At the Moment l'm two trains and a bus ride away which takes 1.30/2.00 hours door to door and is free with my freedom pass. It would be about the same time if mum moved but would cost me as its outside Greater London. Slightly easier in it would just be two trains and a walk/taxi/lift to the place
It sounds like a really good plan, Sarasa, if you can get your Mum to sign up for it. That would allow your Mum to decide what she wanted to take with her. I had to admit that Mum wasn't able to 'learn' a new place (how the taps worked, that sort of thing) and so she had to go straight into care, but this might be a brilliant half-way house for yours.
'just be two trains and a walk/taxi/lift' - I'm in awe; your devotion makes me quite ashamed as all I have to do is get in the car!
The Dowager continues to be settled, thank the Lord; Master S and his wife went down to see her on Thursday, bless them, and he was greeted like an old friend by the admin on duty. He sends Mum a personalised postcard every week, and it's Emily who has to read them for her as her eyesight is so bad, so Emily knows all about the decorating of their new front room, the curry they had with his in-laws... it really made me laugh!
I'm still trying to decide how to handle the sale of the house; even getting advice from the planning department over what sort of building they might allow in the back garden would cost £300(!) with no guarantees; and the architect would charge about £4,000 to take the application to planning, again no guarantees.
I think I popped on board this thread on the old ship to lament the stroppiness of my Aged Parent who refuses help from anyone and believes all mainstream medical professionals are out to assassinate her. She continues to live on her own, her life decaying around her. Despite my and my sister's warnings she's had a couple of falls this year, minor breaks each time. A few weeks ago she was finally persuaded to get a walker, which she had refused for a long time (getting wobblier and wobblier on Nordic walking poles - hence the falls.). She's agreed to use the walker "for a while" until she gets stronger. In the last year she started to have epileptic seizures, so it seemed to some of us that a walker was a reasonable precaution.
Yesterday she was trundled off to hospital - prolapsed bowel. No doubt she'll snap and snarl at everyone, especially medical staff. I suspect this will need a general anesthetic which could be a little dicey, but not necessarily so. If she recovers she'll head back to her independent living, leaving everyone on tenterhooks, still snapping and snarling at all who offer help, locking herself out of the house from time to time, falling and crawling, and battling growing if still manageable dementia. Bills are piling up because she loses them, loses access to her bank account, but agrees to pay cold callers for every charity that calls. and she have no idea if she has any money left.
My sister bears the brunt of this, as she lives only 30 kms away from her mother. At present I'm about 800 kms away (closer than I've been most of the last 35 years, mind you). Another brother is about 500 kms away from her, though he tends to refuse to see any problem.
Me too, @Zappa - I share your pain, or perhaps your sister's.
The Dowager, mostly quite happy in her care home, was complimented on her appearance by one of the admin staff yesterday. 'So I'm on show today, am I?'
*sigh*
Sadly she has also managed to lose an additional tooth in her latest fall, has a horribly smelly sore on her leg*, and is whinging because her hair needs cutting and she lost the hair grip that she'd paid for!
Oh @zappa, your mother sounds rather like my mum will be just a few years down the line (she's ninety). Mine doesn't snap and growl as long as she gets her own way. If things are going the way she wants she is sweetness and light, when she has to do something she doesn't want to she can be vile. Hope your mother recovers well, any chance of getting her into a care home?
I went to see my mum yesterday. Still keen to move, though I don't think the sort of place we have in mind is what she wants, and still convinced about the neighbour taking things.
My brother spoke to her later and she'd been phoning the police again as she thought the neighbours had her cheque books. She'd forgotten I'd been , which does make me wonder why I bother
She'd forgotten I'd been , which does make me wonder why I bother
I reminded my Mum that Master S and his wife had been to see her. She'd forgotten entirely, but recovered enough to say 'Well, they didn't stay long'
'Maybe not, but they came a long way to see you!'
She was very sad that she forgot when people came to see her, but I consoled her by telling her that she enjoyed it while they were there (I didn't say anything about what the visitors felt). However, she trumped all of that by telling me that her friend J had been to visit, with her husband 'you know, the one who died'
Mother Zappa was turfed out of hospital pretty quickly, sporting a basketload of enigmas. She relates with pride how "all the staff" said she couldn't be 96 etc etc. All the staff, that is, except the anesthetist who simply declared that it was simply too risky to give her a general anesthetic, that the prolapse would have to remain inoperable, and sent her home.
Where she is now, understandably miserable, sore, and when I last heard from her sounding as though a fair bit of feist, if that's a word, has departed from her. Though she left a message on my voicemail yesterday - I was in transit - and at least vocally sounded more robust. Which probably means she's had a few people tell her how wonderful she is (well I guess we all need that), how cruel the anesthetist was and what would he know, how doctors are all descendants of Josef Mengele, and would she like another prune? Which she fears she may be living on for a while.
It's a brutal condition, though, and I do feel sympathy for that.
