He could be being taken advantage of by someone feeding him these stories about needing help because of the 6 dead friends/relatives.
I’d contact a social service agency for a wellness check. They don’t have to say who sent them, just that they are checking up that he’s okay. I called on some neighbors this year. I knew the man was in the hospital (we talk to them and I have called 911 for them and driven them to the hospital). The hospital released the man, he fell again, his wife called my brother, they got him back into the car but the hospital didn’t want to take him again.
Anyway, the city agency gave me some other numbers for other help (Jewish family services, homeless societies, even one for hoarders as these people are hoarders) but said that if the person doesn’t want help there isn’t much they can do. Still, getting you dad on the radar helps. If someone is taking advantage of your dad, either for his time or money, they may spot that.
Her case is a little different because we’ve known for awhile she’s been struggling. But she refuses to get help. Her four siblings have done a lot - they even gave her all of their mom’s small inheritance. One brother has gone way above and beyond, getting her good public housing. But she’s so paranoid that she said it’s not safe and she left. My husband and I told her she could stay with us for awhile IF she agreed to get help, and she refused. Right now, her kids in Texas are letting her stay with them briefly. She’s almost out of money, so I’m not sure what she’s going to do. It is so hard. I hear this story all the time in my capacity as a NAMI teacher, but it’s hard when it’s your own family. The siblings (other than my husband) seem to think if enough of us tell her she needs help, she will agree to it. Nope.
That’s a good point. Having watched grandparents who were spectacularly good with money lose control in old age, I won’t be at all surprised to find that things are a mess financially and he’s giving money out that he shouldn’t. I think his ex is protective of him that way – he should be well-set-up, but since he won’t let anyone get near, there’s no knowing. (That’s another reason why I don’t want to be his POA – it’s likely to be a nightmare job, with things hidden, total inability to know what’s real and what isn’t, and so many fights. The agreement itself, as drafted, was nuts – overspecific about what the POA could and couldn’t do to the point where he was already halfway into the fights. Same with the HPOA, which allowed for nursing care only to the extent that he’d have to be moved into a place that was essentially his own house, which is ginormous for one man – it’s for a family with three or four kids.) And of course if he really was being taken advantage of, and that was exposed, I think he’d about die of shame – knowing that I knew would hurt more than losing the money.
The finding/accepting-help thing is difficult. Some years ago I asked him why he was so resistant to getting an apartment or villa in an assisted-living-to-nursing-care place, and he told me. It was a very '50s macho story, but he meant it deeply, and, you know, that’s the guy. It’s true that a place with a relatively stable nursing core is going to be safer for him than attempting to get hourly people in, if he can even find them at this point. Then again, had he taken my advice, he’d have been locked down and possibly died of covid by now. His go-to is hiring all-purpose mom types from his own working-class background: they cook, clean, do light nursing care. But he doesn’t tell me if he’s got anyone coming over these days or what that situation is. Obviously the opportunity for exploitation is wide open on both sides, with that.
If I get real gibberish coming through, or he just won’t respond and it’s been over a month and his ex hasn’t heard anything, I’ll get someone from JFS to go do a checkup and just have him on the radar. (Oh, and he has violent anti feelings about organized religion and the nice-living-room organization ladies. If the local JFS have old carers who know Gatz and Nogatz that’d help but I think we’re probably past that time.) I think otherwise odds are that he’s physically okay. But I’ll keep it in mind that that’s a thing that might be going on – thank you.
Apart from being the powerful thing it is, it might serve as an introduction for people who need to understand that a relative’s dementia isn’t Alzheimer’s, and how it’s different.
Yeah, very different story at home, and minute-to-minute sometimes. It’s also incredibly hard to try to work together with people who aren’t ready to see how serious the situation is – I ran into that with my ex’s parents. He wound up on disability for seven years, but for at least the first two, both of them – psychologists, no less – were sure he just needed to walk it off, wouldn’t hear of anything else. He also left one night to go to the hospital when D was a toddler and sick, so I stayed home and when he wasn’t back in the morning I assumed he’d been admitted. Called to find out his status and got told he’d been discharged at 3 am. Tried to stay calm, called the police, then called his parents to alert them in case he turned up there, and got hung up on – he’d called them to come get him from the hospital in the middle of the night, made up something about why he’d been discharged, and said I’d thrown him out and wouldn’t let him back in. It was a while before his parents believed that something else was going on… but again, it wasn’t a something else they really wanted to look at.
