I visited my Dad’s house for the last time today. And I have a long drive home tomorrow.
I’m tired. This was weekend 1 of a two-weekend estate sale. I had a great rapport with the woman running the estate sale and do not feel the need to return next weekend.
I have some weird emotions about SMom’s family taking much of my parents’ furniture. I see my Mom everywhere. Even though SMom’s nieces are in their 60s, they are zooming in on the furniture with glee. (I took one piece of furniture and one blanket/quilt for each daughter). More stuff doesn’t make better memories.
I also met the buyer of the house and he seems like a good guy who can handle anything that might come up. Closing will be mid-October. (I’ll be having a scheduled surgery and won’t be able to return before closing).
SMom was combative on Friday morning, but mellowed some by the afternoon. She’s deeply angry about her falls/breaks and how her life is now confined to a wheelchair in a (WONDERFUL) assisted living facility (where she dislikes all the old people).
My hard shell brain circles back to the idea that she had 93 years to think about getting old and making plans for the future. I know that’s not terribly kind but she offers little thanks to all of us who are making this work in the background.
The past 18 months have been tough with my husband’s diagnosis, medical care, his death, and and their senior care.
Progress has been made. They are well cared for. And with the house being “done” that will be one less mental and physical effort for me.
Thanks for being with me on this ride. Happy to share what I have learned, with the most recent lessons being the home sale and the estate sale.
At 93, even if she doesn’t maybe show signs of ‘dementia’ - her aging brain, along with totally being passive about all of this…
She may have envisioned being able to just die overnight and not live with aging and being around aging people. From your post has been very passive about having anything done prior - and now that she is in an invalid state she is unable to do anything.
Yes she is angry, but her anger is misdirected - she has shoved down in denial many things and now it has all bubbled over.
A friend today just told me about her very stubborn FIL. They have a two-story house with only half bath downstairs; their daughter lives 4 hours away but he only listens to his son, and that is limited too. He sleeps in a recliner in the living room. Son and DIL had to come 1200 miles to clear a path so he could go with his walker from the chair to the kitchen, the downstairs bathroom, and the stairway. They finally got them to put in one of those chair elevator devices so he can go upstairs twice a week or so to shower. He is 86 and his wife is a bit younger. They have a housekeeper come in to clean and the wife is driving and able to maintain running the household/groceries/cooking/etc. He would not allow a table to be moved into another room which was in the way of his walker because “that table matches the furniture in this room, and not in that room”. He also would not allow that table to be moved into another spot in that room. Stubborn.
Some of the stubbornness is I believe their feelings of lack of control about many things, not liking change, being ‘ruler’ of their own house, and also needing to listen to adult child as they want to always think about themselves as being ‘in charge’ over their children despite having a bit of a role reversal.
This is such a thing! I recall my grandmother feeling this was at 89. If you’re not one of the old people, who is? And yet, don’t we all still feel like “ourselves” inside. I guess the best we can do is try to internalize all this knowledge to make the aging journey easier on ourselves and our adult kids
YES, YES, YES. I have this problem of docs and their EMRs not speaking to each other constantly. I’m the only one who knows all the moving pieces, so if I can’t communicate, just stick a fork in me, cause I’ll be done. I worked in employee benefits and know the rule and lingo, and it is STILL a complicated and frustrating job. Quality across the board in the industry has dropped over the past twenty years. My cardiologist just quit over the stress and frustration. Is not sure she’s going to stay in medicine. She’s only 36 and burned out already.
Cardiologists are extremely well compensated for their stress and frustration. They also have the opportunity to move to another practice that may be less stressful but may need to take some time off for non competes.
Also a 36 year old cardiologist is around the age that they will have paid back their loans long enough for PSFL to complete, all of their extensive loans will now be forgiven by the government. Hundreds of thousands of dollars that have been forgiven by the government.
They will have been practicing as an attending for approximately 4 years (maybe 5) at that point after fulfilling residency and fellowship.
Physicians didn’t ask for electronic medical records, that was passed into law during the George W Bush administration. They get to document a system that doesn’t really work the way it was supposed to because there is no standard operating system for the EMR. It’s a lot of extra work for them to be less efficient and less present for their patients.
And yes I know I’m sounding that the old woman that I am now.
Hmm, I thought I had posted this, but I don’t see it.
My dad’s advocate was at his apartment on Friday. She said he worked on his computer all afternoon and took phone calls. A therapist of some type stopped by and administered a cognitive test. The advocate was in the next room and could hear everything, so she took the test for fun.
Just wanted to post an update and thank everyone for their support here. We moved out of my mom’s house earlier this week (so spent about 2 weeks at her place). She’s still recovering, but she’s now able to do a number of things for herself.
Well, my dad’s main caregiver, who was on board before we hired the advocate to oversee everything, got more and more difficult. She flat out said she was used to working by herself and wouldn’t answer to the advocate. She also accused the advocate of being “disrespectful,” which I think is ridiculous. No other caregiver we’ve had over the years has ever complained about her.