I'll try to see her next week ... I'm back at my proper home now and that's only 200 kms away from her ... and will ring her back today. It's 5.15 am here so I may leave that for a while!
Thing is, @Zappa - that's how they get to be 96: by being demanding and stroppy. It doesn't make it easy for those of us who care for them, or perhaps I should say care about them, when they make life even more difficult for themselves by refusing to believe anything if they don't like it. Sorry; I never found an answer to that.
And all that about 'you can't be 96' - it would make me gnash my teeth when I had to sit through all these people telling thee Dowager how amazing she was to be living alone etc, when if it hadn't been for all the stuff I did in the background to keep her afloat sorry - that's just self-indulgent.
Mrs. S, who thinks £1,000 a week is money well spent for someone else to look after the Dowager
I believe that people who work in care homes and treat their charges with respect ( and caring love as I have witnessed)deserve to be paid megabucks. I know I could not have cared for my Dad in the loving way he was cared for - and I felt guilty about that. I said as much to the Charge nurse and she said she could not have done so with her own mother, but it was different with other people's parents.
I know that Dad, who could be very awkward, really came to respect her and I was grateful he had someone like her responsible for his care.
Doctors who butter up our elderly APs by telling them how well they are doing are a complete pain. My mother is always telling me that she is fine as doctors have told her so.
It's absolutely true. I was very lucky that the Dowager's GP was experiencing exactly the same thing with his own mother - she refused any help with his aging and demented father, who fell down the stairs and injured his spine so Dr. Bob was a great help in encouraging Mum to accept help, bless him.
Likewise when Mum was found wandering, the kind neighbour called the other partner, who told Mum she was no longer safe at home alone. Mum believed that, which she would not have done with anyone else <hallelujah>
I think lots of people mean well, and tell the APs they can't be 90, or whatever, and it does the APs no favours at all because they then feel they ought to be able to manage Doesn't explain why bought help is unacceptable, while your poor hard-pressed daughter's is expected!
Mrs. S, grateful not to be cleaning, ordering food etc
our parents are of a generation that believes without question anything a doctor says.
This.
I have a disabled relative who took ill while shopping last month and was taken by ambulance to A&E. I'm not sure if there was a misunderstanding at A&E but the hospital phoned my mother as his nearest relative ( she is the geographically nearest to A&E!) and told her to get to A&E asap. Which she did. She then spent the next 4 hours in A&E, quite a lot of which involved standing, before driving the relative back to his home.
She was exhausted. I asked her whether she had contacted the relative's next-of-kin, his social worker, or anyone involved in his care. And she said no, because the hospital told her that she was the responsible person, and therefore that made it so. (She did phone his next-of-kin once she was back home, and got a glorious bouquet as a thank you for all that she had done.)
I'm just concerned that she accepted unquestioningly that she was the responsible person in this scenario, because the hospital said so.
Hmmph, having spent a lot of time sitting around in hospitals recently, chatting to others in similar situations, I'm amazed she didn't observe or discuss the options for getting another relative in to take over. Most of us poor sods sitting around, all night if necessary, are the live-in carers, but I've seen other relatives come in to give someone a break or be sent out for necessities.
She could also have spoken to the other staff members in A&E who may well have said she could have gone too. Not everyone in A&E has someone with them. They may need someone to take them home to allow them to be released, not be kept in, but they do not necessarily have company throughout.
(I've spent a lot of hours in the observation area of A&E chatting to patients and their carers, where they have a carer present.)
Mum just said that the hospital told her she was responsible, and it didn't occur to her to question this. My relative did need someone with him at all times which is why, when the hospital phoned her, they told her to get to A&E asap. Mum just dropped everything and went.
I strongly suspect a misunderstanding over the phrase "nearest relative" as the only way in which Mum could be described as the "nearest relative" is geographical. It would have made perfect sense to ask Mum to come quickly as a stopgap until someone else got there, but that is not what happened.
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I wonder if my dad should have had the pacemaker that was fitted when he was 90; I assume that when they said, "you need a pacemaker", he accepted this without any questions. However, while it may have added a year or two to his life-span (he died three years later), I doubt that it contributed much in the way of quality - he never seemed very comfortable with it, and was really "ready to go" several months before he actually did.
I was lucky in that the care staff where my father lived didn't flatter him. They seemed to get the balance right by respecting what he could do and challenging him when his behaviour could lead to problems -for example in not using a stick, then a walker.
It's not easy for parents getting older and more frail, and possibly frightened. It's also not easy being their adult children, loving them, watching them lose their fitness and sometimes their minds. And, bundled in with all of that are often unresolved issues from the past. I never managed to resolve some of mine with Mum before she died, but Dad and I made our peace to some extent.
Spent the day with the AP yesterday ... very frail but I was able to get her out and about (and wash her dishes). A parenthesis of happiness for her, I guess, wherein she was able to forget her constant pain. Tired her out, in fact, and left her dozing in her favourite chair.
