<p>Right now my husband is in the hospital and my mother has been telling stuff to my relatives about my family that she shouldn’t and some of it isn’t true. I’m tired and in damage control mode. I feel like my mother and my mother’s brain are two different things! At least my mother realized what she did and apoligized to me. Things I want her to know, she forgets easily. My mother also has decided that her medical bills are wrong so she stopped paying them and now is having trouble straightening things out.</p>
<p>My mother is “being poisoned” at her assisted living facility. Sometimes it’s really hard to figure out how to live in her reality. I’m moving her out in 6 days.</p>
<p>momsquad, glad you and your mom had a nice outing. Those times are precious.</p>
<p>Thanks to all for your thoughts. They are a tremendous comfort. Bookreader, I try to show up at shul for more than my regularly assigned minyan duty anyway, but now going through this, I think it will become a regular part of my week. Even if we can’t always get a minyan on a given night, just being there has been a blessing for me.</p>
<p>It was a real blessing for my DH as well. My kids joined him sometimes also and it was valuable for them as well. After the 11 month period was over, they continued to go, although not quite as regularly.</p>
<p>On occasion, the conversation on this thread talks about hospice care for our loved ones. I have a close friend who is a hospice nurse. This past week, her organization was named a Top Workplace in CT. Yesterday, she posted something on facebook that I would like to share with all of you:I am often asked as a Hospice nurse why I do what I do and I am frequently asked isn’t that so depressing? Today as with many others days I was given a gift. Today as I was admitting an actively peacefully dying patient I returned to the room to find her chuckling and giggling like a 2 year old. I stopped and whispered in her ear and asked her “what are you laughing about” She stopped and said I see these angels and they are beautiful, so very beautiful and then I asked her do you see anyone else and she said yes my mother and grandmother! This my friends is what I get paid to do… Truly a gift
I hope this is a comfort for those of us who are or have considered hospice care for family members.</p>
<p>Momsquad, you handled your day with your mom so well! Sometimes it’s hard for me to think of the right thing to say on the spot to my demented stepmother, and my dad is awful at it and tries to insist that she’s wrong, wrong, wrong. Of course, at 90, he’s often wrong too. So it goes.</p>
<p>EC, beautiful. I often think about the work I will be doing when I just can’t do what I do anymore. I used to work hospice and I am often “called” to go back. It’s not time yet, but will probably be sometime in the next 5 years.</p>
<p>Bless all who work in hospice. I started my nursing career in oncology and left after 6 years. It wasn’t recognized at that time how important it was for the caregivers to receive support.</p>
<p>I need a little input here. Several weeks ago I went to visit my mother to help start cleaning out her place. She knows she needs to sell, but she thinks she can go to an apartment.</p>
<p>Today she told me she’s in a bit of a mess, she has a pile of bills she hasn’t paid, and her room is a total mess from when we were there cleaning out. </p>
<p>I suggested she get my niece who lives there to just stick them in an envelope for me and I’ll sort them out and pay them for her. She declined the offer and just said she can only get to the mailbox about once a month. </p>
<p>As far as her room - several weeks before I went my sister was there and my mom gave her the dresser from her room and they emptied a bunch of the junk into boxes. I asked her if I could help her go through it and clear it all out, and she said no she wanted to go through everything. We’re literally talking junk drawers here, but I get it, she wanted to look through it. Weeks and weeks later, she has done nothing about it all sitting there.</p>
<p>She doesn’t have the energy. If my niece isn’t there I think she only eats canned soup. She is not sounding good to me right now but she sees the dr all the time. I have no idea what the dr sees or says. </p>
<p>She will not hire someone to help her out. She needs help getting laundry done, cooking some meals, getting groceries, paying bills - she does have a cleaning service. She really doesn’t do any maintenance type things and really can barely just manage herself. If she refuses to get help or go to assisted living, what do we do?</p>
<p>So sorry to hear of your mother’s passing, countingdown. May her memory be for a blessing.</p>
<p>eyemamom–I think you should speak to her doctor (can you go to a visit with her?) Maybe she would go to assisted living if the doc recommended it. When my father went to an apartment that lasted about 2 months before HE realized he really needed assisted living (he still has his mind so he could figure this out.) Later his doctor and the visiting nurse both said they knew he should have gone to AL to begin with. If they had said this BEFORE he moved to an apt. it would have saved us a lot of trouble. </p>