In the end – and I know you know this – there isn’t really anything you can do, apart from being on the social-services radar, if you’ve got friends there, unless it’s through legal action which may or may not succeed, and may have real family-relationship consequences. Not that that makes things easier. I hope you and your husband are able to take care of yourselves well through this.
bennty - could your dad’s ex wife (who you said is in touch periodically) get a heads up from you and maybe she could call him to check? Perhaps he’d reveal more (directly or inadvertently) to her and she could let you know?
It is an incredibly awkward and difficult time when someone is losing their faculties, their executive function, and yet they can still hold it together long enough to pass a 10-15 minute conversation with people who don’t see them all the time.
With one in law, there was such demanding hostility, it was so stressful, but only in hindsight did we realize some loss of mental ability was exacerbating natural tendencies into crazy land. The paranoia was difficult, yet not that different from his normal that we realized there was another cause and no medical professionals would help us limit things, including help us stop the driving. So odd.
Awww thank you! She had severe anemia in March and went to the hospital with severe shortness of breath. She had two transfusions and some iron infusions and returned to assisted living on hospice. Of course she came bounding back as always and went off hospice- third time!
Two months ago, since I could again visit, I noticed similar shortness of breath (assisted living didn’t notice it) and requested blood tests from her doc. Sure enough, severe anemia again. This time she had outpatient iron infusions two weeks apart and it has taken a long time for her to be able to walk down the hall without gasping and holding onto the wall.
I assume this is going to keep happening because we are not chasing cause and there are several possibilities.
Her dementia continues to worsen of course. On a sunny day she calls to ask me for her summer clothes She is having a lot of trouble using the phone actually so I visit a lot.
I no longer think about moving her to the wonderful memory care place I found. It was just too late. She has a nice routine, sleeps late, gets up in bathrobe and reads paper (doesn’t absorb but enjoys), dresses, goes down for lunch, naps, gets a (diluted) drink in the pub, dinner and bed. There is a new activity director and about every two weeks she does something. She made me a necklace last week.
While I was writing this she called to see if she knew how to. She knows I have my COVID shot and have a fever. She said she wanted to get a cab and come take care of me! It is 30 minutes away and she can barely walk
Thanks for asking. I am in bed so may have written too much! How are you and your family?
Oh, he’s doing great. I talked to him a couple of days ago. He loves his new home. He said the food is great. That was one of his biggest hesitancies - he thought the food wasn’t going to be as good as at the fancy place he would have moved into if he hadn’t fallen so ill last year. Now he is relieved it fell through, because it was incredibly expensive and I don’t think any better.
I can’t remember if I shared this, but one of the other residents is the mother of a middle school friend of mine. “Jane” and I were very close friends through 8th grade. When we got to 9th grade, she got into the popular crowd and literally stopped talking to me. Her mother keeps telling Dad that Jane and I should get together. Uh, no, thanks! I ran into Jane when I was in college one time and she was still giving me the cold shoulder. So odd. I still wonder if there’s something I did wrong inadvertently.
I will go down at Christmas to spend time with him and my sister. She is the one who lost a son six years ago and is still struggling greatly. I need to be with them. My husband can’t come because of the puppy and work. I am not thrilled, but it feels like the right thing to do. Dad said I can stay with him and use his car, and he sounded happy that I would be visiting. I would like to learn more about the family trust he set up. I would also like to visit Rice and look at family papers from my mom’s side of the family - they were very involved in the formation of Texas. Maybe I could get meet aibarr from CC in real life!
Apologies in advance if this is too long, I’m trying to be succinct.
My parents are in their late 80’s. Fragile, with an assortment of ailments, still in their own sprawling home. I have two siblings; we all get along well within the usual parameters of family dynamics. Their health has gone sideways during covid so this is new to all of us.