Mr. S and I visited the Dowager yesterday, mainly to stop her saying 'Mr. S never comes to see me...' He loathes hospital and care home visiting and they really haven't much to say to each other (except when she asks if his mother likes our new house, or something else inappropriate - his Mum died 9 years ago *sigh*)
Anyway, I had had what I thought was the world's best idea. On Saturday night The Intrepid Grandson stayed the night, and when I started to read 'The Gruffalo' as his bedtime story, he simply recited it to me, almost off by heart. It was sooooo sweet that I got his mother to record it and played it for Great-grandma on a tablet computer.
Apart from the fact that her hearing is bad, and her eyesight not good, she did enjoy it, but not as much as me, I think!
Tomorrow I need to ring the dentist's practice, who refused to treat her missing teeth without payment up front - where are we living, the States? For pity's sake, she's 94 and has dementia; neither a credit card nor fistfuls of twenties would seem like a good plan! WHY they couldn't ring me for a credit card number, I have no idea.
Anyway, the sore on her leg seems much improved and apart from what she thinks of as a battle with another resident 'vying to be head of the house'! she seems not too bad.
Zappa, glad you managed to get to see you mum, and had a good day with her. Good to get an update @The Intrepid Mrs S like @Huia my money is on the Dowager too.
I spent yesterday with my mum. She'd had a dizzy turn on Tuesday when she'd got up from a chair too quickly and had phoned her lovely best friend, who came over and made an appointment with the GP for her. As I was going over anyway, I got there early and went to the appointment. Mum had forgotten about it, but friend had phoned to remind her and I arrived in time to see her going down the road. She looked so frail and defenceless. It wasn't her usual doctor and he assumed we were there about an x-ray she'd had on a painful finger. After lots of useful advice I managed to get in with why we were there, as mum had forgotten. As I thought it was just low blood pressure, and she was told to take thing slowly.
We then went to the local big town to buy her a new winter coat. I think her days of independent shopping in such places are over. She wasn't sure what shops we were in, got totally distracted by other things (we had a daft argument about bra sizes), but we did find a very nice coat that suits her and seems to be warm.
Apart from that she is still convinced about the neighbours coming in. The latest is that she put her mugs in the dishwasher, went to the loo before she turned it on, and when she came out they'd taken them. Two of them are missing, but I doubt it was the neighbours. Her heating was on full blast when we returned and of course that was the neighbours too.
I'm chasing the memory clinic, and will chase again next week, and we are also supposed to be having a family day out next Thursday to look at places near my brother. I just hope we can keep mum going without a major crisis till something is in place for her.
Sarasa, your mum needs Fred. Fred was an attendee of evening service at the church I belonged to in my teens. The Church secretary and his wife gave him a lift most weeks. If they were late it was always Fred's fault and Fred quite happily accepted this role. Of course, nobody including them believed it. I think what your mum wants is someone to blame for the times she forgets things. At the moment she has decided it must be the neighbours but really Fred would be far more suitable, not least because he has been dead for around twenty years.
Oh as to Dad, he is unhappy so his knees are hurting. Hopefully, things will be better today once he has seen the doctor, had his curtains fixed and shower plus a visit from a friend. If BT fixes his phone line he may even be in a good mood.
@Sarasa, I'm afraid I am getting like your Mum. I realised this morning that I had lost my favourite mug - the one with the dishevelled-looking owl on it. Believe me, if I thought Mr. S would have believed me, I'd have blamed the neighbours too.
this October is a busy month for me and the Marama.
We have just finished hosting primary aged grand-daughters from our interstate daughter, as part of their school holidays.
Only to hear from her nursing home that my mother (in yet another state of Australia) that my 95 yo mother has started to refuse food in a bid to hasten her end. So, as her only son, I will be on the plane to Queensland tomorrow to visit her, and to set in place arrangements in case she dies in the next few weeks. (I have Power of Attorney for her, set up years ago, so can legally do this.) On current plans she might well die in the period when my wife and I are booked [and paid for] a 6-week trip, starting late October, to the northern hemisphere to visit friends and relations there who we have not seen for years.
As my mother is not the most sociable and widely friended person in the world, general advice from our contemporaries is that it would not be too heartless for us to go on our long-planned trip anyway, and if need be she can have a small cremation (as is her wish) in our absence and we can hold a memorial service after we return.
Prayers and thoughts welcome.
Tukai - if that happens, do it. It can't at that stage affect her in any way and you will have done all you can reasonably be expected to do. Don't cancel and then hold it against her memory, whatever happens!
@Tukai, that is a hard choice, but I agree that you should go on your planned trip whatever happens. Thinking of you as you go and visit your mother.
