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Aging Parents

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  • balaambalaam Shipmate
    MiL passed away this afternoon surrounded by relatives.
  • So sorry to hear that @balaam and @LRP - good to hear it was peaceful and she wasn't alone. Hope that things go better with your father.
  • My condolences balaam.
  • I am sorry to hear this balaam. Prayers for all.
  • Elizabeth BennettElizabeth Bennett Shipmate Posts: 28
    Condolences Balaam.
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    I'm so sorry, balaam. <votive>
  • bassobasso Shipmate
    So sorry, balaam.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Sorry to hear that, Balaam - may she rest in peace and rise in glory.

    Condolences to you and LRP.
  • Well, I visited The Dowager on Thursday. She was very well, very compos mentis, and we had quite a good visit. She told me they'd taken her to church, which I think was not the case, but not worth worrying about. I did think I might have finished her off, though, when she asked how much the home cost per week, and in an unguarded moment I told her! <killingme>

    Anyway, the home called me yesterday to say she had had another unwitnessed fall, in her bathroom that morning, but she seemed fine and was off playing bingo. When they asked how it had happened, she replied 'well, I probably shouldn't have been standing on one leg!'

    Mrs. S, still wondering why the flamingo impressions :grey_question:
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    Somehow that reminded me of my mum using the handrails in the home she was in as a dancer might use the barre. One of the other old ladies told Dad that Mum had been a ballerina.

    Maybe the Dowager also had a secret life of which you were unaware. :wink:
  • I think, @Huia , that the Dowager has a secret life in which she is not 94 and unsteady on her feet!

    Would that she would use the handrails for any purpose at all... though her walking frame has made a great deal of difference to ambulation outside of the bathroom!
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    How are things going @Balaam? Sorry to hear about your mother-in-law.

    Went to see mum today. She is becoming far more like what I thought someone would dementia would be. Until recently her memory wasn't too bad. Today I arrived to find her heading out the door. She'd forgotten I was coming and was on her way to her keep fit class. Trouble was it was 11.30 and the class (five minutes away) starts at two.

    I took her back to her flat, got her to take her coat off, made her a couple of tea and sat down for a chat. My sister-in-law had spent most of Saturday with her, so I was asking what they did to see how much she remembered. She wasn't too bad at that, if a bit vague about where they ate etc, but then she asked me if my SiL and brother were a couple. I said of course they were, they were married. 'Well nobody told me' she said. I then talked about the week we all spent in Greece celebrating the wedding fifteen years ago. She didn't really seem to remember any of it, except when I said it was my 50th birthday too, then she had a vague inkling about that.

    We're still trying to get her flat sold, SiL had gone to keep her out of the way during a couple of viewings, as apparently the estate agent says she just wants to talk to people not let them actually get a good look at the place. Let's hope we can get things sorted soon before something dire happens.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Over here, you have to get off-side when someone's viewing your house - it can be a right pain. When our house in St. John's was on the market, I reckon the takings at the Tim Hortons up the road must have gone through the roof, with us going up for coffee every so often to get out of the way!

    D's mum's memory is beginning to get a bit iffy: I understand she's been diagnosed with some form of dementia (not sure what sort) for which they're trying a new drug. She's still able to live by herself, although D's sister goes up and visits at least once a week and makes sure she's got enough food in the freezer to keep her going. Her particular form of memory-deficiency (if that's the right word) seems to be remembering how people are connected: she'll spend a while describing D's niece or cousin to him, and then ask if he knows them.
  • Here, too, @Piglet - when we moved, we had to make ourselves scarce while viewings were under way.

    I'm starting to try and sort out outline planning permission for the Dowager's back garden; looks as if that might add as much as £100K to the value of the house! (or, as we know it, two years' care home fees :scream:)

    Good luck with everything, @Sarasa and everyone else struggling with these intractable problems.

    Mrs. S, ploughing on
  • Rejuvenating the garden certainly sounds worth it. Soon it will be spring your way for it all to take off in spring growth.

    Down here inspections are supervised by agent and owners make themselves scarce. There was nowhere much to go when it was winter here so I spent most Saturday mornings in McDs downstairs. More time there than I have ever spent. I would buy a coffee and a toasted sandwich for brunch, take my iPad and read. Agent would come past on way to his car when inspection was over to give me a report.

