<p>Regarding the driving issue, if the elder is fighting it, they will fright it now or fight it later. An elderly family member had a stroke in the 1980s (in their late 50s), got the okay to drive a car with some accommodations, eventually went down hill such that they cannot now drive. It has been nearly 10 years and they still complain, all the time about it. Now, or later, they will fight it, so take the keys now.</p>
<p>Why don’t her kids take the keys, well if they live hundreds or thousands of miles away, they don’t always see the changes and they don’t really have the true power to affect that change. Mom or Dad could get new keys made unless they take away the car, and mom or dad could, in some cases, buy a new car.</p>
<p>On that man mentioned above, the one who can only get in & out of the car with assistance, who is helping him?</p>
<p>The drivers’ license issue can be really frustrating. We got DMV to call my FIL in last year – and he passed their test (second try.) His doctor refused to lift a finger. In one year he drove through his garage door, backed over neighbor’s mailboxes and was involved in two minor fender benders - one of which he apparently was unaware of. We tried to take his keys away but he just threatened to buy or rent another car. I upped his insurance by $1M and crossed my fingers. Fortunately, when he was taken into an emergency room after driving 100 miles up into the mountains on a delusional “errand” and falling down the doctor in the ER he was taken to reported him to DMV - 2nd time in one year. This time they sent out a bunch of forms for his primary physician to fill out and the doctor - predictably - just did nothing. So DMV finally took away his license. He’s now convinced it was a “put up job” pulled off by “those two guys up there (in the ER) that I never even saw.” (He was in the ER for 7 hours while we drove up to get him.) </p>
<p>CTTC, Not all doctors are willing to deliver the bad news about driving. We tried to get Dad’s doctor to tell him, but she copped out – said she hadn’t seen him drive, so she couldn’t make a judgment about it. IMO she didn’t want to be the bad guy any more than we did. I even looked into reporting him to DMV but there wasn’t a mechanism to do that in his state. In the end, there was no way around it – we kids had to do it. </p>
<p>The funny thing is that while he complained bitterly at first, as soon as Mom gave up driving, we never heard another peep out of him. Apparently what stuck is his craw wasn’t that he couldn’t drive; it was that he couldn’t drive and she could.</p>
<p>Preironic… I was going to say that Moms LTC has not paid. She does not meet the 2 daily living criteria. Her policy is set up much more for physical problems than mental. Her impairment varies from mild to severe, daily… So they don’t agree that it is chronic. So they don’t pay. And they lead me to believe that they would pay something with just assisted living and licenses care, and now she is moved…as of yesterday, they won’t pay… It is very hard to get them to pay.</p>
<p>I reported mom anonymously to DMV and she had to retest and failed. Then she lied to me and said she had a temporary permit and kept driving until I found out. She could have killed someone, or worse injured and lost everything !</p>
<p>Anyone ever have luck getting the predatory care giver out of the picture? We were not exactly there , but almost and he still stirs up a lot of trouble. Do I threaten him, or just find out what to say to get him legally away from her?</p>
<p>My MIL decided on her own after her stroke to stop driving, TG. FIL still drives, but really shouldn’t. Getting him to do, or not do things (which is more often the case) is next to impossible. When we moved them from a condo to asst living, H found little bottles of liquor in pockets of all his jackets. He said they were “just in case”. In case of what, we didn’t really know. </p>
<p>He goes to the grocery and insists on carrying heavy bags. Yes, we call and try to get a list so we can go instead, or at a minimum have him leave things in the trunk until we can get over and move them, but he won’t accept the help.</p>
<p>When he was in hospital 3 weeks ago for dehydration, MIL managed to do a number of things for herself that he’d been helping with. As soon as he got home, he was back “assisting”. Now he is supposed to have prostate surgery and recovery will be two weeks of <em>no</em> lifting or assisting. The man is so stubborn. I have no clue how we will make him do the right thing. Assisted living in an expensive, lovely place is wonderful…if only the elders would allow themselves to be assisted.</p>
<p>zeebamom – How are you going to make him do the right thing? You’re not. Stubborn elders don’t wake up one day and see the light. They don’t, for example, voluntarily stop driving or start obeying doctor’s orders if they don’t want to. They’re not rational. </p>
<p>To prevent him from lifting after surgery, you’ll probably have to remove him from home for a couple of weeks. Can you arrange to have the hospital discharge him to skilled nursing after surgery – for incision care – instead of sending him home? The phrases “cannot do any of his own aftercare” and “not capable of following discharge instructions” seem to have magical powers with hospital discharge planners. </p>
<p>Your FIL sounds like my dad, who’s been ordered by numerous doctors, nurses, and PTs to use a walker at all times. Maybe it’s man thing, but he seems to think that if he’s not seen with the walker, no one will notice that he can barely stay upright. Like I said, stubborn and irrational. So it’s a constant battle, and of course he falls frequently. Fortunately, he’s also in AL, so at least there’s someone there to scrape him off the floor.</p>
