And then, sometimes the missing sibling mourns the loudest and wants to lean on us.
Welcome, aekmom. It IS hard and you’re good to try to do the right things. But it is also ok to catch your own breath, when you need or when your kids need you to.
Many care workers don’t mind working the holidays. They know what it offers families and work their own celebrations around it.
For me, a “great” counselor turned out to be one experienced in dealing with the grief and frustration. Not only how to be superhuman.
Best to you.
Welcome @Aekmom. It seems you have the same brother as many of the rest of us. I found the best way to deal family members who are not as involved as myself it to invite but don’t expect. The best strategy is to not speak from what your dad needs (after all, who knows) but what you need: “I need you to bring dad to the doctor on …” And be specific. Likely he has no idea as he can’t think in a caregivers way. Also a warning, my brother was not involved much as he lived on the other coast. Plus, he had trouble emotionally dealing with dementia and emotions for my PHD physicist brother was not a comfortable place for him. He died 3 years ago and I wish we spent more time with just the 2 of us rather than issues surrounding my parents and the baggage that comes with it and did a better job of letting go of the non-participation knowing he did what he could.
I recently moved my demented parents from independent care with part-time caregivers to a family care home or “board and care” as many on this board know it by. It’s the best option as it’s a mile away and much easier for me and my husband and I’m anticipating will be much easier for the holidays as they can come over for a short period of time. Plus, it’s a great place with caregivers who care for my parents. My other option was memory care which might have been best for my dad with a bigger place to wander but this is best for my mom and us.
Feel free to take the caregiver guilt off your shoulders as the caregivers should be getting paid extra for holiday duty and your family deserve some non-stressed time together.
@somemom I’ve been thinking of this part of your post: “keep your eye on the final goal and work your way there, avoid skirmishes that are not critical to the end result.” That’s exactly what I’m trying to do, and it’s probably the source of my stress. We’ve distanced ourselves from MIL. She’s a good several sections out of the book “Toxic Parents.” We still want to maintain contact enough so we could help with medical situations or other emergencies. She wants to be close; I want a business relationship. Luckily it seems the details of getting her settled have a good shot at using up the airtime. Husband is another asset in managing this. He’s not up here physically but will talk to her on the phone. It helps a lot that he’ll both reinforce boundaries (“We are here to help you and want to do it; emotional closeness is a separate issue.”) and be one more person for her to talk to.
She has our gratitude and admiration for being proactive about this move to CCRC, and we make sure to tell her often. It’s a solid base for keeping things cordial. At the end of the day, she wants us to live our lives her way and to make her happy. At the end of the day we want her comfortable and safe.
@tx5athome Exactly! DH was seething the other night about the way she talks about me even in absolute terms, much less measured against the effort I’ve made in her behalf. I figure I’m not doing it for her, I’m doing it for my husband’s mother and my sons’ grandmother.
HouseChatte, your DH’s expressed boundaries to his mom and “Team HouseChatte” are great, but I hope he could also communicate to his mother that insulting you is just not acceptable.
Thanks everyone! Helps to know I am not alone.
My dad is shunted and has had numerous revisions but the doctor feels he also has some form of dementia and at this point is using a wheelchair 50% of the time. We never got the results we hoped for…
I have done therapy and it probably would help again but I also feel that no amount of talking is going to help because it is just alot to handle right now…maybe it would help me forgive and move on…I don’t think our relationship will be salvaged…which was my parents doing as they created a very unhealthy dynamic between us…
Thanks for the permission to just do my best for the holidays…at Thanksgiving it was very hard to get home up the three stairs into our house. He was definitely ready to go back to the AF by the end of the night …
Shopping got finished so that is good…
Thanks again everyone!
After traveling 850 miles and really wanting to have a nice dinner out, FIL said he would rather eat at home. BIL told me he didn’t want to get ready to go out nor the effort getting in and out of the car (taken by w/c mostly, with sons getting him in/out of house/car). Once BIL told him it would be best to go out and he would have the time to get ready, it was fine. We all had a great dinner at the restaurant (we picked up the check). BIL’s GF is on half dose of chemo for pancreatic cancer - she now only weighs 93 lb but was able to eat at dinner, which was good.
It would have been a big effort to cook/clean up for the group here w/o being rejuvenated from the 13 hour car trip.
Sometimes it takes cajoling, humoring, giving choices over a period of time, etc working these seniors into good choices.
MIL is starting to use a cane more (fall risk for sure). FIL is terrified of falling, so he takes every precaution.
H thinks we won’t stay as long as we are able…H can only take so much. At least MIL is being pleasant - BIL/SIL from TN are not here and that was an irritant to MIL - she was grouchy 24/7 during that visit but is her old pleasant self now.
So it’s now Day 10 of quarantine for my folks in their ALF. They are going bonkers and of course are getting much less movement and exercise than they need. I really feel sorry for the single people who are trapped by themselves in smaller apartments or rooms.
I have stopped in twice to see my folks, against the facility’s recommendations, but I had to drop some stuff off and I feel so bad for them. There is a chance they may have to cancel the Christmas dinner which would be awful. My family is going to my BIL for the day so I was counting on my folks enjoying a nice meal with their friends.