My brother and I are taking mum to look at flats near him on Thursday. She has already got in a total muddle about it all, told us all she isn't going to like any of the places (sadly probably true as she doesn't think she needs the sort of sheltered accommodation she will be seeing) and has generally been very cross and depressed in her recent phone calls. Oh and the coat she bought last week (the one that look really nice) is too heavy, and not what she wanted at all, which of course is all my fault.
I can see brother, sister in law and I will be getting though a lot of wine when we meet up.
Thinking of Tukai and Sarasa... but actually logged in to say we had quite a good visit to see Mother-in-law yesterday. All three of us went, and Other Half showed her some new photos that he'd taken earlier in the week on a trip to Edinburgh (actually a business trip, but he stayed with one of his aunts and met up with some cousins while he was there). Mother seemed a lot more with-it than usual and even recognised her sister in the photographs, and remembered her nephew's name (though I'm not entirely sure she believed that the balding middle-aged man in the pictures was really him). And we gave her a teddy bear that Other Half was given at a press conference. She *really* liked the teddy - she held it on her lap the whole time we were there and kept looking at it and stroking the fur. Best visit we've had for a long time.
@Tukai I am afraid there is a point when you just have got to get on that plane. We got to that stage this summer with my sister. Yes in a perfect world she would have been secure in the knowledge that Dad was staying in hospital until she came home (which is what happened in the end but they were not going to tell us that). The alternative was to cancel the biggest family holiday in years. Nope. She had to get on that plane.
That's excellent, Jane - proof that you're never too old for a teddy-bear!*
Tukai, I think the others are right - your mum's being well cared for, and there'd be nothing gained from cancelling your trip. Holding you all in my prayers.
* If I ever have to go into assisted living, I hope they let me take Quite Large Bear with me.
Apparently the Dowager is getting more and more tired, and when my dear cousin's wife G turned up to see her today, didn't want to be bothered. Decided she'd rather go to the birthday party! Poor G is over from Canada, has no real need to visit Mum at all, but is a truly lovely person <notworthy>
Fed up with her pain my AP has persuaded her GP to persuade the anaesthetist to knock her out to have her prolapsed bowel fixed. She says she'd rather die under anaesthetic than put up with the pain. I must say I'm not AP's greatest fan but I think that is a courageous and wise decision. And in NZ of course, as I pointed out to her we (NoK) don't have to pay the bill - I told her that's just as well, because I wasn't going to bloody pay
She's in better spirits having made the call - my worry for her now is whether the anaesthetist will in fact be persuaded. I'll try to get down next week and hopefully with siblings make an effort to be with her peri-op time.
I'm heading back in ten days to the Other Island which will make access difficult.
Fed up with her pain my AP has persuaded her GP to persuade the anaesthetist to knock her out to have her prolapsed bowel fixed. She says she'd rather die under anaesthetic than put up with the pain.
That makes it sound as though there's a way to have a prolapsed bowel fixed without being knocked out.
I'm reminded of my lovely mum, God rest her, who was told an operation for gallstones was too risky at her age. She feistily declared she'd rather be dead than carry on suffering as she was. They did the operation and it gave her a new lease of life for some years.
My mother now lives with me. Actually she’s been living with me for nine years (with biannual trips to her home in another state) but after a very frail spring filled with falls culminating with a stroke and three weeks in rehab and coming out using a walker, I have bitten the bullet of acknowledging that she in fact lives with me permanently because she can no longer live safely on her own, this isn’t temporary or intermittent, and getting address changes in place.
My mother had fallen, fractured her hip on a beach while she and my father had driven from their home in the central highlands of Mexico. The surgery was delayed and she had a stroke after the surgery. An older adult mustn't be in bed too long. Hard to believe she died 7 years ago.
But back to the living. We had appt #18 in 2018 with the ophthalmologist. Eye pressure is in safe zone still, so perhaps 3rd laser beam surgery not required! We always discuss his vision (he's a cyclops, one eye to use at all), and he tells me how terrible it is on the way to the appt. Then we're in the pre-exam testing room and it's the best it's been in 6 months, and he's all effusive and happy about it with the nurse. Not sure why I get all the negative, but there it is.
Then Sunday, we have him as usual for supper. He said he wants his meat in a blender next time. I have recollection of myself complaining about meals during a fussy period when I was maybe 8 or 10 years old and being put in my place. The temptation was formed in my mind, and apparently that means the sin is already committed, which is nice because then I didn't have to actually say anything to him.
Fed up with her pain my AP has persuaded her GP to persuade the anaesthetist to knock her out to have her prolapsed bowel fixed. She says she'd rather die under anaesthetic than put up with the pain.
That makes it sound as though there's a way to have a prolapsed bowel fixed without being knocked out.
I'm reminded of my lovely mum, God rest her, who was told an operation for gallstones was too risky at her age. She feistily declared she'd rather be dead than carry on suffering as she was. They did the operation and it gave her a new lease of life for some years.
I doubt if Old Mrs Zappa has many years left at 96, but here's hoping for some, or at least some months, without pain. She is fairly phlegmatic this afternoon, which is good, but has no confirmation of a date, yet ...
