In some states you can basically give the car to your kid, for something like $1.00. It looks like Alabama is one of those states, but I may be incorrect.
If your husband is indifferent, maybe stay home and schedule something nice for you that day.
My mom also needed that annual FA appt in person. Needed the dude to be sitting right there at the kitchen table with all of us. I think it was somehow more reassuring to her and she could focus better on what he said (sometimes it’s hard to understand people on Zoom) and I think she felt better equipped to literally see the papers in front of her.
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I’m jet-lagged and exhausted so this may be just venting.
Call from brother. 94 yo stepmother had a heart attack last week and brother thinks she should go back to AL without rehab. Except AL won’t take her in her current condition. Let’s see what happens Monday.
Cousin (65) is in the hospital with major issues. Multiple revisions and infections in total hip. Multiple phone calls today. Surgery again today. But I am told not to tell anyone.
Older cousin (78), RN, is the first point of contact for the cousin above. Multiple calls today with concerns, continuing. She calls me to tell me what she knows and is concerned about.
Another cousin (mid-70s) called to ask about my stepmother and shared info on her husband’s continuing cancer journey. She called twice. She’s also quite close to the one with the hip issue, but isn’t aware of today’s surgery. I suggested she call her on Sunday. Secret kept!
Good friend in NYC is in a bad marriage with a husband whose cancer has been Stage 4 since December. Daily trauma ensues. Multiple phone calls. Her H is has been in the hospital since mid-February.
Another local friend had time for a couple of calls while she was waiting for her father and mother, during her father’s meeting with the VA to see what benefits he might be entitled to. He’s being discharged from rehab back to AL, where the second bedroom now has a hospital bed.
Anyone else tired?
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Vent away @Mom22039 , that’s what we are here for. That’s a LOT. I hope you can get some rest. Take care.
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That is a lot! Mind boggling! So sorry
I hope today goes better. And know that sometimes it’s ok to not answer the phone. If urgent, they’ll call back.
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Although Edward Jones (and Business Insider) has sponsored this FB reel, I just think it gives some insight into situations some of these people have had; ‘saving money’ to help care when parents have needs in their aged lives.
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Does anyone here have experience with their elder and the concept of time? Mom’s ability to tell time is fairly poor, now her ability to perceive time is going. She spends time anxious about missing lunch because she can’t quite remember when it is (11:30), isn’t certain what time it is currently, and then can’t figure out if that means 11:30 is in 10 minutes or an hour. She has plenty of visual notes and cues.
She relies on her analog clock as she mistrusts the digital Alzheimers clock. DH may be right – numbers mean so little to her that without clockhands she is lost. She falls asleep, wakes up and whatever meal is next, she thinks is breakfast. The staff check her at night if they see her light on, she will get up at 2am and start getting dressed.
anyway, we have a family chat thread which we start every day by checking in, and we’ve been announcing the day (“morning, I am up and it is a fine Monday”). After a rough weekend where she was sure it was Friday, every day, we are thinking maybe it’s better to not even mention days? Does it matter at all, will it set her adrift in time?
She’s a 9/10 for pain when tramadol wears off. I will spend the week trying to get her a pain specialist appt after her doctor left the county, but realistically there’s almost nothing to do, even if we find a spontaneous fracture. I find myself despairing that she could live 5 or 6 more years like this, it seems cruel.
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When my mother started getting confused about whether it was AM or PM, I bought her this clock. It helped for a while until her dementia got worse. (Yikes! sorry about the huge link!)
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No answers but yes lots of issues around time and anxiety about meals (including thinking she hasn’t eaten when she has as well as having no idea what meal it is). In my mom’s case she hasn’t had dementia but is confused by her recent fall/hospitalization/time in nursing home/move to assisted living. I’m hoping it will at least partially right itself and we are not on the road to dementia. She does know how old she is now which took s couple weeks after she was transferred to the nursing home- so hopefully some of the rest comes back too. But in retrospect there were already some issues even before.
