So sorry for your loss. It sounds like it was pretty rough at the end, but you did what you knew she would want.
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@Mansfield So sorry for your loss. Sounds like a very very hard last bit and you should be proud of yourself for doing the right thing. Your mother needed that advocate.
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I/m so sorry. Iām glad you were with her during her last days.
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Sorry for your loss. How fortunate that you could advocate for her wishes and may that bring some peace in this difficult time. Take good care.
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Such incompetence. First they said Dad had a UTI. Then they said he didnāt. Then they said he had a really severe one, so we thought, ok, that explains the confusion. Then today, they said oops, he doesnāt have one (the doctor we talked to said it looks like they made a mistake).
Before we knew he didnāt have a UTI, they had said they would still do an MRI. But oops, they couldnāt do one because he has a pacemaker. āUh, he had one in August and they were aware of the pacemakerā¦ā So they figured that out and he had an MRI this morning. It showed that he did indeed have a small stroke.
His confusion should clear up, but now heās at higher risk of confusion episodes and strokes in the future. They will put him on anti platelet and anti coagulant meds to lower the risk of another stroke. Heāll be released from the hospital today. He wonāt go to rehab since he doesnāt have any physical weakness due to the stroke.
I wonāt go into more detail, but the quality of care at the hospital has been even poorer than in the past. Weāre shaking our heads.
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At least they got to the bottom of things and his treatment plan reflects what he needs based on his small stroke and the risk of future strokes. And of course since they have gone down the path of how to do his MRI, that was able to be done leading to correct diagnosis.
Do not be so hard on hospital situation - what he had for DX of UTI did not harm him. His hospital care is first world country care, even if it took a bit for getting to his true diagnosis.
IDK how much this has been w/o medical personnel truly looking at his medical records and current medical signs and symptoms to go down the correct path. One has to understand that MDs are to rule out things, and they go to the most common first to rule out.
That said, I would not have a loved one in the hospital w/o an advocate/knowledgeable person to ask the questions when the patient is often too sick to be able to do so. I look after our family members very well, and DH appreciates this. He is an engineer, and the medical paradigm is a bit foreign to him. if needed, I pull in the ābig gunsā - DD1 who is a nurse manager who has worked in the hospital environment continually since 2016. I am BSN with two graduate business degrees and spent a fair number of years in medical systems and other systems over the years - including working for specialty physicians, PhDs, and even a Retired Major General.
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Got a question for others here. My 93 year old father in a nursing home has a cell phone. Over the past year, it seems to be constantly broken (despite being new). I am sure he can no longer use it properly (which is why it is always broken?). The nurses and staff can make calls for him, if I ask to speak to him or he asks to speak to me.
Today, he called to tell me his phone was stolen from his room. I will have his lawyer pursue that with the facility. I am thinking it may be time to not replace it and recognize that a cell phone is now beyond his capabilities.
Does your parent at this age in a nursing home still have a cell phone?
Nope. All it was useful for was spam calls that confused her.
She does have a landline phone in her room,but almost all of her dayto day chatting is done either in person with us, or Facebook Messenger. She knows how to find it and how to use it on her iPad.
(She has been sure items were lost or taken but so far that is never the case. She herself has āreorganizedā and forgotten she did it herself)
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My in laws had a cellphone in AL when they were that age. They never used it, but for some reason my SIL & her H felt that they needed to use a cellphone - no clue why, since they had a landline & call buttons. They got them a Jitterbug, thinking it would be easier for them so they would use it. Nope! It was actually harder to use ā¦ and every call and text that they got on stupid phone was spam aimed at the elderly. I was so angry ā¦ it seemed as if the company that sold them the phone also sold their number to scammers. IMO, no reason for a cellphone.
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My parents forgot how to use their cell phones in their 80s or so. I was relieved because they mostly got spam calls and people trying to get money from dad. It was pretty awful at the time. We were able to get the companion to answer the call and let us talk to our folks when we called the landline that was in their unit. My brother also set up a camera where he could talk and see in the living room of their unit. They couldnāt see him so they could just hear his disembodied voice. Fortunately he didnāt did that too often.
Tech gets more confusing to a lot of folks the older they get. There are just so many different things to consider.