And no - I meant they weren't going to operate at all
@Zappa , I think I've said this before, but our Aged P's didn't get to a grand old age without being tough, feisty and downright determined. I hope the operation is agreed to, and gives Mrs Z a few more good months/years. Good news about your father's eyes @NOprophet_NØprofit . My mother always responds much better to health professionals than to me, specially if they are young, good looking and male. Not sure if that's what cheered your dad up! @Autenrieth Road hope you and your mother settle down into a happy living together arrangement.
Today is the day we are convening at my brother's house ahead of sheltered accommodation viewings tomorrow. The whole idea has thrown mum totally off kilter and I was woken by my husband at seven this morning having just come off the phone with my mum. She was very depressed and confused and my husband is now feeling guilty as he told her bluntly that all her neighbour problems (marmalade and heating at present) are of her own doing. I think mum probably needs to be looking at care homes rather than sheltered accommodation, but as she doesn't think she needs the latter, goodness knows how we could persuade her to consider the former.
Fed up with her pain my AP has persuaded her GP to persuade the anaesthetist to knock her out to have her prolapsed bowel fixed. She says she'd rather die under anaesthetic than put up with the pain. I must say I'm not AP's greatest fan but I think that is a courageous and wise decision. And in NZ of course, as I pointed out to her we (NoK) don't have to pay the bill - I told her that's just as well, because I wasn't going to bloody pay
She's in better spirits having made the call - my worry for her now is whether the anaesthetist will in fact be persuaded. I'll try to get down next week and hopefully with siblings make an effort to be with her peri-op time.
I'm heading back in ten days to the Other Island which will make access difficult.
Zappa:
Like Nenya, our family experience is positive with operations of this kind for a person in pain in their 90s . My mother fell and broke a hip earlier in her 90s, and although she had "private" medical cover, the surgeon said that they operate on all patients with this condition , regardless of age unless there are very strong medical counter-indications. . Medicare (Australia's "universal" national health cover) pays , as it regards such surgery as not a luxury option but urgent, as a person with a broken hip without surgery would inevitably be confined to bed, in great pain, vulnerable to bedsores etc and therefore liable to die in continuous pain within a month or two. I suspect the same line would be taken here with your mother's condition.
Unfortunately for NPNP, attitudes in North America are less merciful and more mercenary.
My mother-in-law broke her thigh quite close to the hip joint last year. She had to wait a couple of days for the operation (with extra-strong pain medication), but they did operate on her and she made a good recovery. Not back to where she was before the fall - she needs a Zimmer frame now - but she can still walk, which we were worried she wouldn't be able to do.
As in Australia, the NHS regards that type of operation as urgent. Old people who are still mobile tend to have less expensive ailments.
As for my own mother, there is good news and bad news, though even the bad news has its good side.
Unambiguously good is that I (her only child) and all her three grandchildren (i.e. my children) were able to visit her in the nursing home where she has lived for the past 5 or so years. Son lives nearby anyway, D2 flew north with me along with her 4 month old baby - a little charmer who smiles at anyone who talks to him - and D1 took a day off her new work to fly up for one day. The Marama was left in the south to look after the 3yo brother of the baby.
Mother was asleep ("semi-conscious") on each of the 4 occasions I visited. The nurses reckoned that "hearing was the last sense to go", so we should make sure we talked when her bedside, which we did (except for the baby). Indeed the doctor told us that she could die anytime in the next few days, as she was by then neither eating or drinking. But on the positive side, the nurses at her aged cared home were keeping her comfortable and are very experienced at palliative care, which is what she was receiving.
I also spent much time rushing round the district to put in place legal arrangements for her death and funeral. This was made easier by my having power of attorney for her and by her having clearly expressed her wishes on these matters a year or two ago.
The bad news is that she passed away two days after I returned south. But softening this blow is that she was mentally ready to go , and indeed often in the last year or two responded to "how are you?" by saying "I just want to die". Nor did she suffer physically. And as a bonus, a local accountant also has power of attorney, and so can provide the requisite signatures even if I'm not on the spot - which has turned out to be the case. So the Marama and I can depart with peace of mind on our "world tour" next weekend, as several shipmates have advised us to do - thank you for your constructive thoughts and prayers !
Mrs Zappa refused urgent surgery because she thought that was for urgent matters and hers wasn't. She's now grumpy with life and despondent though she cheered up for a while while we spoke on the phone.
Comments
'just be two trains and a walk/taxi/lift' - I'm in awe; your devotion makes me quite ashamed as all I have to do is get in the car!
The Dowager continues to be settled, thank the Lord; Master S and his wife went down to see her on Thursday, bless them, and he was greeted like an old friend by the admin on duty. He sends Mum a personalised postcard every week, and it's Emily who has to read them for her as her eyesight is so bad, so Emily knows all about the decorating of their new front room, the curry they had with his in-laws... it really made me laugh!
