For Those With Elderly Loved Ones

Hi Maven,

Maybe I didn't explain correctly. I agree that no one's rights should be trampled. I have the highest respect for people being able to live independent and happy lives. I am disabled and I live alone.

My Mom almost died twice within less than three weeks. We were told to call the family together to say goodbye. My mother was so terrified she begged me to keep members of our extended family away from her and I stood by myself in the middle of the hall and kept watch to protect her. I sat in a chair in her room at night because she was afraid and so did my niece. If she asked for it, she got it.

They gave us little to no hope, but by sheer miracles, she survived, however we were told she can no longer live by herself. If I could have cleaned that house and made it safe for her to live there by herself, I'd have done it in a heartbeat. But that is no longer possible because of Mom's health conditions. My niece, who is a beautiful young professional, is giving up her own apartment to move into a minuscule bedroom to make sure Mom can come back to her own home to live. How many twenty-somethings will sacrifice their personal life to take care of their grandmother? Not many.

All of us offered some form of help and that's the plan Mom chose. She doesn't want a stranger in her house. We have worked our butts off to make sure Mom isn't stuck in a nursing home and all of us will have to make sacrifices to make sure it works.

I firmly believe that part of the reason she was so weak and ill and helped precipitate this mess was because she was not living in healthy conditions. I have one mother, and she can't take care of herself anymore. If I, or someone else in my family, had noted that sooner, perhaps Mom would not be so sick.

I am so glad you have such a wonderful relationship with your parents. I have to admit that I love to do the cooking but I sure hate washing those dishes.

(((January)))

You and your siblings have NOT failed your mother. There is no way of knowing where the breaking point is with people - even our loved ones. I suspect your mother would have been highly insulted if you followed her around with a white glove in order to avoid this from happening. It could have ruined your relationship.

It's obvious you love and respect your mother. Whatever decision you make will be the right one.

I am so glad to hear that your mom can come back home. Thats great! Sounds like she will be comfortable back at home.

((((((((( KathyM ))))))))

Thank you so much!

Oh yes! She is so excited! Friday is the big day and she can't wait to get home.

Dear (((Jan)))) I think this was a great post to put out here. Its something we all go threw sooner or later. I did it early in life.
I cleaned out 3 homes.,.My grandparents, My parents, my father inlaw.
Being aware is one of the hardest things. Sometimes they hide things so well.
I think part of it is they do not want us to worry. They are afraid to ask for help.
My grandparents handled it so well. They were amazing ppl. I can tell you my grandmother had enough tums and kleenx to supply the world i think
My parents I had to step in...Because they were not taking care of thier health. That was sad. I did bring my mom to live with me . she already had hospice. My grandfather went threw hospice too.
My father inlaw. He had always been a hermit. He saved and saved things. When my mother inlaw past on. He got worse at this. Alot had to do with the depression i think. But good nesss what a mess.
I can say this in a months time. His house went from bad to worse. We lived hours away and it was winter, I was totally amazed. He had meals on wheels. That came every day. Now you think one of them would have called. or said something.
When he became ill. I had to step in and I felt bad and say he could not go home.
He was meant to come and live with me. Sadly he took a turn for the worse and never made it home to me.

I want you to know you did a very good thing putting this post up. Ageing parents is so hard. Its so hard when you become the parent over them.
My heart goes out to you ......

Thank you, dear Muffy.

Mom gets to come home later today!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!

YIPPEE! Give that niece of yours a big hug for me.

Good luck to you all, I hope you have an awesome homecoming!

(jan))))))))))))) Im so happy for you ......sending prayers and good thoughts your way

January,
this is all very interesting and educational for all of us. Thank you for sharing and I'm so glad everything worked out well. Your neice is one special person. I agree your mom was living in unhealthy conditions and she definately needed assistance. She must have been very over whelmed.
I saw on Oprah a show on hoarding(don't know if the spellings right). The family had 15 huge truck bins removed from their house. The house was full from floor to ceiling with cases of rotting food, mice and black(which can cause severe respiratory problems even causing death. She owned 300 pairs of shoes and 100 purses.
I think you handled it very well and it's wonderful that you all helped her and she's still living in her home. What a nice ending to the story. Best of luck to you and your family.

