@runnersmom - that was a stressful five days! Glad the outcome was positive.
I just returned home from a planned 10 day respite trip. It was fantastic to get up and go to bed whenever I wanted without having to take care of another person. I was able to focus on the wonderful women I was with and really relax.
It’s tough being back- I swear I get a cold whenever I return from a trip and I’m a little depressed, too. But handling all of mom’s daily needs is a little more tolerable at the moment. Taking a break is so necessary!
The clean out can be incredibly emotional, but also exhausting. We did an estate sale for the in laws, whilst they were still alive and had moved to AL, etc. It was rough. No one wants to know how little resale value there is in the possessions they think are valuable! But also, weird to see things that MIL always held out as special and valuable and would not let the kids touch, things I was in fear of them breaking, yah, most of those did not even sell, they were loaded, roughly, into boxed, unwrapped, bumping against other items, by the guy who took all the leftovers to auction.
Going through that definitely made me feel strongly that stuff is just stuff. A few years later as my mother’s world shrank, each time I had to make her world smaller, I had no emotional issues getting rid of most of the stuff. It was so odd to me that I noticed, “Wow, this is not emotional at all.” Either I learned a lot with the in laws and let go of stuff, or the incremental changes were easier than doing an entire house, or the difficulty of my mother’s last year or two of life made dealing with the ‘stuff’ just such a minor issue that I was not overwhelmed, or it’s going to hit me later!
But now that we have dealt with all that generation, I want to go through every single drawer and cupboard and box in my home and deal with stuff myself, I want to reduce. I’m hoping this winter will be a good season to do the sweep over a few months.
@somemom - we did our major downsize a couple of years ago. Had a living estate auction. Yes, it was depressing to see how little some things went for (and, oddly, how much some others did bring in? Weird!), but I don’t regret letting go of any of it. I feel like we have done a huge favor for our son. He will have very little to contend with. Even if we upsize, I won’t add collectibles, bric-a-brac, etc. Or extra dishes, stemware, etc.
My mom has so many “collectibles” and I held onto them for far too long. But, they were things she loved, not necessarily things that I loved.
Fur, jewelry, crystal, china, nope, no one wants it. MIL/FIL would have cried if we’d told them the individual prices things went for, luckily the total was enough to make him ok with it and she never knew it happened :eek:
My sister had her interior design/art history friend go thru my relative’s home and see whether there us ANYTHING of value in the 4000 sq ft home.
Out of everything including the $1000s poured into coins and other junk, MAYBE one vase MAY have some value. The rest isn’t even worth keeping!
The closets full of designer clothes no longer fit the owners or any of the grown kids. The owners don’t go out much any more anyway. Insects are attacking some of the garments as well. Eek!
Husband and I are getting ready for a ten-day trip out to see our younger son in the Midwest. My 89 y.o. mother is four weeks out from her broken hip and has been home for a little over a week. She has nurses and OT/PT coming in. I’ll top off her groceries. From a practical standpoint she’ll be in really good shape.
Emotionally she’s probably feeling a bit wobbly about our going out of state. She’s being positive about it and sounds genuine about handling things while we’re away. And I’m eagerly looking forward to using my oxygen mask.
Interesting recent story showing sometimes there is something. My parents had sunken treasure given to them 30 years ago in partial payment for a boat they sold as the buyers worked for a treasure hunter. I just got around to selling some of it by auction. It was more valuable than I ever imagined.
A mostly lurker dropping in to mention that California has just made it easier for any owner of a single family home to stick a granny flat or casita of up to 800 square feet in their backyard. Looks like the number one reason to do this is for elderly parents. Are any Parents Caring For Parents thinking of doing this? It seems like a good idea for some families.
Seems like if anyone does choose to build such a unit, they should definitely make it accessible.
Having spent quite a few years sharing a home with a parent, I would highly recommend (and have told my DD ) that it would be much easier not to share a kitchen and not to be in each other’s space so much if an elderly parent moves in.
Sixteen years ago we added an accessible bedroom and bathroom on the first floor. We really did it as a guest room but also just in case our parents needed it, never imagining years later first my father in law would move in,then after he passed, my mother. Neither of them were able to live independently, so a casita wouldn’t have been an option, unless it would be for us to escape to !
If someone needs to get up during the night to deal with alarms from an elderly parent, a first floor suite would be a lot better than a backyard house. But for parents in better shape, the more independent life in the backyard house would be an advantage, I’d think. I’ve been reading about ADUs; some people build them with the idea that they will at some point (or right away) move into them, and an adult child will move into the main house.
One of my ideas has been to sell my house and build a granny flat on each of my two kid’s houses. I would get to visit both and each would not have to deal with us too long, but get to visit when we wanted. However, my kids would have to be “settled” for such a thing, something neither one seems to be headed towards.
Yeah, I’m going to 3 people this month and I think they’ll all tell me what I know I’m going to have to do. Elder care attorney,elder care CPA, & her financial advisor (my husband ironically who’s been saying this all along) will tell me it’s time to hire an agency. That’s fine, I will. The only issue is her daytime caregiver is her best friend. And I mean that. They are so close. I’m not going to get rid of her. I’ll let the agency pick up all the other hours, and maybe the day person will soon be old enough to allow for it to be legit. Good advice all
@ runnersmom did your mom have afib or other kind of arrhythmia with the tachycardia? Interesting that they shocked her in the ambulance and said she would have died without treatment. I personally have had 3 episodes in 5 years of afib with tachycardia ( up to 200 beats per minute) with very low blood pressure. I do not take daily meds because they would lower my already low bp. I wonder whether your mom has afib and what her treatment is. I declined blood thinners. My cardiologist admitted after three years that they are over treating people. Your mom may be very different from me though. Side note: made it to San Diego and no disasters with my mom so far! Going to the beach!
@compmom, no Afib, then or ever. She was only on IV heparin in the hospital because they were considering an angiogram – it was discontinued before she went home. Apparently it looked like significant Vtach in the ambulance and then her pressures dropped so they shocked her back into a rhythm. After much review by the cardiologists, it appears to be SvT which is less deadly, apparently. She is currently taking amniodopone to control the SvT and we will watch carefully. She had a major heart attack when she was 38 (so almost 50 years ago) and has had no incidents prior to this one in the intervening years. She thought she was having a heart attach, but that was ruled out.
Glad you made it to San Diego! Relax and recharge…
My Mother is a nursing home so my sister can have some respite time. The first day there my Mom thought she was in college (she never went to one) and was very happy!
My mother doesn’t understand time zones. Stupid me, I didn’t shut off my phone last night. At 4:30 am I got a call from her asking me if her purse was in my car! Colostomy care is going well. Now I have a backup! Have been swimming in surf every day. I keep joking about Heidi going to the mountains to heal. I’m going to the ocean.
) that it would be much easier not to share a kitchen and not to be in each other’s space so much if an elderly parent moves in.