My 91 year old Aunt not only has laundry in the basement of her home in PA, but also has the only shower in her house in the basement! My cousins have told her they will put a shower in for her that is not in the basement and she keeps saying no. I told my 83 year old mom that her sister will probably fall on those stairs one day and end up in a nursing home or dead.
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My dadās bookkeeper gave him the new debit card yesterday. She has put $500 on it for now. Sheās also blocked some types of transactions. She canāt ask for the credit card back yet because he and his Lady Friend are going to Dadās condo on the Texas coast and he will need a CC for different expenses (Sis and I are not thrilled that theyāre going, but at least the caregiver traveling with them is a peach).
Bookkeeper said that there is $800 on Dadās last credit card bill that looks sketchy. Sheās going to dig into it and see if she can get any of the charges reversed. She told Dad about that, and reminded him he has to pay her for her time to resolve this stuff. He never remembers charging anything, but we know he does, because the caregivers tell us sometimes.
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Well that is good progress. Iām glad your dad is getting to visit his condo (withthe peach of caregiver). Sorry that you and your sis might get extra stress while worrying about him.
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The bookkeeper contested so many of the charges that the credit card company canceled the card for good and Dad canāt get a replacement. So it really makes it obvious why he needs the debit card! I hope he understands.
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We had to cancel the CCs for our folks after they moved to CCRC and stopped driving. We would drive them and also pay whenever payment was needed. Both of them were fraud victims.
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What about a credit card for the coast?
Oh, he does have one other one, fortunately. Itās his spare one.
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Last week, my mom told me that after a lifetime of being the queen of greeting cards and mail, she āgiving upā and doesnāt want to send any cards in 2026 because āI always leave someone outā. She sends bday and anniversary cards to all 20+ of us, plus friends. Also Valentines and Halloween. Christmas too. For decades. Itās a lot, to be sure, and as her cognition is going it has become a cause of distress. She does a monthās worth all at once.
She often does them twice. She has never forgotten, but she forgets she already did them. Local helps her and I made her some organizational helps as well. She knows sheās confused about it and now that sheās through an entire year, she is sad and discouraged (currently hospitalized but hopefully getting out today; bronchitis aka ruled out everything else)
I worry if she abandons this major part of her life sheāll be miserable. As a Yankee, sheās 100% ābe useful or dieā. Not sure how to backstop her effectively either. I will be there again in a couple weeks and weāll do some Xmas cards together so maybe that will perk her up. Itās so hard to get old.
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When my mom was starting to have trouble remembering everyone, I found an old gift card of hers & bought as many little containers of Godiva chocolate as I could with it. We decorated wrapping paper with inked stamps I had and wrapped each of the boxes of chocolate and labeledāone for each of her kids (my sibs). We also decorated mini gingerbread houses.
She had been very good about always giving everyone checks for birthdays and christmas until she just found it too hard and stopped. She did always remember names of all of us and our spouses and kids but found the great grandkids harder to keep track of.
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It may be that the cards is causing her stress now and not doing it will make her feel better. She may not want to admit it, but will only just say she doesnāt want to do it anymore.
I remember my mother in law, who had cooked for everybody her entire married life and loved to cook, just said one day āI am done, I am no longer interested in cookingā and stopped. She never cooked again (she lived with my sister-in-law, who cooked for her, so itās not like she was going to go hungry.)
Maybe there is something that she can do which might be easier for her, that will take the place of the cards.
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As mom had more cognitive loss, she became unable to play the piano and she and dad couldnāt follow the plot of simple, predictable stories so reading, the TV and theater became just confusing and unpleasant for them. It was very sad. They had been avid readers and theater attendees.
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My mom experienced the same thing. My MIL is at that point now, even though she doesnāt have cognitive issues. Sheās just too tired to think, for the most part. Itās rough on the children, but itās tougher on them.
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Well rats. Mom has had 3 episodes of aFib so they are keeping her to figure that out (itās new for her).
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Hopefully they can convert her with medicine and not a cardioversion, but even that is pretty easy. And perhaps she will need to be on blood thinners for a bit, if they cannot get her back in sinus rhythm.
Afib can cause anxiousness, is what Iāve heard.
May she feel better soon.
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Sheās still in the hospital. She had IV antibiotics which seem to have opened up her airways enough that she has a productive cough that doubles her over, but otoh it has given her nasty bouts of D so they are holding her until they can get that resolved. The hospital staff distrusts her AL staff and resists returning her; the AL staff assure us they can cope. The aFib has only happened once, maybe twice since. Thereās nothing anyone can do at this point, she canāt have bloodthinners or metoprolol.
They are now not saying āconfusedā they are saying mild dementia. Some of it is lucid dreaming, some of it is clearly dementia, some of it is hospital disorientation. I am once again the Anger Magnet and Preferred is once again the only person who knows anything about anything (and he thinks so too) but thereās really no room to feel badly as a person or daughter. I spent 2.5 days listening to her go on about how she feels sorry for Local and Preferred because they have so much to do, they work so hard, etcā¦. I will say that Local thanked us for driving out to be there so they could do some stuff of their own.
Sheās wandering the halls at night without her walker, the RN said sheās very pleasant and easy to deal with, but clueless overnight. One afternoon she announced she wanted to go for a walk and I said sure, but why, and she replied she had to get back to her room before dinner. Swears the clock changes the numbers around. Is talking to people who arenāt there. And in order to save up Depends, she admitted proudly that she just turned the wet one inside out and put it back on. So I was on my knees fixing that while she said she thought it was a fine idea. Only really hard part was Local offering,unprompted, to the nurse, that I was the āone who is always bossyā. This sparked a whole ha ha round on their part. I had waited for Mom to realize she needed to pee, knew she was stalling bc she is afraid and so I said āokey dokey, letās get up and go peeā. I know local caregivers have rightfully complained that the far away ones arenāt helpful, but sometimes we far away ones are being set aside in some sort of weird bonding thing for the locals. I am doing the best I can to help and itās not my fault I am not geographically closer, and that doesnāt make me less of her child.(re-reading, gosh, this is long, sorry)
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Not too long. Your feelings are valid. Things are complicated - and sometimes that means ālongā!!! 
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Boy, do I get āthe bossy oneā tag. But you know what? When that whole codependent clan needs something done Iām the one they call, even if Iām three+ hours away. I will make the gross generalization that one reason we are the ābossyā ones and live farther away is because we are better with boundaries. Donāt spam me, people! This is non-local child support! lol
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I am definitely the bossy one. My brothers appreciated it when we went through health issues with my parents and older brother.
My MIL, OTOH, seems to hate it - I was never bossy when it came to Hās family until my in laws started to need someone to be honest with them. I do it when necessary. It was pretty mild bossiness until recently, and I successfully managed to get H to take over as the bossy one for all but things like bathroom-related issues. But she is mad that H found his bossy side, blaming me. My SIL is cool with it, because it takes some of the pressure off her ā¦ unfortunately, her H gets perturbed when anyone else does anything related to MIL, because he thinks he knows best. Oh, well. The point is to make sure the parent is okay. If it takes bossiness, so be it. Someone has to do it!
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Are you the only of the offspring that knew she was turning her depends inside out for them to last longer? That is truly not thinking right. Bossy is definitely a strong word to use for a sibling ally - oh my.
Tough to not have oneās feeling ruffled.
One just has to rise above it and behave like you would want to be treated but find ways to āventā with others - like CC posts.
Many just donāt handle the decline of a parent well - and the parent also doesnāt handle it well.
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