    I figured that not much can go wrong with a toasted cheese, ham and tomato sandwich. I do not like other things they sell.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    edited January 2019
    In the UK it now seems the norm to make yourself scarce when there is someone viewing your property. Some estate agents also do 'open houses' when they try and get as many viewings in as possible in one day and the owner makes the place look posh before they go out for the day. I asked mum's estate agent if they did that, but apparently it doesn't work that well in mum's area, or maybe for mum's type of property. Mum likes to be there, as she want to see who she might be selling to. She doesn't want to sell to anyone who would be upset by the neighbours coming in and taking things. As the last is all in mum's mind that is a tricky one. I think we'll just have to hope we get lots of viewings this year at times when a family member can get her out of the way.
    Mind you the way things are going I think it might be too late to move mum to sheltered accommodation, even extra care housing and we ought to be looking at possible care homes too.
    Good luck with the planning permission @The Intrepid Mrs S . DO you think it will be easy to obtain. When my MiL's neighbour was selling her garden off a few years ago my parents in law and another neighbour bought it between them to extend their gardens as they didn't want any more houses nearby. MiL now has a lovely woodland garden with damsons etc, that is lovely to look at but takes my brother in law an age to mow.
  • Councils under pressure to increase their housing stock have agreed planning permissions for houses in what seemed like impossible sites in recent years.

    Does/could The Dowager's back garden have vehicle access? That would certainly help.

    We thought our's didn't but a canny, and patient, developer bought a property that backed on to ours and was able to widen its drive and get through to the bit of our garden we had sold him previously.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    My mind is boggling at how much the Dowager's house must be worth, if planning permission is going to add £100k to it!

    Hope you get it though - those care-home fees are a killer!
  • Councils under pressure to increase their housing stock have agreed planning permissions for houses in what seemed like impossible sites in recent years.

    Does/could The Dowager's back garden have vehicle access? That would certainly help.

    We thought our's didn't but a canny, and patient, developer bought a property that backed on to ours and was able to widen its drive and get through to the bit of our garden we had sold him previously.

    Well, a (much) smaller plot across the way had PP turned down on the grounds of density of housing incompatible with the rest of the street; access; and vehicle parking. Given that the Dowager's plot is about twice the average size, and that if you removed the garage* and car port you would have very adequate access and parking, it doesn't seem unreasonable to hope for consent.

    * you could resite the garage on the other side of the house.

    @Piglet, it's an individually-designed four-bedroom dormer bungalow in an enviably quiet location (I've read too many estate-agent descriptions in the last year or so!) and although it needs a lot of work it could be a lovely spacious family home. Sadly, I can't view it that way. Building plots are in short supply, so although £100K is top whack, it's a possibility, so although I'd rather just sell, in all conscience I can't.

    Mrs. S, reluctant property developer
  • So many of those bungalows are being bought and then rebuilt as huge houses or small blocks of flats round here. It might be worth considering planning permission to rebuild a house on the same footprint at the same time.
  • CK, the idea is to get OPP for a posh bungalow, which would be popular in that part of the SW; then anyone who buys the whole site has the option to try and up the ante to a bigger house (there's loads of room). It seems - from talking to agents - unlikely that anyone would want to knock down the Dowager's house, already probably the largest in the road; they are more likely to do it up, add en-suites and so on. Of course they *might* apply to demolish and put a whole development in there, but I prefer just to try and get a toehold...
  • It does depend very much on local conditions. Where we moved from the parish council were under a lot of governmental pressure to increase the housing stock by vast amounts, and wherever possible, to reduce the number having to be built on local farmland, allowed building on plots the residents thought ridiculous. Even when they refused, the authorities higher up the chain could override the refusal. But that was in NW Essex, with access to the M11, and so a prime commuter area.

    Where we are now was a retirement town, with mainly bungalows, or dormer bungalows, but it is just about in commuting distance of London, in spite of dreadful travelling conditions, so now there is high demand for all types property. In the few years we have been here we have seen several on corner plots demolished and small blocks of flats erected. Older detached bungalows on large plots replaced with pairs of semi-detached, and many with extensions into the roof , and on all sides - turning small retirement bungalows into large family homes.

