I’m glad to hear from you, have been wondering how you are navigating this time. I’m sorry to hear how difficult it has been. Is sounds especially challenging to be processing your grief for, and the trauma of the experience with, your mother while having to battle red tape everywhere. I feel you on those UTIs…my father has had two, complete with the hallucinations and psychosis and they really knock the wind out of my sails.
I have never uttered the phrase “This, too, shall pass” so much in my life as I have in the past year, along with the self-affirmation “You can do this.” (most often as I sit in the driveway of my parents’ house, before entering and facing whatever awaits me). I imagine you feel the same way. Sending support and fortitude your way!
I agree w/others’ suggestions. Here’s my additional 2 cents:
Just because somebody is your parent doesn’t mean that you have to tolerate them behaving the way your MIL is. I’d give her one warning, like “MIL, what you just said about BIL’s girlfriend is rude and out of line. Please don’t speak about her that way.”
Then when she does it again, you get up and leave.
This means that if you’re at a restaurant together, you need to bring cash to cover your part of the bill. And you need to be prepared to stick to your guns.
She’ll test you and do it a 3rd time. Don’t give it. Reinforce the boundary. Eventually she will figure it out and will talk smack about the woman to somebody else.
Does MIL only do this bad talk when your BIL’s GF is not around? Or in front of her? I was going to say that if she does it in front of her that yeah, I’d spend my time being supportive of GF. And if MIL does it only when GF is not around I’d say that MIL knows what she is doing - she filters when GF is around but lets loose when she is not!
My dad was pretty good but when he would get going like this about a neighbor or someone else I’d either tell him I didn’t want to hear the negativity OR I’d tell him all the reasons I DO like that person. It often worked to change his attitude.
S2’s MIL went to her grave not ever having figured it out. Main source of estrangement w her daughter was a debilitating desire to argue, defame, fight — they set clear boundaries and she ignored those for a good 2 years.
Sometimes you just have to walk away without saying anything. @deb922 I expect the gf knows you are in her corner, you needn’t be defending her so much as not providing an audience? Ugh, family.
Although mil tells me what she has said to the gf so I know she says things to her also.
We see my bil regularly but not the gf in a while.
In my mil’s defense, I do feel that the gf treats my very proud mil in ways that feel to me that she thinks mil is fragile. Which is NOT what mil wants anyone to do for her. So I see that mil will have feelings. But you don’t have to fixate on them and you don’t have to tell us.
The gf is not going anywhere. Mil can tell her how she wants to be treated but imo it can be done with a little more tact.
Hah - my MIL has flat out told me to back off, in no uncertain terms (not that nicely). She will let me help her with something one day & absolutely lay into me the next time I try. At first, I was hurt. Now I just sit back and let H deal with everything. Not my pony, not my race.
Dad has announced he wants to stop having a caregiver overnight. Huh. He’s not strong enough to get in and out of bed by himself. The nurse advocate, my sister, and I don’t think it’s a good idea, but he may be insistent. Ugh.
He’s doing remarkably well. My sister said he seems more like himself than he has since his stroke almost two years ago.
My sister told him she wants to continue using the company that rents out his condo on the coast (he agreed we should take it off the market because there’s been no interest shown in it and we don’t want to lower the price at this time). His Lady Friend wanted to change companies because they were reluctant to communicate with her directly (rightfully so!). Dad said, “Nope, not going to keep them.” Sis tried to change his mind without luck. It’s a little frustrating, because it’s not DAD who interacts with them, but Sis and me. Sis said, “OK, give me the name of another company, then.” Dad says he knows of one but needs to find out the name. He said he could find it. We’ll see. Sis did tell him it needs to purely a rental property - no family and friends staying there for free. He said OK. That will probably hold true until someone asks to go and he agrees.
Glad your Dad is rebounding! Perhaps you could compromise on no overnight caregive (it would save money)… if he agrees to not get out of bed, even if it means having a diaper.
Not sure just why there even would be need for Lady Friend to communicate with the rental company. Sorry you have to deal with that complication.
We are not involved in this; our parents have all been gone for a long time. But there’s an article in today’s San Diego UT reprinted from the NYT about “aging life care managers”, formerly called geriatric care managers. I presume posters here are aware of such people (who apparently don’t come cheap), but if not, there is an Aging Life Care Association. https://www.aginglifecare.org
Husband and his sister hired such a person decades ago for his mother. She never knew the woman was getting paid (or she wouldn’t have allowed it); thought it was some kind of municipal service I guess. They became good friends. The woman is the one that at MIL’s shiva, tried to pressure us to take a giant ugly wall mirror because it belong to husband’s grandmother. I’m sure the specialist and MIL spent many happy hours criticizing me.