I'm still trying to decide how to handle the sale of the house; even getting advice from the planning department over what sort of building they might allow in the back garden would cost £300(!) with no guarantees; and the architect would charge about £4,000 to take the application to planning, again no guarantees.
Mrs. S - what to do, what to do...
Yesterday she was trundled off to hospital - prolapsed bowel. No doubt she'll snap and snarl at everyone, especially medical staff. I suspect this will need a general anesthetic which could be a little dicey, but not necessarily so. If she recovers she'll head back to her independent living, leaving everyone on tenterhooks, still snapping and snarling at all who offer help, locking herself out of the house from time to time, falling and crawling, and battling growing if still manageable dementia. Bills are piling up because she loses them, loses access to her bank account, but agrees to pay cold callers for every charity that calls. and she have no idea if she has any money left.
My sister bears the brunt of this, as she lives only 30 kms away from her mother. At present I'm about 800 kms away (closer than I've been most of the last 35 years, mind you). Another brother is about 500 kms away from her, though he tends to refuse to see any problem.
*sigh.*
The joys of 96.
The Dowager, mostly quite happy in her care home, was complimented on her appearance by one of the admin staff yesterday. 'So I'm on show today, am I?'
*sigh*
Sadly she has also managed to lose an additional tooth in her latest fall, has a horribly smelly sore on her leg*, and is whinging because her hair needs cutting and she lost the hair grip that she'd paid for!
* yes, the District Nurse team are treating it
Mrs. S, who at least has LPOA <phew>
I went to see my mum yesterday. Still keen to move, though I don't think the sort of place we have in mind is what she wants, and still convinced about the neighbour taking things.
My brother spoke to her later and she'd been phoning the police again as she thought the neighbours had her cheque books. She'd forgotten I'd been
I reminded my Mum that Master S and his wife had been to see her. She'd forgotten entirely, but recovered enough to say 'Well, they didn't stay long'
'Maybe not, but they came a long way to see you!'
She was very sad that she forgot when people came to see her, but I consoled her by telling her that she enjoyed it while they were there (I didn't say anything about what the visitors felt). However, she trumped all of that by telling me that her friend J had been to visit, with her husband 'you know, the one who died'
Mrs. S, definitely
Where she is now, understandably miserable, sore, and when I last heard from her sounding as though a fair bit of feist, if that's a word, has departed from her. Though she left a message on my voicemail yesterday - I was in transit - and at least vocally sounded more robust. Which probably means she's had a few people tell her how wonderful she is (well I guess we all need that), how cruel the anesthetist was and what would he know, how doctors are all descendants of Josef Mengele, and would she like another prune? Which she fears she may be living on for a while.
It's a brutal condition, though, and I do feel sympathy for that.
I'll try to see her next week ... I'm back at my proper home now and that's only 200 kms away from her ... and will ring her back today. It's 5.15 am here so I may leave that for a while!
And all that about 'you can't be 96' - it would make me gnash my teeth when I had to sit through all these people telling thee Dowager how amazing she was to be living alone etc, when if it hadn't been for all the stuff I did in the background to keep her afloat
Mrs. S, who thinks £1,000 a week is money well spent for someone else to look after the Dowager
I know that Dad, who could be very awkward, really came to respect her and I was grateful he had someone like her responsible for his care.
Likewise when Mum was found wandering, the kind neighbour called the other partner, who told Mum she was no longer safe at home alone. Mum believed that, which she would not have done with anyone else <hallelujah>
I think lots of people mean well, and tell the APs they can't be 90, or whatever, and it does the APs no favours at all because they then feel they ought to be able to manage
Mrs. S, grateful not to be cleaning, ordering food etc
This.
I have a disabled relative who took ill while shopping last month and was taken by ambulance to A&E. I'm not sure if there was a misunderstanding at A&E but the hospital phoned my mother as his nearest relative ( she is the geographically nearest to A&E!) and told her to get to A&E asap. Which she did. She then spent the next 4 hours in A&E, quite a lot of which involved standing, before driving the relative back to his home.
She was exhausted. I asked her whether she had contacted the relative's next-of-kin, his social worker, or anyone involved in his care. And she said no, because the hospital told her that she was the responsible person, and therefore that made it so. (She did phone his next-of-kin once she was back home, and got a glorious bouquet as a thank you for all that she had done.)
I'm just concerned that she accepted unquestioningly that she was the responsible person in this scenario, because the hospital said so.
She could also have spoken to the other staff members in A&E who may well have said she could have gone too. Not everyone in A&E has someone with them. They may need someone to take them home to allow them to be released, not be kept in, but they do not necessarily have company throughout.
(I've spent a lot of hours in the observation area of A&E chatting to patients and their carers, where they have a carer present.)
