“When I was young I was very active, I liked to go to cricket games and loved to garden. I used to wake up early in the morning just as the sun was rising, go down into the garden when there was still dew, and do my thing.”

But life is now more confining for 89-year-old Rosemarie Thomas who still has the desire to get up and go, but not the power.

“I can get up with the cane and I can walk to the gate but I have to have help to do that,” she says.

Mrs. Thomas, a widow with three children who are now seniors themselves, still lives in the home she and her husband raised their children in. She had been living on her own since her husband died in —— and was very independent. She did her own chores, paid her bills, ran her errands and cared for herself. But last year her daughter Cynthia Stovell said her mother began to suffer more acute effects of diabetes and arthritis.

“Her dexterity is gone and she cannot do things like cook for herself,” she said.

Mrs. Thomas’ hands have become stiff and misshapen by arthritis. Sometimes she can hold things but her grip is not firm and can collapse.

“Cynthia is concerned that I could get injured if I should lose grip with a say a pot of hot water,” Mrs. Thomas said. “She has warned me and I listen to her and do as she says.”

Mrs. Stovell is a registered nurse who was working up until last year, when she saw that her mother needed full-time help.

The combination of arthritis and diabetes left Mrs. Thomas with poor circulation. The decreased blood circulation caused her to have difficulty in healing naturally. She had more than 20 treatments in the hyperbaric chamber last year in an effort to help heal her wounds. But when her daughter Cynthia was over for their regular Sunday dinner together she said her mother complained that she was having some trouble with her foot.

“My mother is not a complainer so I took it seriously and looked at the foot right away. I also sniffed it, as diabetics do not always feel,” said Mrs. Stovell. A recognisable odour led her to take her mother to the doctor first thing the next morning.

On seeing Mrs. Thomas the doctor called the surgeon who advised that she be taken to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital right away. There she had two of her toes amputated but due to the poor circulation she was not healing in good time and was air lifted to John Hopkins where bypass surgery on her leg eventually rectified the problem.

Mrs. Stovell was with her throughout the five-week ordeal and her nursing training was useful. Before the bypass surgery, her mother had very painful procedures where a machine applied pressure to her legs. “So I arranged for her to have her pain medication before she went down for the Lavage treatments,’ she said.

Mrs. Thomas spent her 88th birthday and Mother’s Day in the Baltimore hospital. Her daughter Ruth visited from England, as did friends and family who live in New York. On May 24 last year she returned home.

“It was apparent on our return that someone was going to have to stay with her fulltime,” said Mrs. Stovell. “She kept talking about stiffness in her fingers and she couldn’t grip things. My sister came home and told me that I couldn’t possibly look after mom and work too. ‘You will kill yourself,’ she said.” Mrs. Stovell had been working as the Police nurse.

“I loved my job,” she said. “It was the best job I’d ever had. The doctor and I got along well and he took me to lunch frequently.”

But just a week after returning to Bermuda with her mother, Mrs. Stovell resigned in order to care for her mother full time. She does almost everything for her; cooking, bathing, running her errands and administering her medication.

“Every morning she pricks my finger for the sugar test,” said Mrs. Thomas. “ And she gives me all my tablets. I have them with breakfast, some at lunch and others at dinner. She always puts them there for me and I take them.”

The change has been drastic in Mrs. Stovell’s life. She had been keeping her own home in Smith’s Parish as well as attending to her mother in Pembroke. A few months ago she rented her home and now lives permanently with her mother.

“It has completely changed my life,” she said. “My life has improved. I can go to church meetings and am fully involved with a reading programme at Victor Scott Primary School.”

“I used to be busy and go here and there,” her mother said. “I live a dull life now but I do not complain. The Lord has been good to me and I had a very good marriage. But I tell Cinty to go, if she’s got somewhere to go. I don’t need her to stay in the house with me all day.”

And Mrs. Stovell gets a real break when her sister Ruth, also a nurse, visits from England. She comes for several weeks at a time and takes over Mrs. Thomas’ care.

Neither daughter complains about this change in their lives. “My mother appreciates that we are doing this for her,” said Mrs. Stovell. “We know her and my mother is the sort of person who could not be with anyone strange. We thought if we put her in a nursing home she would die. This has worked out well for all of us.”