January,

I would like to add something to your thread if you would allow me. This I want to offer to you so that you will not blame yourself for not realizing that your mother was in poor condition.

Almost two years ago, it will be the later part of December, my mother who lived in Mississippi where my sister lives, was waiting for my sister to come over for coffee on a Saturday morning. When my sister arrived, the coffee wasn't made, which was a true indicator that something was wrong. My mother was sitting in her chair in the family room. She said she wasn't feeling well and almost called my sister the day before because she thought she might be having a heart attack. Now, this was typical of my 78 year old mother. She never complained about anything until she was lying on the floor practically. My sister got very put out with her and took her to the ER. They examined her and said she didn't appear to be in any acute distress but told her that if she ever felt that bad again that she was to call 911 and not call my sister but call 911 and go in the ambulance to the ER.

In January, one Sunday evening, my sister's cell phone rang as she was driving back from Tennessee from visiting her in-laws. It was my mother, saying that she had chest pains again. My sister told her to hang up and call 911! When my sister arrived there, she went to the ER and my mother had been admitted with a heart attack.

This story progresses to where the heart attack required a stent be put in but it takes a strange twist because it seems that my mother had actually been feeling badly for quite some time and we did not find out until two months later how badly she had been feeling. On April 9, she died from Stage IV liver cancer. She was not surprised when she got the diagnosis. She was not surprised for two reasons. One, she knew she was sick. Two, she had not wanted her children to suffer in taking care of her because she had taken care of her three sisters, her mother and my father when they died of cancer. It is not fun.

So, except for different reasons, my mother also chose to be secretive about some things and keep them from her children. She would have never wanted to live in a nursing home. In fact, I stayed with her the last month in her home. She did it the way she wanted.

Oh Jan I'm so sorry you had to go through that! It is sad when we realise that things are not as perfect with our parents as we think they are.

You were strong enough to see it through and offer the insight to others who may well find themself in that position. And as you found out, without warning it can be a shattering experience.

Thank you for sharing this and thank you for opening peoples eyes to something they probably never thought about, but could also be so easily shattered by,

Rhiannon

(((((((January))))))),

You did a wonderful job & you did the right thing.....one comment....what you threw away was TRASH....not just clutter....trash that is stuffed under sofa's, chairs, & in closets is nothing that your Mother would have ever missed in the first place.....or probably never would have noticed unless she opened a closet door & the trash didn't fall out on her......but seriously, those are the things that we as children need to be responsible for as our parents get older. They took care of us when we were children & couldn't take care of ourselves.....as they get older, we need to check in on them & make sure of the cleanlyness of their homes...not the clutter of keepsakes, but trash....those are 2 different things.

All of what you are going through has brought back some very painful memories for me. It was just exactly 5 years ago this time of year, so these memories continually haunt me anyway at this time of year. My Mother was determined to live alone also......she was Dx'ed with stage IV vulvar cancer. She didn't want me there asking questions & making sure that she was being cared for with quality......she went through the chemo & the radiation living alone with her boyfriend from church taking her to her appointments......she didn't want me driving an hour to her house from mine to do it, so she started to depend on her boyfriend (my father had died 10+ years before). My Mother had been great at taking care of her little home (the one I was born in).....clean & even mowed her yard up until she couldn't get around anymore. After her cancer surgery, she tried the meals on wheels & didn't like the food....so she would try & shop for the frozen foods to throw into the microwave if she could. The wound from the surgery wasn't healing & she had home nursing care taking care of the dressing. She could no longer get into her own bed.....the lymphedema in her legs was getting so bad, she could hardly walk. I would talk to her on the phone every day......& usually get to her home once a week to see how she was doing, but I had some responsibilities at my own home with my new foal that injured her leg & required care 2 times a day & finally down to one with changing the dressing while the cut that went down to the bone healed & I was having my own health issues & had been in the hospital before my foal was born.

