As I suspected, mom is having trouble in all aspects of her life. I think we are going to move her to assisted living in the place she’s in now.
The more immediate concern is that mom is having trouble taking her medication correctly. My sibling is going to try to get either a person she is friends with who assists seniors to go over there or her son.
The other issue is that unbeknownst to me, my sibling is out of town until the middle of March. I thought it was going to be a few weeks, sibling came home for a week, took mom to the doctor and left again for 6ish weeks. The doctor changed all of mom’s medication schedule and dosages.
My sibling is not great with sharing her plans and is somewhat secretive. Either that or communication with her ADHD is interfering lol!
Mom is going to need more oversight than she’s presently receiving. My sibling can’t provide the level of care mom needs. So she is talking to the place she’s at and I think she will be moved soon.
At least that’s what I hope.
I told my sibling that changing bank accounts at this point is too difficult. We can work with what we have now but it’s too heavy of a lift to change everything. I think my sibling heard me. She has bad ADHD so one never knows but I repeated myself over and over again.
You mentioned going to visit your mom in a couple weeks. Maybe that will be good as you can see what changes in her health, mind, etc from the last time you saw her to know if AL is the right move.
AL sounds like the better match for what your Mom needs. When people plan for elder care, we tend to imagine huge health problems or serious dementia – but so often it is the smaller safety issues regarding daily tasks and memeory lapses. (My mom still can’t remember when she’s taken her meds , or eaten, and she’s in AL)
My adult son has ADHD. I can confirm that anything involving a calendar is likely to get dropped from communications, and getting any plan from A to B can be challenging. Your sister of course is her own different case, but it may not be entirely deliberate. For adhd people, there is “right now” and everything else. Hang in there.
It’s in the same building. Mom will be able to dine with her friends and do the activities she already does.
I’m afraid that mom’s medication isn’t being taken correctly or she might be over medicated. She might have an UTI.
I don’t want to get into things here about my sibling. She’s hard to talk to because she goes off topic, meanders and is impulsive. Not always truthful to be honest so you don’t always know what to believe or not. Impulsive like buying a condo on a whim in November and deciding to spend the winter there. Coming home for a week, changing all of mom’s medication and then going back to her winter home, probably wasn’t for the best. Then wonders why mom isn’t adjusting to these changes.
My sibling has the right to do whatever she wants. I don’t think it was well thought out with our mom in mind. Or the level of support she needs. That’s all.
That’s why AL is the best solution. I hope my sister can get someone out there today because sister isn’t sure if mom is taking double of one of her medications or not. My sibling forgot that they changed the dosage.
I started on the desktop but switched to iphone when I realized photos were necessary. I was initially using my mothers (iphone 7?) cause it was sending verification codes. I could upload the front, but it wouldn’t upload the back of the id. Then I tried it on my phone which is an Iphone 13 and it accepted the id. Then asked for selfie and honestly, I was shocked it worked. Did see somewhere that addresses needed to match. Her id and address at the time did match. It didn’t give an option to use already taken photos. I wonder if you take photos, then email to self and download to computer if it will let you do on the website.
Sorry I gave you the impression it was easy
Reminds me of telling my sister I took 3 kids shoe shopping and told her to fill in the blanks of how it went.
The other option is to go to USPS, but i can’t even imagine what they do. We already had trouble with the postal address change online cause couldn’t verify identity. Postal Clerk gave us forms and then said they have a year to come in and verify their identity. It’s been single digits here, so maybe in the spring"!
We had to pay extra at FIL’s assisted living facility for medication management, but it was worth every penny. SIL was driving 3 hours every other weekend to put his pills in pill boxes by day, which was really hard on her. Then he started fixating on his meds - so getting them out of his room, out of the family’s control, was huge.
My mother is still in IL, but I fill her pill boxes for her. I check and triple check to make sure the right pills are in the morning and evening box correctly. Mom with tell me on a Wednesday morning that she has no pills for Wednesday evening, but Tuesday pills are still there. This has happened a couple of times; I think she just grabbed the wrong day, or at least that is what I hope!
There are times she tells me there were 2 of one pill in a certain day; I know with 1000% certainty that is not the case. I just always hope she is taking the pills the correct day and time! Two of her pills are tiny, and I have found them on the floor or sofa; I think she either drops them when getting them out, or they stick to her lip. We have discussed taking them one at a time and making sure it is on her tongue before taking her water.