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@patmom FYI, when sharing a link, delete everything after the question mark, and you won’t have all the identifying gibberish. Most items on Amazon have a link share, the square with the up arrow, which will make it look like this: https://a.co/d/0fpA3A0I
I was going to get my mother a similar clock mainly because she will say she doesn’t know what time it is, even though her cordless phone is right next to her and shows the time! She told me she didn’t want it, so I just remind her to look at her phone, or her computer, which is he always on playing games!
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Yes, I am very tired. Too many responsibilities and not enough time. DH is burnt out and doesn’t want to work as much, so I’m trying to pick up the slack (I’m almost 9 years younger than he is, so I’m still going strong). But he has SOME drafting for me to do, in addition to my regular client, and it’s a lot to handle. Plus dealing with my Board President duties and advocating for my son and father. Oh, well, one day at a time.
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Or, click the link button in the reply box, paste the URL in the “Link or topic” box, then enter some text to describe the link in the “Link text” box, then click Insert so the link will appear in your reply as whatever text you entered, like Clock for the Elderly,
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yes, that’s the clock she has. She insists it isn’t “right” because the display is just numbers (when she is having a good day, she does sometimes remember to look at it to see what day it is). It changes color for am/pm; she believes that somehow means it is broken so we turned that function off. I originally got it for my dad, who pretended he didn’t need it but I know he was using it.
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I have an analog clock on a bookcase across the room from my desk. It was very helpful when I was working remotely so I could easily gauge how much time had passed in a therapy session. It would not hep with AM/PM problem (my dad had trouble with that) but if it were sitting opposite where greenbutton’s mom sits, perhaps it would be useful.
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Thanks! I always wondered how to do that.
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I got my mother a chiming wall clock but she said it annoyed her and turned the chimes off. She also refused to use a walker and said she got around just fine holding on to the walls.
She told me around that time period that she went to get the mail at the end of the driveway, fell, and when she “woke up”, she had dirt in her mouth. Did the same thing tossing some food to the dog next door and told me she was lucky that there was a tree nearby that she could pull herself up with. 
She survived until she had a major stroke and had to go to a nursing home. Then Covid happened.
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Stepmom has been moved to rehab and her POA (my brother) does not realize that 100 days of Medicare-allowed rehab doesn’t necessarily mean that she gets 100 days.
I kept repeating….”she needs to be making progress.”
She previously had Medicare Advantage, but NYS allows changes. That year she has Medicare plus the AARP supplement. (Somehow he thought that she now had better coverage than when Dad had Medicare plus NYS teachers as his supplement). Pretty much the same.
And then he was confused about why Dad’s care cost $18k/month in the same facility where SMom is now. I reminded that we were both in the meeting when SMom said Dad shouldn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to do, which became refusing rehab and the nursing home billing kicked in.
Now, if I can just get him to send me the 2FA so I can pull the completed taxes from the accountant (for Dad’s business). I need the K1 for my own taxes. (Getting these taxes done is my line in the sand!)
Good luck to all of us!
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And those are LIFETIME days.
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The lifetime days is something I did not know about. I had worked in skilled care and rehab for about 5 years before turning 65 and retiring. I didn’t see anyone reach the limit of the total days that I know of (and an abundance who did not make progress). Typically, the lack of progress becomes evident and families are aware.
Families have to have realistic expectations on their senior family member. I have countless stories but one is very telling – this gentleman who was in late 80’s (I don’t remember exact age) and was clearly weak and tired. He was only admitted that day to rehab and had a room very close to the nurse’s station (telling sign about his needs and perhaps critical level of being ‘close to death’). His son was trying to encourage him to ‘do more’ - this was after dinner and the gentleman perhaps had a hard time saying to the son how fatigued he was. That night he had either a stroke or a coronary and died - he was found dead in his bed by night staff.
I know there are many older adults that have so gradually declined on their physical abilities that a hospitalization or medical setback puts them mentally and physically not able to go to IL or AL.
We had an obese man that was about 65, had spinal issues and mobility issues; he was a bachelor that owned a condo and also had some caring cousins. He decided he was going to look forward to a better life and worked very hard to get his mobility back to be able to move back to his condo. It was remarkable. If he had not worked hard with PT (and also doing extra walking with his walker once he was able), he would have lost his condo and been in skilled care. He also had told me he regretted not taking care of his teeth.
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