Aekmom, can you give a cash gift to the caregiver who comes to take care of your dad on the holidays? Caregivers are woefully underpaid, and would appreciate your thoughts (as expressed on the back of a check).
Hugs to everyone juggling caregiving with celebrating today and to those facing the first Chrismas without someone. Last Christmas my dad was admitted to the hospital December 22 and after a roller coaster of moving to new places and facing new challenges he passed away in November.
My dad died almost 4 years ago and it wasn’t until recently that I felt the realignment. I guess the fact that my brother died a year later made it more difficult. I’m a matriarch!
We had my Dad over today. I have given him a photo calendar every year for maybe 20 years and this year he had no idea what it was or what he was supposed to do with it.
I am beginning to check into those emergency buttons that a senior hangs around their neck. My mother lives with us and is hitting the stage where I am concerned when we leave her home alone, but not yet needing a full time caregiver for those few hours. I wonder about a button that contacts me rather than emergency services?
@somemom – We just ordered one of those for my mother. We do not have it in hand yet, so I cannot tell you if the reality lives up to the marketing, or if the system will even work properly inside her house, as it relies on AT&T cell service.
I called a few of the companies and they all seem to provide some variation on the theme of offering to call a child or neighbor on the contact list instead of sending EMS. My concern was that she would fall and would not be able to get herself to a phone to call for help. If you share that concern, you want to buy a system that includes fall detection. If a fall is detected (motion sensor??), the attendant will speak through the base to ask if my mother is OK or if she needs to have EMS sent. If she does not respond, emergency services will be sent. I worry that she will not hear the attendant speaking through the base, as there is only one base and she may be a few rooms away.
The neck pendant also allows the user to press the button and summon help, but the communication is via the base unit. Someone who has seen this in action can better explain how well the base unit communication operates.
Also inquire about a lockbox where a house key can be stored so that EMS does not need to break down the door.
Hevn’t been in here much since my Dad three years ago, but we’re now in the process of moving my mom to an apartment closer to one of my sisters. She has the Life Alert pendant, but you know, they only work if they wear them! She was diligent in wearing it for awhile after my dad died, but that fell away over time. She found that it was very sensitive, and if she leaned against something it depressed the button accidentally and she would have to deal with the system. Also, as her hearing declines, I do worry that she would have emergency services there on a regular basis.
We’re trying to decide whether to keep the service as she moves into a standalone (from a services point of view) apartment. It is, however, an apartment in a hotel, so we can set up her phone to call the front desk with one button and they will call for emergency services, if needed. It’s not a good failsafe because there is no emergency button that will call the ambulance if she doesn’t respond, but it may be more efficient for her purposes to just have her call the front desk. She recently had an incident and she did not use her pendant to call, but called the ambulance herself. I
t’s just so hard to know how much to insist on – as it is she refused to consider the continuing care apartment complex because it was so expensive and she did not think she would use the services she was paying for. Instead she will be (January 4) in a very nice, but also very expensive apartment that is 4 minutes from my sister’s house. It does offer room service (from the hotel restaurant), has a pool and gym, and a spa on premises. We’ll see how it goes.
The company that we used was good. They said that their biggest problem was the senior would not press the button. Basically in denial of needing help.
My mother was too paranoid of the thing in her house, having a lockbox ( we hid one in the yard), people spying on her, etc. Paranoid personality and early dementia. She never used it but wore it.
My FIL best was helped by meals on wheels when they saw he could not open the door and he was having a stroke. He did not have one but even in the best of circumstances he would not have been able to use it.
Seems like some one calling or checking on them daily was optimal.
@tx5athome It’s been about 1 1/2 years since my dad knew what to do with a photo calendar. It is poignant to have those big measures.
This year, for the first year, we decided not to try to have my dad over (just a mile away now). I picked up mom and she was ready to go back to the care home after an hour. It was kind of nice to give my mom a few minutes without dad, not have to worry whether dad was agreeable to dressing and/or getting into the car, and not to have to worry about behaviors once here. All in all it worked out. Neither one really aware it is Christmas anyway. It’s hard to believe just 2 years ago they drove here.
Great points @CT1417 , she hears quite poorly and would be lucky to hear when in the same room, let alone another room! I have seen others with the issue of either not wearing it or, if worn, not pressing the button when there is a fall.
Maybe we need a call to us when it shows the button falling, unless the button gets back up
@somemom – if you purchase the option with fall detection (higher monthly cost), EMS will be dispatched if the user falls and does not respond. Now this may result in some false EMS calls, since the user may have gotten herself up and not heard the voice through the squawk box (base unit), so that is why I wanted the lockbox option available so that we did not need to deal with replacing a heavy wood door.
The fall detection option does not rely on the user to press the button because the user may be unconscious.
If the user is alert and can communicate with the base unit (I am skeptical about how well this will function, given her poor hearing), the user can tell the operator to not send EMS but instead call daughter for assistance in getting off the floor. That feature is only useful if a child or helpful neighbor lives nearby and can arrive quickly.
I wish the pendant could function as a communication device, but I did not find one that worked that way. I hope she wears it and truly, that we never need to tests its effectiveness.