I finally got an appointment for my Mother with a lymphedema specialist & went to her house & with it getting so late & taking care of getting meds & things for my Mother, ended up staying overnight...which gave me even more chance to see that my Mother could no longer take care of herself or her house.....knew she needed help to get her meals..& she no longer could figure out how to take her meds.....even with them in the pill organizer, she didn't understand.....she was popping pain meds like candy & telling me & her Dr that she wasn't in pain.....she was getting pain meds from her surgeon & from my pain specialist I was taking her to. I told her that if she wasn't in pain, then she didn't need the meds & she needed to be honest about her condition. I said I was going to get some home help for her through a good organization & I got a war....looking back I realized that she didn't want anyone in her house as they would be able to see just how bad she really was & then she would have to face reality. She would rather call her elderly boyfriend who was in early stages of Alzheimers to come & get her legs onto the sofa at night rather than admit that she was not capable of caring for herself anymore.

This was not being able to take care of herself anymore no matter how much she wanted to. She needed to face reality.....but mentally, she was still capable of making decisions......all the wrong ones because she didn't want anyone in the house with her to see just how bad she really was getting & wanting her independence was her way of manipulating that.

That weekend, she "lost her balance" & slid down the door onto the floor & had to crawl to get to the phone to call her boyfriend to get her into bed......of course, she didn't call 911, they might have found she had a problem & put her in the hospital & she wasn't about to have that happen.

That was the weekend before my daughter arrived to celebrate Thanksgiving a bit early. My MOther wanted to have thanksgiving dinner that year......she ordered all the food from the grocery store & just had to heat it up.......she was supposed to have help from the church ladies.....turned out the people from church didn't show up (why...my Mother told them the wrong day). My Mother invited her boyfriend & his daughter & wanted to control of the food warming but couldn't figure hot to time the warming of everything & was driving the boyfriends daughter nuts. In talking with the daughter I found out how angry she was at my Mother for taking advantage of her Father the way she was doing (makes sense to me....I wasn't happy about it either). My Mother sat at the Thanksgiving table & could't even feed herself.....she couldn't cut her meat or get the food I cut up for her into her mouth with the fork.....she said she "wasn't hungry" As if her condition wasn't obvious as she sat there slumped over in her chair....just the picture of my grandmother at the end stages of her life. It was obvious that there was something seriously wrong, but forcing anything to be done was next to impossible.....she still was competent of making her own decisions.....but she was no longer capable of taking care of herself.

I decided that night that I was going with her to her Dr's appointment that next day & get him to hospitalize her for the infection I knew she had from the lymphedema specialist I had taken her to the week before. When I came back the next morning & my Mother had no idea why I was there (does that sound like a mind that is capable of making decisions?) well, everyone else continued to think so......fought with her surgeon to get her back in the hospital.....talked with the specialist & she thought it was blood clots in her legs....surgeon swore that it wasn't...fight....mother finally was put in the hospital.....sure enough, tests showed blood clots in her legs......this was the beginning of the horror. Social workers in the hospital wouldn't return my calls or give me the respect of making an appointment time so we all could be together to discuss my Mothers situation....I was still caring for my foal.....so I was working out a schedule.....I needed their cooperation....NEVER got it. They never saw the incompetence of my Mothers mind, so they continued to think she could make her own decisions. The boyfriends daughter had a friend that wanted to make sure my Mother could stay in her own home......I tried to get the Dr's to determine if my Mother had a stroke that night she "slipped down the door".....that would make sense as that was when her lack of mental capacity really showed up....but they fought me on doing that...accusing me of it being something about money..I had no idea they were discharging my Mother the next day.....then I got a call from that friend who told me they were discharging my Mother....how did she know & I didn't....the only family.....she had called the hospital & told them she was my Mother home care nurse.

