Yea I do worry about who will take care of me when the time comes. Although by the time my mom passed away, my sibling and myself were already retired with grown children of our own. Which comes with its own set of issues but if I live as long as my mom, my kids will maybe be in a different place than they are now.
My mil called today. She claimed she misplaced a recipe that she’s made for years. I googled as I wasn’t home to tell her the amounts and ingredients.
Question? I feel that it’s really difficult for my mil to get her mind around the salaries and costs for today. My bil is switching jobs and she made a comment that I have to believe is really underestimating his salary and his financial obligations. It’s ok but sometimes it’s funny how she thinks someone can live really well on a poverty level wage!
My siblings and I have a saying : “numbers are hard”. It was the first clear sign of decline in both my parents, esp my mom. My inlaws also have very little current knowledge of how much things cost and tend to balk at ordinary expenses as “ridiculous”
That’s good to think about, but the other question is who would be his, if something happens to you?
Yup—no idea who will be his so I have to stay as healthy as possible.
I can’t worry about EVERYTHING—that isn’t healthy either & we want our kids to love their lives. H’s buddies are aging too.
D or S could help remotely with MD appts, maybe. It’s not the same as being nearby but it is something. D is excellent and medical advocacy—she’s had to be.
It’s true I have all 5 of my sibs living in Honolulu, HI with all their spouses and many of my nieces & nephews and I’m pretty close to all of them. They’d definitely help if needed but have their own lives to live.
Mom fell out of bed 11 days ago and just yesterday, Local reported that the horrible bruise across her wrist was nearly faded away. At 11 today, I spoke to her on the phone per usual; she was good-for-her and in fairly good spirits. (We’ve accepted that every day involves a certain amount of tears over various nonsensical things – currently it’s thank you notes to her grandchildren for visiting her last week that “aren’t getting done”)
At 11:45, I get texts from the ER and Local. The AL aide called Local to say they think she needs an XRay on her wrist, which she is complaining hurts. He picks her up, takes her the 20 minutes to the hospital, waits an hour for an XRay…and yes, the wrist is broken. They put her in a soft splint and tell us to call ortho next week to have an actual cast put on and her PCP for a follow up. Local asked me to set up the appointments. I say, she does not need to see her PCP just because she was in the ER for an injury nearly 2 weeks old; she didn’t see the PCP then. It’s just hospital protocol, what will the PCP do? He’ll tell her to call ortho and have an actual cast put on…
I am working really hard to internalize that this is how it will be, I cannot change what the three of them want to do, I cannot change the course of her decline. Preferred is amused by her behaviors, somehow. His pov is that as long as she is relatively safe and relatively happy, “everything else is just noise”. He says stuff like this and it makes me so angry I can’t even cope. Which doesn’t make him wrong, but yeesh, it’s hard.
P.S. All those anti-fall things we’ve gotten doctor orders for, had installed? She keeps removing them from the bed and stashing them on the couch. So they “don’t get dirty”. The staff are at their wits’ end.
Update on my mom – she was airlifted to a bigger hospital for emergency surgery to remove a clot cutting off circulation to her arm. She’s doing well and I am impressed with the hospital which has assigned a “sitter” with her (she pulled out her IV line yesterday when she was alone). Spending a lot of time with her, helping translate what she means.
Morbid super obese BIL somehow fell in his bath/shower and broke off a nozzle in their master bath, so their son helped them move their stuff into the other full bathroom, and they are having the master bath remodeled. So, they are planning to ‘age in place’ as much as they can. They have time to sort out the contractors/estimates - the one they want has not committed to being available for their work.
My 89 YO BIL just told me on the phone (talked to him on his birthday) that he has had some shortness of breath (SOB) - which is related to his heart condition. Just saw a friend of mine who recently had a heart attack with stints - she might be age 75+, and she said her initial SOB - they gave her breathing exercises and that help her tremendously (also as she got stronger since her heart attack/stent procedure). So I will tell my sister to look into breathing exercises for her DH if he is not doing them already.
When my mom was 62 and private health insurance, she fell asleep at the wheel and went head-on with an 18-wheeler – but the 18-wheeler veered left so ‘head-on’ was on the front passenger. Seeing her vehicle, and that she was alive, she was airlifted. It turns out she had a broken wrist (rebroken from a child break), facial injuries and later surgery from impact with the airbag, but no internal bleeding. She was slumped down/asleep. She had a ‘spot’ on her liver, but they determined later that was there maybe congenital and not active bleeding. This was 1995, and I believe the airlift charge was $2,000 and insurance paid $1,100 so she paid $900. With Medicare/Supplement it would be Medicare approved rate and supplement picking up the remainder.
Would be interested to know the airlift charges (one might only see what was handled and remained with supplement unless specifically asking).
Mom was about 30 miles from metro-hospitals - she was on a state highway going towards the small town she resided.
This accident was about 4 months after my 64 YO father’s death. It was a sunny afternoon, and she was just very relaxed and needed to have had a rest before her drive home. We also did not want her to drive out of town (she was on psych meds) but her psychiatrist was in this larger city. Mom was one that wanted as much independence as possible but did not have good judgement at times.
When someone is ill, they often might have some weakness and poor judgement with driving. This happened to my friend’s husband (age 64), who must have had low blood pressure after dialysis – he was ‘ok’ when they took his BP before he left the facility, but with fluid restrictions he has and adjusting to dialysis which was ‘new’ for him…..he turned left in front of a vehicle and totaled his truck. It clearly was his fault.