    It sound as though The Dowager's bungalow is in an area where the council are not under the same expansion pressures, and can consider the general appearance of the location when considering planning applications.
    I hope you are able to get plans drawn up that are sympathetic to the neighbourhood and can maximise The Dowager's assets for her benefit.
  • My mother, who lives with me, may have Parkinson’s disease. I just found out today. Now to try to get her to see a neurologist for a definitive workup and care. Which I anticipate she will resist kicking and screaming because if you don’t talk about these things, they don’t exist, right?
  • Double posting a few hours later to say that Mum has agreed to see a neurologist and indeed is now eager (or anxious) to do it quickly, and even (this is truly startling) wants me to come into the appointment with her.
  • Feel its about time I posted on this thread as my mother seems to be going down hill fast. On Christmas Day, having spent the day with us, as Mum and Dad were leaving in the evening, she fell outside the house (while holding onto Dad) on the way to the car. Turns out she broke the neck of her femur (which they call a hip fracture) and has been in hospital ever since, had it pinned and plated, still not walking. I fear she seems to be wasting away. She has dementia, and Type 1 diabetes, plus she is incredibly frail (has been for a couple of years) .. she was using a walking frame in their bungalow, and holding onto Dad, or in a wheelchair when they went out. But now it seems that she may never regain anywhere near that level of mobility, and we are beginning to wonder if she will ever be able to return home. She is waiting for a place to become available in a community hospital or nursing home for rehabilitation (which I hope means more intensive physio to try to get some mobility back), in the meantime she is languishing on the very busy fracture ward where they seem to have given up with trying to get her on her feet. They have just changed he insulin regime from 4 times daily to twice daily to 'make it easier for the nurses when she leaves the hospital' but this seems to be causing problems with her blood sugar - today it was very low and she was too drowsy to have a conversation with this afternoon when I visited. She is confused (sometimes more than others) and doesn't really understand why she is there, how long she has been there, etc etc its pretty heartbreaking.
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    Autenrieth Road maybe your Mother is aware of a difference in herself, which is why the quick agreement. I hope the assessment goes well, with the right help I think the progress of Parkinson's can be ameliorated to some extent.

    My oldest brother who is in care has Parkinson's and when he was diagnosed at the age of 65 he said - 'I wondered if that was what it is. This was after some quite worrying behaviour and he has settled down now.
  • Gracious Rebel, I’m sorry you’re dealing with this.

    Huia, thank you for your kind words.
  • Yes, AR, I was going to post that Parkinson's at least is treatable (to some degree at least) and that might have persuaded your Mother to go to a neurologist. I have a friend-of-a-friend
    who resisted for years, and when he finally agreed that diet and exercise were not the answer, the medication changed his life. Maybe not for ever - but the outlook is better than for dementia.

    Gracious Rebel, I'm so sorry. But, my mother went to a rehab ward in the general after her pneumonia left her practically immobile, and they worked wonders (I would have preferred the cottage hospital, but that had been closed :angry: )

    Mrs. S, empathising
  • Jane RJane R Shipmate
    Hope the community hospital/nursing home place becomes available soon, Gracious Rebel. My mother-in-law did the same thing to her leg/hip the year before last, but as she was living in a care home already she was discharged back there after about two weeks in hospital and they were great - she has to use a frame for walking, but she can walk, and we were really worried she'd end up bedridden.
  • Thanks, Mrs. S. I wonder if part of it was I was very blunt with her: “Parkinson’s can progress to the point to where I can’t take care of you at home, and by getting proper treatment, we could delay that day.” She desperately doesn’t want to be in assisted living or long term care.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    edited January 2019
    @Autenrieth Road Glad your mother has agreed to visit the nurologist. I hope that treatment delays the progress of the disease. My mother is very quick to visit her GP if she thinks she has something physically wrong with her. When its to do with her cognitive impairment she flatly refuses, partly because she thinks there is nothing wrong with her and partly because she is scared to find out that there is.
    @Gracious Rebel - I hope a place somewhere more suitable for you mother. It sounds like she needs more intensive physiotherapy etc. than she is getting at the moment.
    .
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    It’s more difficult when it’s repaired rather than replaced because (IME) you have to be non-weight-bearing on the affected limb for longer.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    {{{Autenrieth Road, Gracious Rebel and your respective mums}}}
  • @Sarasa, @Piglet thanks. I’ve got the appointments scheduled now. Baby steps.
  • I read this thread all the time, posting sometimes. So many of us trying to do rightly with our elders. There's always snippets of insight here. Very helpful and kind of people to share how they navigate, it's by example and direct advice that I navigate.