Turned out this was the person who not only stole all the valuable jewelry, but stole my Mothers ID, wrote checks on her account that I stopped payment on & on top of that called the police accusing ME of abusing my Mother.....the final thing that maybe saved the whole situation was that she OD'ed my Mother on morphine & my mother was shaking so bad that the paramedics were finally called.....I had them take my Mother to the hospital & from there, I never left her side for weeks.....had no idea what this person might do to her or me after I filed reports with Adult protective services & the police.

If my Mother had only not been so unwise in her decisions, the end of her life would not have been so horrible......all her bad decisions not only cost her peace at the end of her life, but threw me into a trauma that has lasted years after her death.......all because she had to stay in her OWN HOME until she died. Turned out she never went back to her home after the paramedics took her away. I found a wonderful care place close to my home after she was finally discharged from the hospital. They kept her in the hospital for 3 weeks doing all kinds of tests every day.....never telling her what the tests were all about.....the worst part was that for her safety, the hospital thought it would be best for her to be there under an alias as I slept next to her in the fold out chair....never leaving her side except to take care of a few things. By the time she got to the nursing home, she was not aware of much that was going on around her.....they didn't start the hospice care until the last week of her life.

The whole situation surrounding my Mothers situation was such a mess....combination of Dr's who didn't really care, a Mother who thought the Dr's were sent by God to save her life. With all this going on, her only constant question of me was when was she going to get better? But she told me the Dr's would tell her everything she needed to know.

How frustrating it was, trying to give her the freedom to make her own decisions & to have her wishes.......& the destruction those desicions caused to both of us. I wish those memories were ones I could just erase from my mind, but somehow, the fears & terror that I went through during that time managed to be engraved in the nightmares that still haunt me at times. Were do we draw the line? Being an only child with no one to turn to for help or support, I was really stuck in a bad place.....no one to help convince her that her choices were wrong....just me knowing that what was happening was wrong but helpless to do anything about it.

We always have that line to determine.....when do we determine they are no longer competent of decisions.....right or wrong decisions...until they are unconscious, they are really able to make decisions whether they are for their own good or not.....everyone is so afraid of taking their freedom away.......but what good is there in the damaging desicions that are made when they are wrong, when their lives really would have been much more peaceful & calm & they would have really been more happy & content if those desicions they made had not been allowed & better choices had been made by someone who was capable of making the right decision.

It's sad when it gets to this point because their decisions don't only effect themselves, but the family around them.....The memories that my Mother left me with do not leave me with good feelings for her. It is sad because as children, there are many times we think our parent don't know anything & then we realize they really do......the sad picture I hold onto of my Mother is not one of respect or love but of the hurt that she caused by her unwillingness to act with intelligence or wisdom at the end of her life.......what good is it when we are free to make our decisions only to end up messing everything up because we were given that freedom without the right counsel....decisions not really based on rational choices.....but left on our own to guess or emotionally make choices that aren't even based on choices.

I am glad that everything has worked out for your Mother to have family there to live with her.....there is not the worry of an outsider there that you don't know or trust.....it is good that she is in a condition where she doesn't need 24 hour nursing care. The most important thing I realize looking back it that it is important for family to be there & force it so you are there in all decision making situations.....so the right questions can be asked, so the right information will be forced to be provided & nothing left up to assumption. We need to protect our family from the evil that is out in the world....waiting to prey on them......who would have ever thought that anyone would get anything out of my Mother who really had nothing except her house in the first place......but I also think that home care person was after my Mothers house as she was trying to put in my mothers mind that I was controlling her & not letting her care for herself...if she could turn her against me & get her to sign the house over to her.....think that she has been scaming elderly cancer patients for quite awhile & sadly will continue as the police werent'able to arrest her for anything she did as there was nothing to catch except for the checks she wrote & she knew I stopped payment on them.

This world in no longer innocent & we no longer can just not sit back without protecting our parents no matter how much freedom we want to give them....common sence & logic need to be the focus with an eye out for the horrible people out there trying to take advantage of every possibility there is. After that experience, I realize that no one is safe from these kind of things......but it's our responsitiliby as children to protect our parents just like they protected (or should have protected) us when we were children. When roles reverse, we have to be there for them.

