On Caregiving

[CellarDweller]

Katherine is right.  No one wants to see a parent go through this.

[brianr]

I think depression in that situation is a completely normal response. {{{{Lee}}}}

I agree. I would be more worried if you did not feel a bit depressed. Occasional depression based on real events is a normal part of the human psyche. It is continual feeling depressed or depression based on no reason that is clinical. Even the latter should not cause alarm if not too prolonged as sometimes we cannot put a finger on the actual cause of a feeling of depression.

[Front-Ranger]

I feel completely exhausted and in despair about her situation, and worry that if I had a gun, I would put it to her head and then my head!

I'm sorry you're having to go through this, but that's a less than optimal solution.

And I'm sorry that your siblings seem so unhelpful. Yesterday I had dinner with a friend whose mother is 90-something and has had a broken pelvis and other health issues (not cognitive, though) and needed a lot of help. My friend and her mother both live in Minneapolis, and her children are all adults, so she moved into her mom's apartment and took care of her for quite a while. But her siblings, one of whom lives in Northern Minnesota and the other in Massachusetts, frequently travel here to pitch in.

Refresh my memory -- is your mom in assisted living? If so, you can have them professionally assess her to see what other assistance she may need. A housekeeper, a memory-care unit ... whatever. You of course have to pay for any additional services or care. But that's what they're there for.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I'm so sorry to learn all this.

It sounds as though the time may have come when she needs a higher level of care.

How could the people who run the place where she lives allow her apartment to get in that condition?

[serious crayons]

Lee, I'm sorry I accidentally modified rather than quoted your earlier, long and important post. I may need some extra care myself. Here it is, in its entirety:
    

Re: On Caregiving
« Reply #162 on: Yesterday at 07:40:29 pm »
   
Reply with quote Modify message Remove message Split Topic
I sent this message to my siblings several hours ago, and I have not heard anything back.

Saturday morning, I went to try again to pick up a urine sample. Mom wasn’t in her room so I searched all over for the sample bottle but couldn’t find it. She had left out some containers of yogurt so I put them back in the fridge. Several times during the day I tried to call her but she wasn’t answering her phone.
 

Finally around 2pm I received a call from her phone. It was the lady at the front desk, who said Mom had heard my voice and wondered where I was there at the home. She handed the phone over to Mom and, as I talked to her, I figured out that, by “voice” she meant “ringtone”. She was hearing the phone ring when I called her, but she didn’t know what it was or how to answer it.I rushed over.

I asked mom why she was carrying around 3 remotes and a phone in the pocket below the seat of her walker. She said, “to keep them together.” I tried to explain to her that 2 of the remotes were not needed (and I put them away where hopefully she wouldn’t find them) and that the third one should bvb vbe used with her TV, and that the phone was separate. Then, I tried to get her to use her phone. I said, Mom, I’m going to call you on your phone and I want you to pick it up, open it, and answer.” I called her, the phone rang, and she just sat there looking at me. I said things like, “I hope Mom picks up her phone”. “Mom, pick it up.” Etc. She just blankly looked at me. I said, “mom, look at your phone! Pick it up!” and she instead looked at her TV remote or the call button necklace around her neck. Finally, I got her to pick up her phone after 4 tries.

I found her room in disarray. I stepped on something in the living room, it turned out to be the spring that goes in her toilet paper dispenser. After a lot of searching I found the other two parts of the dispenser, one on the table, and one in her chair. I put it all back together and put it back in the bathroom with a roll of toilet paper. Towels and washcloths, most of them dirty and wet, were strewn about the place. I put them all in the dirty clothes basket. I put wet wads of toilet paper in the trash. Trash cans were placed in odd places, and one was in the kitchen area, with unusual things in it like placemats and clothing. There were clothing items heaped on it. I also found items of clothing on the closet floor, in all the kitchen cabinets, thrown over chairs, and in the bathroom. So many items of clothing! With great difficulty, I figured out which was dirty and needed to go in the laundry basket and which was clean and needed to be hung up.


Since her TV wasn’t working, I led Mom out into the lobby area outside her door where some TVs have recently been installed. I turned the channel to the Rifleman which Mom said she likes. I told her to sit down on one of the comfy chairs. She started to sit down on top of the remote which was lying on the table in between the comfy chairs. I said, “Mom don’t sit down on the table, that wouldn’t be comfortable!” She said that she would sit down on the cabinet that is just under the TV. I finally got her to sit down on a chair and made sure that she was able to get up again. That’s where I left her. I feel completely exhausted and in despair about her situation, and worry that if I had a gun, I would put it to her head and then my head!

[Front-Ranger]

No problemo. I have almost every post I make in my "Captain's Log" for 2017. It's 38 pages long already!

Well I did one thing right, I think. I changed the ringtone on Mom's phone to be an old-fashioned BRIIIING BRIIIING. That was what finally got through her head that that little black object was a phone!

[CellarDweller]

How could the people who run the place where she lives allow her apartment to get in that condition?

This is a good question.  Isn't there someone who would monitor this?

[Front-Ranger]

Single friends with no children, read this: http://www.aarp.org/home-family/caregiving/info-2016/caregiving-tips-when-aging-alone.html?cmp=SNO-ICM-FB-AO-CG&socialid=787791923
Even if you have children, if you don't think they'll help you out when you're old, read the article!

My elderly mother needs help every day. I'm shocked by how she's treated when I'm not there to put a word in. And there's lots of paperwork. It's funny that the first question asked on all these forms is Are you working? Mom hasn't worked in 50 years. And the second question is Is your spouse working? My stepfather died 15 years ago.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Single friends with no children, read this: http://www.aarp.org/home-family/caregiving/info-2016/caregiving-tips-when-aging-alone.html?cmp=SNO-ICM-FB-AO-CG&socialid=787791923
Even if you have children, if you don't think they'll help you out when you're old, read the article!

My elderly mother needs help every day. I'm shocked by how she's treated when I'm not there to put a word in. And there's lots of paperwork. It's funny that the first question asked on all these forms is Are you working? Mom hasn't worked in 50 years. And the second question is Is your spouse working? My stepfather died 15 years ago.

A very interesting read. Thanks for sharing that. But, my goodness, "unbefriended" is a terrible thing to call people. Like Scrooge before he saw the light.

[serious crayons]

Thank you so much for sharing that, Lee! I haven't read it yet but will, and may even write about the topic for the paper.

In my other job as a copywriter, among my other duties is writing brochures for patients about medical devices. Most of them are pretty big-deal devices for serious conditions; implanting them may involving brain surgery or heart surgery. So the brochures almost always suggest lining up a caregiver, having that person go to doctors appointments with you and help you while you're recovering. They also often include instructions for the caregiver on how to help the patient.

I often say, what if this person doesn't have a caregiver? What if s/he has no spouse, either no children or they live somewhere else, no really close friends they could impose upon to that degree? The person giving me the assignment, generally someone in their 30s, will kind of shrug, like, well, pretty much everyone has somebody. But I don't think that's true for many, many people.