    I've had my father to 27 eye appointments in a year. He's finally getting the idea that he's not going to gain sight in his one working eye, he's going to maintain it. He agreed to follow the nurse advice to eat more, gained 4 lbs in 4 months. We'd like him to agree to extra help, but it is user pay here, and he doesn't want to spend the money. Although he spends only one-third of what he is paid via pension and RRIF (registered retirement income fund). He's afraid of stepping into the tub and shower now and says he's fine with using a wash cloth. He's not clean. It isn't fine. This 91 year old puts me in my place when I try to insist. He needs to sit in the shower and someone supervise. It might have to be me, but I'm not comfortable with doing something where I can't prevent a fall. Even if he agreed to that when he's not agreeing to someone to help who knows what they're doing. It's very troubling just now.
  • @NOprophet_NØprofit I think you should have a fellow feeling session with my sister next time Dad winds her up. You could challenge each other over whose parent is the most stubborn and awkward.

    For note - my sister does not have a bad relationship with my father historically it is just that complex family dynamics come into play which makes her feel that he is belittling him when he is just being his stubborn contrary self.
  • @NOprophet_NØprofit I'm so sorry to hear this. I begged and pleaded with the Dowager to accept help with showering (she used to get up ever earlier to be dressed before the carers came in) but I never got anywhere. She had to go into care before she got a shower (though she never smelt, thank heavens)

    No help, I'm afraid, only fellow-feeling, and respect for your efforts.

    Mrs. S, reading and praying
  • I should explain that I think Dad is as cussed and stubborn with me as with her but because of family dynamics, she takes it because he thinks she is intellectually inferior while I never got that brickbat thrown at me.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    {{{NP and your dad}}}
  • My father is a very commanding person, softer than once was, but when the authority doesn't work, he does a just say no and does a little boy old man stubborn as can be.

    For background, 10 years ago today my mother fell and broke her hip. They had retired to Mexico and the stock market is where their retirement funds were, with the softening of the market just then, they (he? her? both?) decided to not spend the money on private surgery and waited for the public funding they were entitled to as immigrant retired people. You're supposed to have surgery for broken hips within about 48 hours because of clot risks.

    I offered the $40k for private surgery, I offered to fly down, I offered everything. But they/he/she stubbornly said no no no. Just like they said no the previous summer when she had a previous small stroke in Canada which I recognized and got her to hospital with all the right drugs and paid for it as they didn't have coverage here any more.

    Well she had the surgery finally after 3 weeks in a hospital bed, and then she had the stroke, and then she died. I thought my father learned something from that. But not so much. He only moved back to Canada when he started going blind. And that was another fiasco and story bereft of happiness. But here we are. I have learned that love and hate are not opposites. It's love-hate and its opposite is "I don't care to be bothered". (I don't want to go back to hate-love which I had for a while.)

    I dreamed of my mother last night. I hadn't actually figured out that today was the day of her fall and fracture and the beginning of her end. I keep wondering when the tragedy of it becomes the promised comedy.
  • @NPNP, I’m sorry things are so messed up.
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    I dreamed of my mother last night. I hadn't actually figured out that today was the day of her fall and fracture and the beginning of her end. I keep wondering when the tragedy of it becomes the promised comedy.

    I'm sorry to say it but some situations are too tragic to ever be comedy.

    My Dad was a difficult man, but the Charge Nurse in his care home worked miracles and still left him with his dignity. He said of her, "I like Gayle, you can have an argument with her and she never holds it against you later."

    Even now, years later I think of her with gratitude.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    @NOprophet_NØprofit that sounds tough with your dad. Isn't he in sheltered accommodation? Can you talk to them about ways to get your dad to accept help? One of the troubles with elderly parents is that they still think of their offspring as small children and don't see why they should listen to their advice.