Does he have dementia? If yes, I would not be quick to call lawyers in. Saying something was stolen when it was misplaced is pretty classic for dementia. Actually, if he canāt use a cell phone he must have some form of cognitive impairment, so it is more likely the āfaultā lies with him than the facility.
Fyi I got my mom an "Alzheimerās " phone (you can program it so they just push 1 button to call you). My mom wasnāt able to use that for very long. Now she has a reproduction rotary phone in her room. She still canāt make calls, but she likes it the best of the various phones weāve tried.
If your father is in a good facility I would be very very careful before taking an adversarial stance. Donāt sweat the small stuff. (To me, misplacing a cell phone that my parent couldnāt use anyway is small stuff. Missing a broken bone, now thatās something Iād man battle stations over).
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Itās quite difficult to schedule a MRI when thereās a pacemaker also. A MRI is essentially a big magnet (correct me if Iām wrong about it). There needs to be a technician scheduled to turn off the pacemaker, monitor it and turn it back on. So thereās double the issues with scheduling the machine plus when the technician is also scheduled.
My friend who has a pacemaker had a tough time getting one scheduled with all of her issues. It was emergent also.
On to my mom. When my mom moved to near my sibling, she wanted a local bank to get cash. She has a bank where all of her direct deposits go, I was reluctant to switch everything because itās a big pain. Also her brokerage account is set up with the bank in her old town. Mom got confused and wrote a check for her IL place from the local account and bounced that check. My sibling tried to check her account, mom gets confused about the 2 step authentication and gave sibling the phone number and not the code. It happens, my husband does it.
The good news is that sibling is going to put auto pay for IL, when I set things up at her other place, thatās what we did.
Mom is upset and Iām sure my sibling thinks the sky is falling. Sibling wants us to pay her bills, which is fine but I had things set up automatically, mom wanted more control. Iāll do whatever they want because paying her 3 bills a month isnāt a hardship.
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It would not be adversarial or taking a stand to contact his lawyer. All of his finances, power of attorney, etc. are conducted through the lawyer (who has a great relationship with the facility and was the one who got my dad in.) The lawyer got him this phone and has been the one who has gotten it āfixedā when it was broken. The lawyer is able to get the real story when I cannot because he knows the place and who the right person to call is (like when my father called and said he needed a new razor - which turned out to be false).
My father does have some cognitive issues and some depression and is on medication for them. I donāt think they have landlines at and my father doesnāt have any other tech at this point (ipad or PC). The staff is very good at using their ipads to call me so I can speak to my father.
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Yup, MRIs for ICD patients can be challenging. Iāve had an ICD for 12.5 years now (thanks, chemo) and when I need a MRI, there must be a Medtronic tech there to supervise whatever needs to be done with the ICD for the procedure, in addition to regular radiology staff. My MRIs always take place at a hospital, not a radiology center.
With my first ICD, I couldnāt get a MRI at all ā now I have an MRI-safe one, but it still requires monitoring. It takes much longer to get an appointment as a result. If we need to evaluate something emergently, my doc usually sends me to get a CT scan.
But @MaineLonghorn, I agree that stroke should have been high on the suspect list to evaluate in someone in their late 80s with a recent amputation (yes, that increases the risk). Glad he is doing better.
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Iāve been tasked with getting a corded landline phone for my MIL. The cordless ones were scattered around the house every morning. It was like a scavenger hunt every day finding them. All the headsets have been removed except one. But everyone feels (and I agree) that something where the handset is corded to the phone is a good idea.
Cell phone? That has been history since the last one was lost about two years ago.
And Iām looking for a corded phone that is easy to hold. So something like a Princess phone wonāt work.
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Search on Amazon for ācorded phoneā. There are lots.
https://www.amazon.com/Desk-Telephone-2500-Analog-Phone/dp/B0BKZDZ63C/
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We just want a phone. No answering machine or anything else. Needs to be as simple as possible!
Maybe this oneā¦
Thatās a good one. It is less likely to be pulled off a table than other models.
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just wondering, with a landline like that she will need to punch in a phone number if she makes a call (unlike a cell with a contacts list) or are you thinking she will only receive calls?