We cajoled my Mom into letting me come spend some time (we are hours and hours apart) with them. I took them to doctors, cleaned the house a bit, cooked a bit, kept her company. She was seesawing between being okay with it, and being very much not okay – but holding all that in. Of course eventually she blew up and had a mighty meltdown. I think she probably needs a few more.
She is lonely, but won’t go anywhere. She is furious at my father, but has no constructive ideas or self-awareness of why. She is terrified he is slowly dying and she can’t fix it (he is, and she can’t). They argued all the time over stupid stuff, in stupid ways. Sometimes I could referee, sometimes I just left them to it. She was mad I cleaned, mad I sorted shelves, mad I wouldn’t eat “enough”, mad I cooked in the wrong saute pan, mad I drove everywhere, mad I answered the phone, and these are all things she asked me (or he asked me) to do.
She yelled at me more in 5 days than she has in my entire life. I have nobody to tell but you guys and my husband – her grandchildren deserve to think of her as her old self. My siblings carry more of the caretaking burdens and that’s the question – I feel like I want to tell them all this, but then again, who needs the spare sibling coming in and acting like they suddenly know something new. They came to see her and she was all “isn’t it wonderful she was here” and 30 seconds after they left, more yelling.
I am so sad. And she wanted to know when DH & I are coming in December and I couldn’t say " that seems like a terrible idea".
Just wanted to send you a big cyber hug. Just keep reminding yourself that your mom is scared and lashing out because you are a safe target, not because she doesn’t love you. You are being a good daughter to shoulder this and I’m sorry that it isn’t easier.
She also may be lashing out because you are doing so much caregiving. My mother has Alzheimer’s and she is really nasty to me a lot of the time, and is convinced I’m the cause of all her problems. It is very unpleasant, but also very typical of Alzheimers. And I know it is the disease, and not her, this is not what she was like when she was healthy.
However, once my father, who is very fragile and almost 91, dies, she’s going into Assisted Living. First, because she wants to, and second, because my time is not well spent with someone who is abusive to me, which is what it is.
(Let me quickly say that I plan on visiting her almost every day when she makes the move; I spend a good 20 hours a week on the care of both my parents now).
Except that I’m not. I live 300 miles away, and this was a first time (but I am saying that, and thinking, well, the first time you do anything is it reasonable to think it will go well)
Should I share this with my siblings? I’m uncertain if it would serve any purpose and don’t want to make things worse.
I would share. They may open up to you that they are experiencing the same and you could be supportive of each other. If it’s new behavior that is just emerging, it may be something worth discussing with the doctor.
Over the years, DH’s parents have exhibited some of these behaviors. BIL/SIL would come and slowly get rid of junk in the basement, clean out the freezers (stand alone plus regular, as well as expired food in refrigerator). BIL’s GF would come and clean and patiently take directions from mom. MIL would complain to me about them getting rid of her ‘stuff’ - I would just say they are trying to help you get to things in the basement you can’t get to, etc.
FIL actually enjoyed going to skilled care before Covid - he enjoyed being waited on; he was hard of hearing and always loud, and MIL was tired of his repetitive stories and barking orders. But once he was at skilled care, they would call each other every night to say ‘good night’ and ‘I love you’ - never heard them say ‘I love you’ in person to each other. MIL kept things bottled in and then would be passive aggressive - she would say something dumb to have her H hit the roof commenting about what she said, not having any clue she was manipulating the situation to get him riled up. They were born 1928/1929 and grew up with ‘the man rules’ and she handled it the way she handled it. An example of how she got to do some things: she told her dad she could get the food out to them at lunch when the men were working in the field by learning to drive, so she was able to learn to drive from an older brother.
MIL was slipping with dementia, and she became mean to me about 4 years before she died – I think she was jealous of me taking over her kitchen and being able to do the things she wanted to do. When visiting, I would not be in a room with her alone. She was great to her grandkids and her sons for the most part. She couldn’t see well but insisted on washing the dishes (so I pre-rinsed them very well to have them be sure to be clean after she washed them by hand). When DD (also a nurse) and I visited, DD took over her medical care and MIL was fine with it - went to the wound clinic, did her leg dressings, etc.
She is having a lot of trouble using the phone actually so I visit a lot.