My father couldn’t seem to stay awake while driving. I don’t know if he ever fell asleep, but he recognized that something had changed. They did some tests and discovered his terminal cancer.
Scares me bc in the last six months, I’ve not been able to surf the internet, etc at night like I have for years. For the first time ever in my life, I have started falling asleep while surfing. Awake one minute, the next, I’m asleep with my IPad on my chest. I have always needed a winding down period bf I fell asleep, but no longer. Weird. I get about 7 hours of sleep each night.
When my son was 10, in 2005, he was knocked down by a fast-moving chairlift (the operator was chatting with a co-worker and didn’t hear people screaming at him to turn it off). When the paramedics learned that DS has a bleeding disorder, they flew him to the Portland airport in a helicopter and then an ambulance took him the short distance to the hospital (now the hospital has a helipad). He was fine; no internal bleeding or other injuries.
The transportation cost was $12,000. The ski resort said they would pay our out-of-pocket costs. Uh, no, it doesn’t work that way - our insurance company expected THEM to cover all the cost. It took about a year, but they finally agreed to pay everything. Of course, they didn’t pay our attorney costs. I can’t imagine what that trip would cost today.
(This is the son who was estranged from us. The kid DID have a rough childhood - everything happened to him. The ski lift accident, post-operative hemorrhaging after a tonsillectomy leading to 14 blood draws to discover the cause, a friend casting a fish hook into his arm, splitting his chin open when he fell off a stool in the pediatrician’s examining room, having such a severe illness that he couldn’t eat or drink except through an eye dropper - reaction to doxycycline, the doctors finally figured out, falling off the back steps and getting dramatic bruises all over his face, etc. No wonder he has some bad memories! His older brother, on the other hand, didn’t have a single accident growing up.)
D just arrived last night. She’s happy she will be with us when the lung doc and POTS cardiologist go over H’s extensive testing to help figure out why he’s so breathless. She’s staying for several weeks and will be able to be with us for several of H’s medical appointments.
She’ll also be with us for most of October for the 2 weddings of her cousins (my nephews). She’s also always with us for about a month over the holidays. We are very happy!
spent the day making phone calls to set up appointments, in the process discovered that Local has made plans to take a short trip while Preferred is also away for a much longer trip that was arranged months ago. I’m trying to schedule a cast and he’s “can’t do that day, can you come?” OH, and he volunteered for another time consuming volunteer event. (PReferred said “how could he know she’d need help” omg). I am trying to be a good Far Away Child but am not liking the invisibility cloak they want me to wear until they need me for something they don’t want to do,
I did end up with an additional day of appointments to take her to, so I am up to a $720 stay for three appointments. I have thousands in bills from DHs oncologist yet to land.
Preferred sent me a long text w his feelings about any reason/possibility of ever moving her. “memory care is basically just a locked door and she has that” and unless she doesn’t know who we are, moving her is unnecessary. Imagine the most mansplain-y words. From someone who has done zero research. It’s less that I thought they’d discuss it, and more his tone.
Mom’s friend called to say Mom was frantic that she hadn’t heard from me, why hadn’t I called my mother? And I patiently said I had talked to her yesterday, and today, and so had L & P. That Mom just can’t remember that.
I’m sorry @greenbutton. The sibling stuff was so difficult with my parents.
So my MIL fell again today and needed stitches, but says she’s fine. The docs had her go for a cat scan because she hit her head too. She broke her hip in 2022. And fell earlier this year and hurt her back. My H is so frustrated with her. It’s not her fault that she fell but she and her boyfriend are both in their 80s and living in her condo. She has her name down at a CCRC but she says she doesn’t want to go yet. I think the boyfriend thing is very tricky for her to navigate because he is not interested in doing it at all. Thankfully H’s sister is on the same page he is. They need more help and they need to stop driving.
I’m acutely aware that my situation with my mil is not the same as some others here.
We saw her middle of June for her 90th birthday and while she was getting around more slowly, things seemed to be going ok.
Went back on Saturday and there seemed to be progression to much less mobility. She was tired and didn’t seem to be on top of things mentally either.
There’s something wrong and it doesn’t seem that anyone is able to figure it out. She is in quite a bit of pain. At first they thought sciatica, then IT band syndrome (I’m a bit skeptical about that), Tuesday she went back and told her that one leg is shorter than the other so she should put a lift in her shoe? She broke her pelvis a year ago, was improving but now am seeing a pretty big step back.
Local sibling is still working. Their dynamic is that mil helps him, not the other way around. On Tuesday, mil couldn’t drive to the doctor so she asked her neighbor. My husband came into town as he had his own doctor appointment, the appointments were at the same time. H said his mom was not doing better than Saturday.
We are 100 miles away. Mil is fiercely independent and of sound mind. It’s probably not terrible that she doesn’t feel comfortable driving because that answers a question that no one wants to address.
She does have the resources to hire someone to help around the house, drive her places and walk the dog. There is a person who is able and willing to do those chores. Mil will have to get there on her own.
I feel that I am an interested observer, mil has 2 sons and doesn’t need another voice telling her or not what she should do.
That sounds very similar to my MIL. It’s really hard to watch as an interested observer as you put it, too. Hope she will get some diagnoses for the pain and some help in place. I think that’s about all we can hope for.
I can’t imagine what that trip would cost today.