our own dying seniors. October was the most dramatic month of my life, and I hope you find the sense I had knocked into me to be worth sharing with you.

We went to Raja Ampat to see what scientists deem the best coral and fish life in the world. I agree. Words cannot express what photos show on the web and in my wife Cynthia’s planned articles for Solares Hill, but I’ll try two quick verbal snapshots. From one spot I saw four shades of purple coral and three shades of blue. Elsewhere, a ten-by-ten foot square of anemone held over 100 clown fish of the Finding Nemo variety, which I had read were threatened by fish collectors after the success of the movie. We experienced this from a rustic Indonesian-style schooner carrying eight passengers and seven crew sharing three heads.

While all of us were scuba-certified, we only snorkeled. There was no need even to free-dive to look under coral heads (or “bommies,” as they’re called in the Pacific), because so much variety was visible from the surface that our energy was better used swimming on top.

While we fear and witness the death of our own reefs and read of their decline worldwide, in Raja Ampat I saw what may be the richest coral life in the history of reefs. Viewing acre after acre of unbroken staghorn mixed with literally hundreds of other corals, covering every square foot at reef after reef, following hundreds of species of fish like Picasso triggers, Moorish Idols, and five kinds of angels as glorious as our Queen, I felt no reef could ever had been better. Paradise has survived. You can go there yourself.

But you probably won’t. And that is what has saved Paradise. Raja Ampat is remote even from the rest of Indonesia. Flying there is hell, and I will never travel that far again, even in First Class. The limestone islands are green but without enough soil to grow food, so no one lives there. The small population that lives primitively on the fish has thus far not bombed and poisoned much, and are now bribed and monitored by international conservation groups to be good. I had an epiphany at Wayag, our furthest reach, on a wide beach of clear shallow water, surrounded by six greencovered limestone peaks soaring hundreds of feet straight up, with lush reefs a hundred feet away, always sunny and warm, with no mosquitoes or noseeums. I thought, it is NOT RIGHT that so few humans get to experience this stunning place, I cannot be so greedily elite, I must figure out how to put a perfect Eco Resort right here where I am standing to share this paradise with the world.

Then I stopped hyperventilating and thought it through. The most pristine green/sustainable/ recycling/renewable- energy human habitation brings with it—humans. And we mess up things. Even if all the guests were eco-saints, the locals staffing it would inevitably wreak the havoc that would degrade it. Only because we were so few could Wayag be the perfect place it is. Humans poop and kill things. I love people, being one myself, but we are hard on our environments.

For Wayag to be what it is, it must be like the tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it: it makes a sound, just as Wayag, remote, unvisited, is indeed a pristine paradise without our being there to see it.

Maui and Kauai are right next door compared to Raja Ampat. We spent a pointedly non-rustic Ritz Carlton-type of week to recover from our wilderness adventure, generously doing our part to stimulate the economy. Hawaii has saved its reef life. At a busy free beach in Kapalua, Maui, I waded in and saw a dozen wedge triggers, puffers, pipe fish, and angels.

The beaches are open, with free parking. Reserves dot the shore, but spearfishing is allowed elsewhere. They have built and are building more wind farms. Government buildings run on solar cells. They are about five years ahead of us in going Green. They have elaborate rules to allocate affordable housing for locals. Facing many of the same expensive-resort challenges that the Keys have failed, they have succeeded. The inspiration is that our own paradise can be saved.

Simply leaving parts of it alone, with sanctuaries and restricted access, can let us enjoy our reefs without destroying them. And we must not give up on our political discourse. Why would Maui be smarter than us? Our City Commission has not only gone Green in a big way, they have a fresh competence we can hope for from our new County Commission as well. Florida Keys, Yes We Can!, to coin a phrase.

From the ecstasy of Raja Ampat and Hawaii we went to Jenny’s paralysis-bed. Jenny I wrote about as Fallen Angel, my 14-year-old Goddaughter afflicted with an ALS-like paralysis. No one has ever survived what she has. She has lasted months longer than first predicted, but now she needs breathing assistance full-time, and can now barely move her head a little bit. She can still talk and move her face, but every other muscle is paralyzed.