Sorry for going on about this, but felt it was along the same lines of caring for our parents & being responsible & dealing with the desicion making issues that exist. & who knows, maybe if one person realizes that this happens & can protect their parent from anything similar, then what I went through wasn't for nothing.

Debbie

today downtown i waited for a bus when an elderly man shuffled by me to get on a number 10... he spoke to the driver a few minutes and then shuffled back off the bus and ovr to me. He was very old, frail and i knew instantly something wasn't cool.

his eyes were welling up with tears and his voice shook.. "I'm all messed up.. I don't know what bus to take"

Turns out that was no surprise considering he didn't know where he lived... he had no idea what his current address was.. he could only remember the address of where he used to live and thankfully he knew that building was closed down. He was so upset and couldn't understand what had happened to him... he kept saying "I don't know what's happened to me... I can't remember. I was in the war once... but I can't remember where I live."

It was heart breaking... and yet people side-stepped him.

I asked him some questions and he quickly produced a set of keys with a partial word on them... along with his wallet that contained all the ID's he could possibly own and yet none with a street address. Eureka - a phone number... but no, it was his number and he lives alone. No family and only one friend he kept mentioning but he could not remember the man's last name.

I took him into a nearby eyeglasses store and got him a seat and then proceded to try to find an address with the store clerk. I noticed the large bruises around his eye and the dried cuts on his head... and the dried blood on his sleeves.

No street matching the partial word was found... I called a cab dispatch because they know every street but no such street existed... He was almost in tears.

I finally called the non-emerg police line and we had an officer come and they were able to do a reverse check on the phone number. They finally made sense of the partial word.

I stayed with him and I was determined to get him home but I was and am concerned about the fall he said he'd taken the day before and the obvious difficulty he must be having with self-care. I could smell urine but it was apparent he was doing his best to be clean and tidy. I am very disappointed that the officer did not call adult protection services or take him to the hospital to be checked for head trauma. There was little I could do.

In the end we got him a ride home and he seemed deeply relieved... but it haunts me. As soon as business hours open Monday I am going to call APS myself. I don't think he is in immediate crisis but he is in obvious need of help. He just cannot do for himself so well and the memory loss could leave him stranded anywhere... and a walking target.

I feel sort of sick because I don't have any right to intrude into his life... but it broke my heart and I am more worried about his safety than my rights to whatever. So I will call...

what distresses me the most is the lack of community now... where i grew up this didn't happen. When i leave to go to the store i always ring the doorbell of the elderly man downstairs to see if he needs anything... and i make extra of stuff sometimes just to share because he lives alone. i'm not blowing my own horn here.. but looking out for each other is what makes the world a better place... if you know the older woman down the street doesn't walk so well anymore, then think for a minute - it isn't rocket science to know she probably isn't doing a lot of laundry or a lot of other things so well either. How do you think that crippled man in apartment number 2 is getting his groceries? Maybe the blind woman next door could use help getting her kitty to the vet...

it isn't like we've all got to take on the problems of everyone... but we can look around and help someone... even just a bit. Sometimes it is the simpliest things that make somene else's whole day.

build a community around you... check in on people, ask how things are, offer to help and sometimes just help anyway... bring a caserole, shovel a walkway...

it is heart breaking to read about the parents and grandparents, etc in this thread... and people are right, we do need to be nosey sometimes, but it shouldn't just fall to the family who may or may not live nearby. Friends, neighbours, members of churches... we need to refocus on realising that things work better when we help each other out.

that man could have been my dad... and i fervently hope that someone would sit with him and help him get back home....

tomorrow, before your day is done... think about the people around you and maybe find ways to check in on those with limited resources, mobility or are on in years.

blessings

Beautiful, little*rhino.

How have the first few days gone? She must be happy to be home though. I hope your neice is up to it.