I strongly suspect a misunderstanding over the phrase "nearest relative" as the only way in which Mum could be described as the "nearest relative" is geographical. It would have made perfect sense to ask Mum to come quickly as a stopgap until someone else got there, but that is not what happened.
The irony with my AP is that she distrusts mainstream doctors and nurses utterly ... except if they're flattering her
(bugger ... best ring her again ... this thread is useful!)
It's not easy for parents getting older and more frail, and possibly frightened. It's also not easy being their adult children, loving them, watching them lose their fitness and sometimes their minds. And, bundled in with all of that are often unresolved issues from the past. I never managed to resolve some of mine with Mum before she died, but Dad and I made our peace to some extent.
Mr. S and I visited the Dowager yesterday, mainly to stop her saying 'Mr. S never comes to see me...' He loathes hospital and care home visiting and they really haven't much to say to each other (except when she asks if his mother likes our new house, or something else inappropriate - his Mum died 9 years ago *sigh*)
Anyway, I had had what I thought was the world's best idea. On Saturday night The Intrepid Grandson stayed the night, and when I started to read 'The Gruffalo' as his bedtime story, he simply recited it to me, almost off by heart. It was sooooo sweet that I got his mother to record it and played it for Great-grandma on a tablet computer.
Apart from the fact that her hearing is bad, and her eyesight not good, she did enjoy it, but not as much as me, I think!
Tomorrow I need to ring the dentist's practice, who refused to treat her missing teeth without payment up front - where are we living, the States? For pity's sake, she's 94 and has dementia; neither a credit card nor fistfuls of twenties would seem like a good plan! WHY they couldn't ring me for a credit card number, I have no idea.
Anyway, the sore on her leg seems much improved and apart from what she thinks of as a battle with another resident 'vying to be head of the house'! she seems not too bad.
Mrs. S, grateful
I spent yesterday with my mum. She'd had a dizzy turn on Tuesday when she'd got up from a chair too quickly and had phoned her lovely best friend, who came over and made an appointment with the GP for her. As I was going over anyway, I got there early and went to the appointment. Mum had forgotten about it, but friend had phoned to remind her and I arrived in time to see her going down the road. She looked so frail and defenceless. It wasn't her usual doctor and he assumed we were there about an x-ray she'd had on a painful finger. After lots of useful advice I managed to get in with why we were there, as mum had forgotten. As I thought it was just low blood pressure, and she was told to take thing slowly.
We then went to the local big town to buy her a new winter coat. I think her days of independent shopping in such places are over. She wasn't sure what shops we were in, got totally distracted by other things (we had a daft argument about bra sizes), but we did find a very nice coat that suits her and seems to be warm.
Apart from that she is still convinced about the neighbours coming in. The latest is that she put her mugs in the dishwasher, went to the loo before she turned it on, and when she came out they'd taken them. Two of them are missing, but I doubt it was the neighbours. Her heating was on full blast when we returned and of course that was the neighbours too.
I'm chasing the memory clinic, and will chase again next week, and we are also supposed to be having a family day out next Thursday to look at places near my brother. I just hope we can keep mum going without a major crisis till something is in place for her.
Oh as to Dad, he is unhappy so his knees are hurting. Hopefully, things will be better today once he has seen the doctor, had his curtains fixed and shower plus a visit from a friend. If BT fixes his phone line he may even be in a good mood.
Mrs S, better at losing things than finding them
We have just finished hosting primary aged grand-daughters from our interstate daughter, as part of their school holidays.
Only to hear from her nursing home that my mother (in yet another state of Australia) that my 95 yo mother has started to refuse food in a bid to hasten her end. So, as her only son, I will be on the plane to Queensland tomorrow to visit her, and to set in place arrangements in case she dies in the next few weeks. (I have Power of Attorney for her, set up years ago, so can legally do this.) On current plans she might well die in the period when my wife and I are booked [and paid for] a 6-week trip, starting late October, to the northern hemisphere to visit friends and relations there who we have not seen for years.
As my mother is not the most sociable and widely friended person in the world, general advice from our contemporaries is that it would not be too heartless for us to go on our long-planned trip anyway, and if need be she can have a small cremation (as is her wish) in our absence and we can hold a memorial service after we return.
Prayers and thoughts welcome.
Mrs. S, praying
My brother and I are taking mum to look at flats near him on Thursday. She has already got in a total muddle about it all, told us all she isn't going to like any of the places (sadly probably true as she doesn't think she needs the sort of sheltered accommodation she will be seeing) and has generally been very cross and depressed in her recent phone calls. Oh and the coat she bought last week (the one that look really nice) is too heavy, and not what she wanted at all, which of course is all my fault.
I can see brother, sister in law and I will be getting though a lot of wine when we meet up.
Tukai, I think the others are right - your mum's being well cared for, and there'd be nothing gained from cancelling your trip. Holding you all in my prayers.
* If I ever have to go into assisted living, I hope they let me take Quite Large Bear with me.