<p>So try asking the doctor’s advice (in your mother’s hearing.)</p>
<p>eyemamom- My dad refuses to let me pay bills when I ask, but, I know getting started with anything is a little overwhelming and he always says he’ll get to it “later.” With a little cajoling, I convince him to do it now and we sit with the bills and computer or checkbook and get it done. Of course, with him involved it takes much longer, but he is still part of the process and he remembers himself doing it. </p>
<p>As to the apartment, how about an apartment at a continuing care community? That way she can move according to her needs. My parents are doing nicely independent living where the maid comes, they have minimal bills, and they have 1 meal a day.</p>
<p>You all must have really compliant, logical parents. My mom is really stubborn and really won’t listen to reason. So I can’t make her let me help - though I live a few states away. Two siblings are right there - one doesn’t help at all, the other does a lot, but things are starting to snowball a bit now. </p>
<p>My brother is on her checking account and someone upthread talked about it and now I’m like - why is he on this account if he isn’t helping her with this stuff?</p>
<p>Yes I do have logical parents. The only problem is that my father, an electrical engineer, thinks he can use logic to solve any problem. Unfortunately, now that he has dementia, he now gets stuck in circular logical thinking and it’s not working! No, he’s not particularly compliant but he knows I can now think more logically than he. My mom is very compliant. </p>
<p>No, it doesn’t make sense for your brother to be on your mom’s checking account if it is not to take some responsibility for helping her with finances. Does he realize that her unpaid bills may go his credit?</p>
<p>Eyemamom, my mom was stubborn too. She is a hoarder and she was always “working on it” without making any progress. She also has dementia and has been slipping (memory) the past several years. Unfortunately, the only thing that worked for us was that she eventually got sick and ended up in the hospital. The doctors said she absolutely should not live alone and should go to AL. She wanted to go home. I had her move in with me and told her we would “try it out” and see. ( it’s really hard and exhausting but I feel like less of a bad daughter than I did when she was living alone in that mess.) I don’t know what will be the breaking point for you, but if you have some ideas and can talk to your sibs about it before an event forces your hand, it will be a smoother transition.</p>
<p>My Mom is also somewhat of a hoarder but I think part of it is that she is just overwhelmed. Her desk is piled high with bills, donation requests and articles that she clips. Many of the articles are about gardening or cooking- both were big in her life and now that she can barely walk to the bathroom, I’m sure she really misses her hobbies. She finally consented to having me do her bills when her electricity was turned off due to non-payment. She is supposed to put them in a box as she gets them so I can grab them when I am there which is 4-5 times a week. Sounds easy but I still find them all over and also find envelopes with checks that she forgets to mail. She also accidentally throws away mail with the newspaper so I always check the trash. The other big issue is that she had always had favorite charities to which she has donated. Now she forgets to whom she has donated and will send one charity a lot of checks and others get nothing. My solution was that once a year in Dec. we would go through and donate to each. Unfortunately, she forgets and I am constantly finding envelopes ready to be mailed. When I tried to pull her taxes together last year, I realized she must have thrown away the file with all of her back-up: I keep everything now but that took me hours to scrape everything together!! In short it is very time-consuming and frustrating. I know she feels bad and knows how difficult she can be, but I also realize that she feels useless and as if she is a burden. She did this same thing for her Mom, her Aunt, and my Dad’s Mom. My youngest has already told me he is moving cross country when we get to that point.</p>
<p>My friend’s Mom has been a hoarder, bound and determined to remain in her place, just the beginning of short term memory issues, but yes, pills stashed, weird stuff in weird places etc. Then Mom had a joint replacement and my friend got Mom discharged ‘temporarily’ to AL. She LOVES it! She does not want to go home.</p>
<p>CountingDown, I’ve been away from the thread for a bit, and I wanted to give you my condolences on the passing of your mom.</p>
<p>I also want to say how beautiful your post was. Even in your loss, you are showered with blessings – that you and your family were able to be with her, that she could hear your reading the Psalms even in her coma, your sister’s (brilliant) idea for Neil Diamond tunes, the birthday party and the therapeutic pall, the time you had to spend with your Dad, the kindness of strangers in offering you spiritual support, even something so small as your DH arranging the trip so that you wouldn’t have to. I hope all these things will continue to comfort you in the months and years to come.</p>