<p>LasMa … it is a long story, are you sure you want to ask? I couldn’t answer for a day because we were in her town, moving her from the “retirement” side to the “assisted” side and dealing with all sort of things.</p>
<p>Background, she has a small ranch which we rent out to pasture, with two houses on it and 2 other rental properties. She has a handyman (henceforth named UNhandy) who did a lot of little repairs, cheaply, maintained her car, drove her around sometimes and over the last five years has really helped her. They are both in love with doing small cons, like he would collect some rent in cash and she would give it to him in wages and neither one would report it. Made me crazy, but you accept it because that is the way it always was. Now that she has failed so that I am doing the books, he was put on notice in Nov that that practice would stop and I had him sign a W-9, just this weekend, although I had told him before I would do it. He doesn’t have a job and lives rent free in the little house. He did spend a lot of time with her, talking about schemes that they never did and blah blah blah. He never did anything I could put my finger on exactly, but he always gave me the creeps a little. Mom really was under his sway for the last year. She now will do anything anyone asks her. So he got her to agree to giving him more money. I found out and began to block it. He drove her to the bank and “saved” money for her (she has dementia, she thought she needed backup because I was spending too much of her money as I went through the unpaid bills and 2 years of back taxes). He did give it back that day because she remembered that he and she took it out. Of course I said never again and he agreed and he seemed sincere. … two months later, he does it again (he says on her request, but I don’t think so) only this time I can’t find the money. She thinks she put it in another account… I am guessing he put it in an account without her name on it and it was just shy 5 figures, we had just sold stock to pay one more back tax installment. But he snowed us again that day and she back him up saying she took it out. But I am sure he told her to do it and told her to stay under the $10K bank reporting requirement.
This week, as we are moving her, we found out he put animals on her ranch and pocketed the rent (if he collected any and didn’t just give it to a friend). We rent the pasture out seasonally and just signed the annual lease with the regular guy.</p>
<p>Anyway, you see the trend. For a long time, he was a semi-good guy, feathering his nest a little, but she was smart enough to watch out and he didn’t take advantage. This last year when she wasn’t smart enough to watch out, he began to take more and more advantage and when we moved her, he just went wild this last 4 months. We are trying to kick him off the property completly (we is my brother and I). But we only got firm in our mind this week that it had to be done because we discovered many of these things. And the day after she was moved (over her protests…“Move me HOME”, “I don’t need the nursing home”. ) when she was most tired and vunerable, he snuck in and stirred her up again and maybe got her to sign an agreement and a 20 year lease for her little house where he has lived rent free for 5 or 6 years. </p>
<p>So are you glad you asked? I just am wondering if anyone has been through it and has more tips. I will be calling the lawyer on Monday, of course. But tips ahead of the call would be appreciated. And it is a small town so there isn’t a local Elder Care hotline kind of department in town, I will have to reach some other agency (who???) .</p>
<p>Esobay, that’s quite a mess. What is the age difference between UNhandyman and your mom? It’s as though they had some sort of relationship, but hard to define. If he helped her a lot for 5 years with little pay, it’s possible he is feeling as though he is owed something and worried that he will be cut off with nothing now that your mom is losing control of her affairs. Although it seems within your legal right to seek restraining orders and bring in law enforcement, I wonder if an attempt at negotiation might be in order-perhaps mediated by an attorney or other professional? It would be useful to know what this guy is thinking to justify his brazen actions. Unless your mom has been declared ‘incompetent’, I’m not sure how you go about nullifying her recent transactions. This scenario just underscores how vulnerable people become as they age, and how they can bring out the worst sort of opportunism in people close to them. Keep us posted as things unfold, I hope you can find the right guidance to get through this.</p>
<p>If animals showed up on my property I would contact the police or humane society and have them investigate who they belong to. I think you could do that without your mother being there. After all, your family does not want to be accused of taking other people’s animals.</p>
<p>Momsquad. unhandy is 50 Mom is 82.5 (mentally she is about 4). She hasn’t been declared incompetent and I don’t have a guardianship, but I do have POA and trust and lots of good things in place to protect her.
I think their relationship was very good employee/employer for many years. The last year or two as she slipped, he became her ‘son’ as he actively worked against my brother (who also lives out of town 400 miles, but in a different direction than I do) And it was all (sort of) good for many years. I agree that he is thinking he will get cut out (he wouldn’t have if he had kept working and been honest and not caused her to get upset and not stolen the rent money and and and…) But nothing justifies what he has done in just the last 4 months (while she was in the retirement home and I have been MUCH more involved).