Apparently the Dowager is getting more and more tired, and when my dear cousin's wife G turned up to see her today, didn't want to be bothered. Decided she'd rather go to the birthday party! Poor G is over from Canada, has no real need to visit Mum at all, but is a truly lovely person <notworthy>
Mrs. S, staying out of the way
She's in better spirits having made the call - my worry for her now is whether the anaesthetist will in fact be persuaded. I'll try to get down next week and hopefully with siblings make an effort to be with her peri-op time.
I'm heading back in ten days to the Other Island which will make access difficult.
That makes it sound as though there's a way to have a prolapsed bowel fixed without being knocked out.
I'm reminded of my lovely mum, God rest her, who was told an operation for gallstones was too risky at her age. She feistily declared she'd rather be dead than carry on suffering as she was. They did the operation and it gave her a new lease of life for some years.
My mother had fallen, fractured her hip on a beach while she and my father had driven from their home in the central highlands of Mexico. The surgery was delayed and she had a stroke after the surgery. An older adult mustn't be in bed too long. Hard to believe she died 7 years ago.
But back to the living. We had appt #18 in 2018 with the ophthalmologist. Eye pressure is in safe zone still, so perhaps 3rd laser beam surgery not required! We always discuss his vision (he's a cyclops, one eye to use at all), and he tells me how terrible it is on the way to the appt. Then we're in the pre-exam testing room and it's the best it's been in 6 months, and he's all effusive and happy about it with the nurse. Not sure why I get all the negative, but there it is.
Then Sunday, we have him as usual for supper. He said he wants his meat in a blender next time. I have recollection of myself complaining about meals during a fussy period when I was maybe 8 or 10 years old and being put in my place. The temptation was formed in my mind, and apparently that means the sin is already committed, which is nice because then I didn't have to actually say anything to him.
I doubt if Old Mrs Zappa has many years left at 96, but here's hoping for some, or at least some months, without pain. She is fairly phlegmatic this afternoon, which is good, but has no confirmation of a date, yet ...
And no - I meant they weren't going to operate at all
Today is the day we are convening at my brother's house ahead of sheltered accommodation viewings tomorrow. The whole idea has thrown mum totally off kilter and I was woken by my husband at seven this morning having just come off the phone with my mum. She was very depressed and confused and my husband is now feeling guilty as he told her bluntly that all her neighbour problems (marmalade and heating at present) are of her own doing. I think mum probably needs to be looking at care homes rather than sheltered accommodation, but as she doesn't think she needs the latter, goodness knows how we could persuade her to consider the former.
Zappa:
Like Nenya, our family experience is positive with operations of this kind for a person in pain in their 90s . My mother fell and broke a hip earlier in her 90s, and although she had "private" medical cover, the surgeon said that they operate on all patients with this condition , regardless of age unless there are very strong medical counter-indications. . Medicare (Australia's "universal" national health cover) pays , as it regards such surgery as not a luxury option but urgent, as a person with a broken hip without surgery would inevitably be confined to bed, in great pain, vulnerable to bedsores etc and therefore liable to die in continuous pain within a month or two. I suspect the same line would be taken here with your mother's condition.
Unfortunately for NPNP, attitudes in North America are less merciful and more mercenary.
As in Australia, the NHS regards that type of operation as urgent. Old people who are still mobile tend to have less expensive ailments.
Unambiguously good is that I (her only child) and all her three grandchildren (i.e. my children) were able to visit her in the nursing home where she has lived for the past 5 or so years. Son lives nearby anyway, D2 flew north with me along with her 4 month old baby - a little charmer who smiles at anyone who talks to him - and D1 took a day off her new work to fly up for one day. The Marama was left in the south to look after the 3yo brother of the baby.
Mother was asleep ("semi-conscious") on each of the 4 occasions I visited. The nurses reckoned that "hearing was the last sense to go", so we should make sure we talked when her bedside, which we did (except for the baby). Indeed the doctor told us that she could die anytime in the next few days, as she was by then neither eating or drinking. But on the positive side, the nurses at her aged cared home were keeping her comfortable and are very experienced at palliative care, which is what she was receiving.
I also spent much time rushing round the district to put in place legal arrangements for her death and funeral. This was made easier by my having power of attorney for her and by her having clearly expressed her wishes on these matters a year or two ago.
The bad news is that she passed away two days after I returned south. But softening this blow is that she was mentally ready to go , and indeed often in the last year or two responded to "how are you?" by saying "I just want to die". Nor did she suffer physically. And as a bonus, a local accountant also has power of attorney, and so can provide the requisite signatures even if I'm not on the spot - which has turned out to be the case. So the Marama and I can depart with peace of mind on our "world tour" next weekend, as several shipmates have advised us to do - thank you for your constructive thoughts and prayers !
May your mum rest in peace and rise in glory. And enjoy your travels in her memory!
Mrs Zappa refused urgent surgery because she thought that was for urgent matters and hers wasn't.