We spent 10 hours with her over two days. Everyone tries to be in good spirits, especially with company, but the reality of her situation is a living hell. She retains all of her senses, and I never realized how much we all adjust our bodies constantly for itches, pressure, heat and a thousand subconsciously avoided discomforts. She has to ask for help, incessantly. Her foot is warm. Now it’s cold. Her knee hurts. She wants to lie on her side. Now on her back again.

She does not complain, preferring to hear stories of happy adventures. She now accepts hired caretakers to assist her parents and usually two are present, 24/7. Her parents are now, to my eye, better than they were in July, when I thought they’d break down by month’s end. They are incredibly strong. I would be exhausted after, say, two hours of attending to my poor Jenny’s constant needs.

Her parents have not had a day off in over a year. At first I thought it was almost superhuman strength, but now I see them as the equivalent of Olympic athletes, the people who run marathons or swim for eight hours a day. They have worked themselves into tremendous shape as caregivers.

But the stressful demands are beyond even their limits. Despite all of their skill and devotion, two terrible mistakes happened after we left. First, Jenny fell off of her lift as they were transferring her to her wheelchair. She broke her arm. Then, her breathing-assist mouthpiece fell out while her mom was upstairs making lunch, and the remote-listening speaker did not pick up her ever-weakening cries for help. When her mom returned after just 5-7 minutes, Jenny was blue.

She has recovered from both accidents, but the accented terror on the general tragedy is almost more than the parents can take. They have broached the idea of putting her into a highly-regarded hospice for patients in such extremis, telling Jenny it would be like a brief “health resort” stay. Honestly, for her long-term best interests, we all agree her parents need to recover. The mom’s back, for example, is a wreck, and she can barely help move Jenny right now.

Jenny says no. And here is the parallel with our own Bayshore Manor. Taking care of people in the final stages of life is awfully challenging. No one can be perfect. My friends are as motivated and competent as anyone can be. You could not hire them for $100/hour. But what if a “State Inspector” came to their house and “wrote them up” for “continuing patient abuse” and removed Jenny from their care? Because for all the heroic good they do, they are humanly imperfect. But Jenny desperately wants to be with her family even if indeed it would be safer with her at a professional facility.

Meanwhile, at Bayshore Manor we expect our modestly- paid caregivers to be even better than my friends.

Anyone who has spent any time with people who need assisted living know how unceasingly demanding the work is. But state inspectors come down and find a very few reports not half as bad as what happened to Jenny in just two weeks. Yes, it sounds terrible to hear of fecal matter in a bedsore, but put that report in the context of how many tens of thousands of times every month the chance to err occurs. Yes, perfection is the goal, but are you going to kick people out of the only home they have because it is only 99.99% perfect?

The residents of Bayshore Manor would rather stay here than move to a distant facility that is one-tenth of one percent better. Our paternalistic government refuses to take the wishes of the people and the realities of life in the Keys into account. Everything is either more expensive here, or harder to find, especially employees. We all accept some level of service less than on the mainland as a precondition of life here. If Bayshore Manor is only that tiny bit short of mainland standards, it is probably in First Place among all services in the Keys.

Let the people decide where they’ll live. Don’t close Bayshore Manor, and don’t take Jenny away from her folks. And the aforementioned high drama will wait till next time.

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Comments

[David Lybrand]

Nice article, good stuff.

Small correction: it's not Bayshore Manor that's under threat of closure, it's the close-by Key West Convelsscent Center. Bayshore has had a few problems in the past, but nothing like what they've done to the Convelescent Center lately.

I agree fully with the point you're making. The bureaucrats don't have any qualms about throwing out the baby with the bath water....

[Rick Boettger]

Thank you for the correction, David.

Are you the fellow who saved the child's life?