Apropos of that and other discussions, once MIL started a cozy chat with me criticizing a friend’s DIL. This DIL was a great woman who had converted to marry the friend’s son and was one of the only other people who recognized MIL’s manipulative controlling behavior. Anyway, I just interrupted and said, XXX is my friend and it stopped her cold.
That’s the type of advocate my Dad uses. Not cheap, but wow, well worth the money in his case. She’s an RN and manages his meds, communicates with the doctors and therapists, manages the caregivers, takes him to doctor’s appointments, etc. I honestly don’t think Dad would still be alive without her help. She’s not on the list you linked to, but I found her by googling and a similar association popped up.
Gosh, we’d love to have some kind of local advocate for my father in NY. With or without medical credentials. I tried to have palliative care social worker help them sort through getting more paid help, but that didn’t work. The wife seemed only interested if they found free help. Sigh - Dad was frugal and saved, and now is the time to spend for care.
It’s great to have recommendations. I called references for my Dad’s advocate. Everyone gave her glowing reviews. They were right! She’s available 24/7 if he needs her.
Thanks for your helpfulness Dad (age 99) and his wife live at their house in Poughkeepsie. Getting buy in from his wife will be a hurdle (always the case)… but it would be great to have some recommendations if you have access to Dutchess county info.
There is a retired infectious disease doc here in HI (originally from NYC) who helps people navigate the healthcare system, for a fee. I have not inquired but she was the best friend of an allergist whom I really liked. I met her and she seems very competent. Her retired H was a pulmonologist.
Any thoughts of using a concierge doctor for the elderly parent? My son is pushing me to get one for mom, mostly as he is tired of me running things by him! I like his opinion, not just because he is a physician, but also, I need someone to help me know if I am thinking correctly on my plan of action. I just need to bounce my thoughts off someone. If my husband were still alive, he would be handling all of this for me. I realize as an OB, my son isn’t going to know a ton about mom’s heart, oxygen and kidney issues, but her knows enough to offer an opinion. I think he and I have a bit of PTSD from when my husband was ill.
Mom has had many complaints; not all are concerning, and might not be true. She has a tendency to exaggerate/lie, so it is always very hard to know what is true. Within the past 24 hours, she said she has a blood clot, maybe a stroke, gout, and low O2. After having the wax removed from her ear, she said she can no longer hear; we went to the doctor because she was complaining that she lost hearing in that ear and she heard it pop. Now there is something in her nose that they must have done when cleaner her ear. I have had a couple of times where I have debated taking her to the ER, but don’t want to if not necessary. This past week I was able to get her into her cardiologist due to fluid build up in her leg, and he said he was glad I didn’t have to spend hours in the ER. So, she has been seen twice this week by someone, and everything seems to check out. I swear I think she sits around thinking about what else can be wrong!
While my understanding of a concierge doctor is 24 hour direct phone access and same day appts., my guess is they are just going to send her to the ER, especially if after hours. Her previous pulmonologist has recently gone concierge with a couple of other internal medical docs, so I might call and see what his fee is; I am just not sure at 95 with her issues, if this is the way to go. Now, if they could make a house call and let us know she wasn’t in crisis, I would pay whatever!
I say this as someone who has physicians as family members.
Is your son gently suggesting that he isn’t thrilled about talking shop after hours? That maybe it would be better for there to be a place where to talk about all these complaints?
Saying that I think you have 2 options. Ignore all the complaints as that. Complaints that are unwarranted, unnecessary and attention grabbing. Or hire a concierge doctor to address and treat them.
Is your mother on anti anxiety medication? Maybe this is what anxiety looks like for a 90+ year old?
I know many elders complain like it’s their job. How to address that is the question.
Edited to say that maybe a gerontologist is a good fit.
Dad (age 99) and his wife live at their house in Poughkeepsie. Getting buy in from his wife will be a hurdle (always the case)… but it would be great to have some recommendations if you have access to Dutchess county info.
I realize as an OB, my son isn’t going to know a ton about mom’s heart, oxygen and kidney issues, but her knows enough to offer an opinion. I think he and I have a bit of PTSD from when my husband was ill.
I have had a couple of times where I have debated taking her to the ER, but don’t want to if not necessary. This past week I was able to get her into her cardiologist due to fluid build up in her leg, and he said he was glad I didn’t have to spend hours in the ER. So, she has been seen twice this week by someone, and everything seems to check out. I swear I think she sits around thinking about what else can be wrong!