So the caregiver and the advocate had a heated discussion with my dad yesterday. My sister and I were ready to let the CG go at that point, but Dad wanted to give her one more chance.
Then at 8:30 pm, CG texted us that she needed a personal day today “because of what happened today.” Oh, good grief. Advocate didn’t protest, but instead made an effort to find a replacement. She had no luck and told CG that. CG didn’t reply until 3:30 am, when she texted that she couldn’t come in because she wasn’t feeling well. Then it was a scramble to figure out what to do. The overnight CG is a sweetheart and cheerfully stayed longer until my sister could take over. They finally found a sub.
Needless to say, that was the straw. My sister showed my dad the whole chain of texts and he agreed it was time for her to go. Now we have to get the locks to Dad’s apartment changed. CG also owed him $600 for a certification course she ended up not taking. She got her last paycheck yesterday, so bookkeeper is going to do a stop check and then issue a new check with the $600 deducted.
I really think there’s something off with CG. At one point, she texted us that she knew Dad better than Advocate, Sister, or me. After two months?? It reminds me of The Bachelor, when all the girls tell the guy that one woman is a problem, and he doesn’t believe it until she totally loses it. I’m glad Dad finally listened to us. Advocate thinks she can find a replacement quickly.
I was dealing with this last night and today while we were at our cabin, entertaining friends. I hope the drama is over, but I’m afraid it isn’t.
My 95-year old Dad has been steadily declining in AL and now I think we may have to transition him to memory care. He is “time-shifting,” living in the past. I got a call from the AL night shift nurse as she went off this a.m. She told me he said he had to go see patients (he is a retired doctor) and that he is at a medical meeting in a hotel and has fallen 4 times. There is no evidence that he has fallen; it’s self- reported. However, their protocols require them to tell us when a fall takes place. He asks continuously where his mother (who died in the early 90s) is, and wants to call his lawyer. He is getting testy with the staff, whom he claims are taking things like his electric toothbrush. I am going to see him in two weeks. It will be interesting, I guess, to see his mental state. He has been periodically confused but this is a new level. I talked to him this afternoon and he said he did not know where he was, but he was sitting on the side of his bed. I try to reassure him but I think he’s just in his own head now. His short-term memory and temporal sense are both gone. I think we are moving into a new phase. Bracing myself for what is to come. I am grateful that he is in a good facility and he has resources to pay for care. But his decision-making capacity and ability to narrate his own experience accurately are both completely gone. I last saw him in late August. I wheeled him to a local restaurant and we had some good conversation, but then he started eating his fish and broccoli with his hands in public and I had to put a stop to that. I felt that the “real” Dad would not want to be that spectacle and I owed it to his dignity to stop it. He is just very childlike and it is painful to witness. He is a gifted person, and it’s just so sad to see what aging does.
My heart breaks reading this. Reminds me so much of my mom needing to go “home” at 3 a.m. because her parents would worry about her. Those were exhausting nights as we were home with her. And then the days that I was back home and not with her and not knowing whether to believe what she was saying … so stressful.
Yes. Dad has talked about his job for the county mowing along the highway when he was 18 in Kansas. “I can’t do this anymore,” he said. It is interesting, in a way, to see how all his memories have sort of pancaked and blended. But he feels an obligation to his phantom patients to “go to work.” I know I can’t “believe” in what he is saying but I also think it’s valiant and sweet how much he does not want to let people down. He has very much defined himself by his work.
@NJSue maybe divert a bit? Dad, it’s not that late, you have time to eat breakfast before you go to work… or some such?
Yes, it’s awful to come to grips with the fact that these compassionate, productive loved ones who were responsible for creating and raising us are almost at the end of the road.
@NJSue. So stressful! I am surprised that no one yet mentioned UTI test. It is so common for elderly people to get more confused with a UTI, even when no other symptoms exist.
This is very true for my mom, who just had UTI #5 since June. She goes from a little fuzzy on details like time/day/words to crying about missing people’s birthdays, losing her phone, etc. – all things that have completely no basis in fact or current reality.
We are starting to worry that all the UTIs are part of her AL setting. I offered to come stay and bring her back to her house and live with her until she gets and stays well. Eldercare seems to mean living with a subset of unhappy things no matter what we choose.
My father is the king of UTIs. He did get more in assisted living than he does now in the nursing facility. I think the nursing home may be more attuned to looking for UTIs or that aspect of care is better (they stay on top of changing him, cleaning him, etc.)
I have stated here many times has my father “loses his mind” when he has a UTI. I feel like I know something is off by his calling me (12 times in an hour) before they do.
My MIL had a string of UTIs. They finally cultured her to find out what medication she needed. Turns out what they were giving her wasn’t what they should have used for what was causing the issue. The right medication + a good probiotic seems to have worked (fingers crossed). It’s been months without a UTI.
Sorry to change topics, but wanted to share that I’ve found my Mom with dementia is doing best with a reproduction rotary phone – much better than with an " Alzheimer’s phone". Of course, she cannot make calls with either type of phone, but at least when there’s an incoming call she does better with the rotary one. I’ve never seen that suggested anywhere, so thought I’d pass it on!