I don’t want to file criminal charges and I don’t want to give him “one more chance” to straighten up. He had his chance and it isn’t my problem. My problem is protecting my mother, and he knows I will do that. I plan to block his access to her in every way I can… but it is hard to do it from 400 miles away.</p>
<p>shyanne, you are probably right, my husband says call the cops. The problem is partly that I pity the guy (whoever he is) that might think he has a legal rental because unhandy said he was Mom’s property manager. Unhandy might even have gotten Mom to sign something, although she says she didn’t (she lies all the time now though, to make herself look good. She tells the truth just enough so that I am perpetually confused over what to believe.) Also, the pasture belongs jointly to Mom and me, bro, and BIL. And unhandy knew Mom did not have final authority over us.</p>
<p>esobay, California has very strong elder abuse laws - and that includes financial elder abuse, which is what you’re describing. Contact the DA, and/or an attorney who specializes in elder abuse law. Don’t delay. From my (second hand) experience, these situations don’t get better, they get worse.</p>
<p>If you are feeling sorry for the guy then he is conning you, too. The longer he stays, the harder it is to get rid of someone. Why don’t you “hire” a close male friend or two to help run the ranch for a short time, maybe like being a boss for the UNhandyman. Maybe UNhandy needs a roommate or two. That may make him want to move out faster.</p>
<p>Hopefully your lawyer will have a lot of suggestions for you. I don’t know the laws in your state. I would be interested in hearing how things turn out.</p>
<p>Actually, I suggest you don’t follow my suggestions about hiring more people. I think the way I put it came out wrong. I meant it as a way to keep an eye on him.</p>
<p>Esobay- hopefully, it is possible to get a confirmed medical diagnosis of dementia, etc. This doesn’t always involve a legal process of having someone declared incompetent. A lawyer will be able to sort this out with you so that your mother is protected and perhaps documents signed are re-assessed. I would be very uncomfortable with him having any access to your mother or her property going forward. Good luck with this.</p>
<p>shyanne, my post was confusing. I am sorry for the guy (that we do not know who is) who may think he has a valid lease to run the cows on the pasture. three months ago I felt sorry for Unhandy, and accepted his small cons. (Made my H ballistic, but that is another thread). At THIS point, I have zero sympathy for unhandy, he is fired and I will take steps to keep him away from Mom. I was hoping that someone would clue me in on things to ask the lawyer and ??? for getting unhandy just away. I hope he just accepts that he doesn’t have a gravy train anymore and gets off. If he doesn’t just go quietly, then I have no problem working on criminal charges. They might be small time so far, but they are real. I think I nipped this in the bud, so to speak.</p>
<p>travelnut, yes mom has official dementia diagnosis since Nov. when we moved her to the retirement home. She almost qualified for the assisted side right then, but was enough there to really really fight me (and maybe win) because a person “has the right to their folly.” So we moved her into the “independent living” side where she just got dining room meals, and bus rides to appointments (and all the little activities, music, exercise, etc) and we had to pay another person to give her her pills which we had to lock up. I am sure that if she signed anything since Nov, I could get it reversed in a heart beat. I could also get a guardianship most likely, but i didn’t think I needed it (It adds a lot of costs for reporting to the courts and court oversight that isn’t necessary in this case). If unhandy was out of the picture, I think I could just conduct business for her with the power of attorney and the management of her trust.
Now that she is on the assisted living side and nurses giving her her pills and I have the 4 months of documentation of her fantasies and professionals to back me up, I know I can get guardianship; I just don’t want it! I want unhandy to vanish in a cloud of dust and Mom to enjoy her fancy vacation place. That is what we call it instead of retirement home. And happily, Mom is a social person and is loving it there most of the time. </p>
<p>It was another question on this thread, though, about anyone getting LTC to kick in? I am going to fight them pretty hard because OR (where she is) has laws about LTC having to include dementia.</p>
<p>d your mom is mostly enjoying her fancy vacation place. Please Mel us posted on LTC and getting rid of unhandy. Unfortunately your issues come up way too often, sadly.</p>
<p>My dad is getting a colonoscopy very soon; should I be very concerned? Is it extremely unlikely something as serious as colon cancer will be found? He was diagnosed with a hernia recently (and will undergo surgery for it in the near future) and is otherwise healthy, but i’m not sure what to expect with a colonoscopy.</p>
<p>It is more common as you age to find small polyps, which the doc will take out while they’re in there as a preventive measure. </p>
<p>Just because a person is having a colonoscopy is no reason for alarm; they are being encouraged as a routine exam every 10 years or so (more frequently if polyps are found). </p>
<p>If there is something growing in there, better to find it early when it can be easily excised. :)</p>