I almost gave up. It’s just incredibly picky. Multiple times +1.
Some USPS stores have machines that can take pictures and send them in for background checks etc. They do finger prints, pictures, gather info etc and it goes to specific idenity verifying services. Not all stores have them and the machine in the store may be registered to only one specific service. You may have to register with the service first then get an appointment at the USPS store. At least that’s what I had to do for background check.
Re: Moms and UTIs. SIngle best thing ever done for my mom was to put her on a daily cranberry extract for her persistant recurring UTIs, which were really severe. She hasn’t had a single one in more than a year
Boston-ish people… Sadly I am trying to help on research for somebody with a need for hospice care. One recommended place is 12 beds inn Hingham, looks nice at first glance on website. (omitting exact name but easy to find on google). Any feedback or tips would be uch appreciated. I can give more specific via PM.
We used Care Dimensions to help during my aunt’s transition. She was in a care facility. We found everyone we worked with to be very caring and compassionate.
My sibling called mom and told her that she thought mom needed to go to assisted living. That did not go over well with mom, those people in AL are really bad, I’m not.
Mom hung up on sibling and maybe her daughter. Sibling is out of town as she is snowbirding until the middle of March. Daughter is the only local contact until then.
It’s a mess. Mom got confused, messed up some payments. I figured out what was going on, when I get there we can change some things around so that mom doesn’t have responsibilities for her finances. I’ve been letting mom and sibling figure out things since she’s local.
Mom’s mad at sibling. Sibling is mad at mom. Mom needs more oversight even if she doesn’t go to assisted living. I’ve known this but sibling is not the person to be in charge of or patient with our mother. Who is difficult. And needs more help.
I’ll see what I can do when I get there but it’s still hard to do from 300 miles away when mom is having trouble articulating what is going on. It’s hard when sibling is incapable of being that person who can be very hands on.
I hope I can persuade mom that we must hire someone to help her. Mom was out of toilet paper, easy enough to order for her. But my sibling or her daughter were the people to order the daily stuff and groceries mom needed and now they aren’t talking? I don’t know.
Hugs and one step at a time. One issue at a time? I think if you can get the financial stuff out of her hands that will be one relief eventually for her but also and very importantly maybe something big off your worry plate. You can only juggle so much.
I can relate. Local sib handles the daily stuff & groceries for MIL. The last few times we were there, she was out or almost out of some important things (tp, paper towels, trash bags) & there were a number of expired things in the fridge (milk that had expired weeks before, for example). We quietly purchased items & cleaned out the fridge each time. We do worry about what is happening when we are not there, but we have to just let that go.
My dad’s main caregiver (call her Sarah) is a wonderful woman, but ugh. The caregivers all work through an agency that deals with Dad’s long-term care insurance company. He won’t get any reimbursement if he doesn’t go through an agency like this. Well, they treat the caregivers as contractors, so they don’t withhold any taxes. Sarah did QUITE well this year, since she worked a lot of hours, and she didn’t save up for taxes. So guess what, it’s tax time, and she can’t afford her taxes! She said she’ll have to drop down to just three, or maybe even two, days a week. I don’t get that at all, but whatever. So my dad is going to gift her $19,000, about half of her tax liability. My question was, if she didn’t pay estimated quarterly taxes, won’t she face a penalty? I had to ask that a couple of times before the tax preparer (who is not a CPA, grr) said, yes, that’s correct. So I said Dad can do what he wants, but somebody needs to sit down with Sarah and explain how this all works - no contractor likes paying taxes, but you save up and pay quarterly. I’m pretty annoyed, but I’ll keep my mouth shut.
And Dad is still charging lots on his credit card for silly stuff like vitamins. $1,200 last week. His bookkeeper got that charge canceled, but we have to do something. We got him the debit card with a low limit and blocks on telemarketers, but the caregivers have a “real” CC for purchases, and Dad knows it, so he asks for it (demands) and what are they supposed to do?? So I think we will authorize Sarah as the only caregiver who can buy groceries and other necessities. She’s able to stop him from purchasing crap somehow. She’ll hide the card when she leaves so the other caregivers won’t be able to give it to Dad.