    My mother seems to have lost the ability to tell the time. She keeps on not being in when I visit as she thinks very late. Fortunately I know to find her in the Marks and Spencer café. The latest problem is her on-line grocery order. After having gone out when the order was due on Tuesday, we re-arranged it for yesterday. After some confusion I told mum it would arrive between 8-9 last night. Mum went to bed early, and then refused the order when it arrived as she thought it was very late at night.
  • I wish they were more directive than they are where he lives. He gets suppers. All of the other things are voluntary and requests of the resident. He absolutely refuses the internal extra things, and people coming from outside is worse.

    My wife presses him differently, and he sometimes listens more to her. But then he tries to talk to me about getting her to stop. I'm trying to take the view that this is way he wants things to be, and make some peace with it. I was in a bit of a bad way with the 10 years since my mother's fall.
  • @NOprophet_NØprofit I am in awe of the fact that you still - as demonstrated on this thread - care for him at all. I am not at all sure that I would, in your position.

    I was in a hospital waiting room for a long time today, with an elderly lady (10 years younger than the Dowager) and tried my best to inculcate into her the idea that she should a) accept and b) pay for, help (her daughter seems to spend her life running round after her, which I can't think is good).

    Who knows?

    Mrs. S, resolved to do better by her own daughter!
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    The saga of the on-line grocery order continues. I rescheduled it for this afternoon and this morning mum seemed fine about it all, though she hadn't remembered the time. She phoned at about 1.00 to say it hadn't arrived and I pointed out it wasn't due till two. I went on-line to check it was arriving on time and realised I'd buggered up the order and she was going to get not only the wrong order (a previous one) but she'd be getting it twice. I phoned the company and they said they'd try to get the driver to remove the non-perishable duplicates. Don't think he did. Since it arrived mum has phoned a few times to yell at me about how its all too much and she's not putting it away and its all my brother's fault as he shouldn't have got all that food and left her to put it away by herself. I keep on saying it was me and I'm really sorry, and my brother has been nowhere near her place today but she's having none of it. I live too far away to just pop over and in theory I'm off to see my mother in law tomorrow. I think I might be going over to my mothers instead to sort out groceries. Mum has a viewing of her flat tomorrow afternoon and I don't think it will go well if there are bags kicked all over the place (she told me that was what she was doing with them).

    She wasn't sounding too good before this happened she was telling me about how it was her flat and she didn't want that couple coming round again. Goodness knows what that was all about.
  • Oh Sarasa, that's all so familiar. I lived to regret giving The Dowager my mobile number (which she then handed out to all and sundry with gay abandon) as I remember her phoning me while I was in the middle of a cornfield, on a lovely walk) to ask why this man had brought her all this food (and that was just an ordinary delivery). 'Well, Mum, it's for you to eat...'

    Mrs. S, full of sympathy
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    Well it all got worse. Mum phoned at ten convinced she wasn't in the right flat. Between me and my sister-in-law we managed to calm her down about that. Then she started phoning at four in the morning to rage about the shopping again. By eight she had calmed down a lot so I went to my MiL as planned and my brother went over to take her out for lunch. By then she was fine and had put the shopping away. This evening when I phoned she was still fine. I'll see what tomorrow brings when I go to visit but I'm chivvying my brother to look at other options for moving mum nearer him. There is a care home that on paper looks like it might be OK, and I'm hoping we can try mum out with a couple of weeks respite and see how it goes.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Good luck, Sarasa - hope you can work something out. It certainly looks like your mum needs help of some sort - maybe the respite thing will give you all a better idea of exactly what sort.

    <votive>
  • @Sarasa - I just want to sound a note of warning about respite care. The Dowager hated her first two weeks in Care Home 1, even though she knew it was only for two weeks and she was in better health at that point. Even when she got to Care Home 2, which she preferred, she also hated that for some weeks, if not months, until they got her medication sorted and I suppose she got used to the idea. She only contemplated it because the doctor gave her no alternative.

    Also, be completely upfront about your mother's needs. You really do not want the home ringing you up after two days and saying she's much worse than they had been led to believe, and please can you come and take her away!

    On the other hand, they will be more experienced than your family are at dealing with cases like this and she may be able to be assessed while she is there.

    In any case, as Piglet says, good luck - you need the respite quite as much as she does!

    Mrs. S, awaiting the results of the latest doctor's visit!
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