Sending good thoughts your way. I’m glad you’ll be able to be with your mom. Hopefully you can still be safe as well.
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@compmom — so glad you and your mom will have a house you can live in and be together! It sounds lovely, especially if you have some help to make it work and give you needed breaks. Your mom will thrive with your loving devotion!
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My father just got back to his assisted living after a three week stint in the hospital (his fourth hospital stay in the last 12 months- that started with a more than 6 week stay due to covid). Instead of being happy to be home, he is complaining. UGH - so frustrating. He wants to know what the prognosis is - he is 89 with lung damage and lots of physical pain in his shoulders, neck, and other places (pain he has had for several years). The prognosis is your lungs won’t heal themselves and your pain is most likely not going away (may be able to be better managed with meds.) In the hospital he said they were keeping him prisoner and he wanted to be home. Now he says they took better care of me in the hospital. I can’t win. (Sorry needed to vent.)
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Oh and to top it off they won’t let the visiting nurse service in to do a therapy evaluation for 6 days due to covid restrictions. So he won’t get needed services for 6 days - makes no sense to me. He is covid negative, had covid already, is fully vaccinated and the assisted living is now in the phase where they have no cases and everybody is vaccinated.
HUGS, @kiddie. I am so sorry. Your dad is blessed to have you.
I’m so sorry @kiddie Is there a palliative care agency that could help with pain management?
Hugs @compmom I hope the hospice people can help you enjoy some time with your mom, with no pain or discomfort. It is hard to know how much to intervene and put them through. Doubly hard when the patient has dementia too. You don’t want to give up but you don’t want to miss anything you could be doing to give them more happy days. Hoping you can sit on the terrace soon!
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Seems like I have talked for hours with various docs and we are certain about no procedures and she is going on hospice.
I told them she had a stroke last time she went off blood thinner but they took her off for 5 days and I didn’t know it so I got a little scared on the phone and they are doing Luvinox as a bridge.
Her GI bleed seemed stable, then dipped, another transfusion, then the doc said the dip was probably an error, now bleeding is stable again, but once the blood thinner is started who knows.
I got sick (not COVID) and am doing things by remote control via phone which is hard. I was with her Fri., Sat., and Monday. I am not vaccinated at all! People are calling me to remind me to protect myself but it’s hard. I am doing that for today.
MY brother’s house is not working out afterall. She is going back to assisted living until I can figure something out. the Hospice house is a possibility too.
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Well, took mom for check up with her geriatrician. She was given cognitive/memory test. She scored 17 out of 30. 2 years ago, scored 18 out of 30. Normal is 26+.
She got some earwax cleared from her ears that was in there since 2018.
The lab indicated a little blood in her urine, slightly more than 5 years ago. My inclination is just retest in 6-12 months. My older brother wants “everything done” and max testing—none of other sibs have said anything.
Good luck, HImom. The question I always asked re: my parents and testing was: what will this mean in terms of follow up? Like, if there is tons of testing, and even interventions - what will this mean for the parent? Are there viable, helpful treatments & options? A hospital wanted to put my 86 year old debilitated dad on a pacemaker. Um, no.
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How old is your mom @HImom. Is she having any pain or discomfort? If not, I’m also in the leave well enough alone camp. Is your mom able to verbalize what she wants (or expressed her wishes in the past)? I hope that you can find consensus with your siblings.
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Mom is 91 and currently has no pain nor discomfort. She leads a fairly happy life, with sone cognitive decline due to aging. I and my sisters provide most of her care. My older brother merely likes to kibitz without any understanding of what he’s saying or consequences of what he’s saying. The geriatrician recommends watchful waiting which I agree with.
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Update on my dad, who was so ill last year: He just had bloodwork done. Everything was normal except his iron was a little low. His chronic leukemia seems to be in full remission. He stopped taking the leukemia meds last year because of a possible interaction with other meds he had to take for his heart and lungs. Now he’s talking about staying in their house as long as possible, and then moving into an apartment instead of assisted living. With their long term care insurance, my folks could have a caregiver with them most of the time and it would be less expensive than paying for assisted living. I think Dad just doesn’t like to think of himself as old, ha. I can relate.
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I get my second vaccine next week so I am heading to MI in 3 weeks to sort things out with my aunt. It’s been a year of long distance problem solving. Now her COPD decline is such she needs more. She has been avoiding her doctor for checkup and dentist for missing crown. So we agreed t doctor while I am there and we really need to determine what support she needs. She gets a home aide for 2 hrs everyday to fix her meals, do laundry, wash her hair, etc. But I don’t think it’s enough. We are going to have to have home hospice care discussions I think. So hard to do. But a hospital bed would really help her get the right angle for breathing and she’ll need other things soon that Medicare would cover then.
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@MaineLonghorn absolutely can be more cost effective to be in apartment and enjoy a lot of things w/o what an equally nice assisted living would cost. We have LT care insurance, and we definitely plan (as far as able) to live independently. I would probably live closer to grandchildren than children at that point in time. IMHO the grands would want to absorb our ‘wisdom’ and would not have the parent-child ‘baggage’ with us. However DD2 (an engineer) says she will send us/DH and me to DD1 (a nurse). Right now DD1 is the only one married and with children (we are expecting grandchild #3 in Sept - gender reveal with Easter cake).
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@MaineLonghorn that is truly remarkable about your dad. I remember when things looked so dire for him!
Well, we are having family meeting with all my sibs today. Trying to figure out what to do about mom’s care, now that fully vaccinated visitors appear to be allowed at her CCRC.
How is your mom doing @Compmom? Hope all families are hanging in there.
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Thanks for checking in! My mother is back at her assisted living, at least until I get vaccinated (this week). She is on hospice. Her assisted living opened up to visits in apartments, as well as in designated common spaces and outdoors, while she was at the hospital, so that was a factor in deciding for her to return.
She didn’t remember her apartment or the facility at all- as usual. Very disoriented. Then two days ago she called me and said that lying on her bed, looking out at a tree out the window, she remembered. Since then she has been a little more oriented. So interesting.
My brother came down from Vermont to visit over a week’s time and my brother from Florida is here for the weekend. For the last year it has been just me so this is really nice for her.
If she has another GI bleed/anemia sufficient to cause symptoms, we won’t do a transfusion while on hospice. If she goes a month I will consider transferring her to Palliative Care. She gets blood drawn every week for INR anyway and we could ascertain what is going on, if anything, by adding hematocrit and hemoglobin. I would really like her to have some time in the sun before she goes.
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She sounds comfortable which is great, and nothing like hospice to get your brothers to visit. I hope your vax goes well.
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