Caring For Aging Parents Support Group
Caring for aging parents can be a difficul time as we become the caretakers for our parents. This broad responsibility can encompass such services as assisted living, adult day care, long term care, nursing homes, hospice care, and in-home care. Whether you have just started caring for your parents or just need a place to talk, we're here.
It's funny how mild personality disorders magnify as people age...
My mom is 70 years old & in good health. She lives alone in the house my parents purchased 30 years ago in a warm climate. Dad has been gone for 20 years. Mom's nearby sister, brother-in-law, and friend of 30 years all died since she retired 3 years ago. Both of her parents died 6 years ago (age 98!). Luckily my sis & her teen kids live less than a mile away. I also have a cousin with kids & grandkids who live near my mom and she gets along well with her 60 year old neighbor across the street. I live 3000 miles away.
Recently my mom told me now that her parents are gone, she has decided she will no longer travel to the family farm (a 3 hour plane trip) to see her remaining sisters because she doesn't want to be away from her house and stuff (her words) for more than a couple of days and she doesn't know how to get around once she's there (her sisters, also in their 70's, drive just fine). My mom gets along very well with her sisters, so this surprises me, although they've come to visit only twice in the 30+ years my mom has lived on the west coast.
This isn't really a new thing. My mom's brother travels frequently for business & was in town 15 years ago, but mom didn't go to see him because he was staying near the airport & she didn't know how to drive near the airport. The airport is 6 miles from her house.
She has other behaviors such as having my sister drive her to a location the day before an appointment so that she'll know how to get there. I believe this has been going on for at least 10 years. There is not much traffic in the town my mom lives in and the streets are laid out in a simple grid, so it's very easy to get around. Mom doesn't know how to use google maps nor even a paper map, so there may be an intelligence problem here in addition to agoraphobia.
She also makes a lot of poor shopping decisions and often pays for services that don't provide extra value or items that are overpriced. I won't go into a list here, but it seems that the reason she does this is that she doesn't know how to research typical prices, she isn't assertive enough to ask around, and not sharp enough to use the internet or know what questions to ask/how to figure out her options. I mention this because she suggested that I manage her money, and in the same conversation, said that old people should be allowed to order stacks of uninteresting magazines because it's fun to get things in the mail. (Perhaps I should put her on more junk mail lists...)
Anyway, I'm going to visit her in a few weeks, so I'm trying to think of what I should prepare. I thought about talking to her doctor, but I don't think she'd be happy about that & I don't think he knows her well enough to help. Although she does think Men Know What To Do, so enlisting him &/or my husband might be necessary, in spite of my superior intelligence :/ .
All this detail is more of a summary for me to use as I navigate her care for what could be the next 30 years. If anyone has any thoughts feel free to comment.
My mom is 70 years old & in good health. She lives alone in the house my parents purchased 30 years ago in a warm climate. Dad has been gone for 20 years. Mom's nearby sister, brother-in-law, and friend of 30 years all died since she retired 3 years ago. Both of her parents died 6 years ago (age 98!). Luckily my sis & her teen kids live less than a mile away. I also have a cousin with kids & grandkids who live near my mom and she gets along well with her 60 year old neighbor across the street. I live 3000 miles away.
Recently my mom told me now that her parents are gone, she has decided she will no longer travel to the family farm (a 3 hour plane trip) to see her remaining sisters because she doesn't want to be away from her house and stuff (her words) for more than a couple of days and she doesn't know how to get around once she's there (her sisters, also in their 70's, drive just fine). My mom gets along very well with her sisters, so this surprises me, although they've come to visit only twice in the 30+ years my mom has lived on the west coast.
This isn't really a new thing. My mom's brother travels frequently for business & was in town 15 years ago, but mom didn't go to see him because he was staying near the airport & she didn't know how to drive near the airport. The airport is 6 miles from her house.
She has other behaviors such as having my sister drive her to a location the day before an appointment so that she'll know how to get there. I believe this has been going on for at least 10 years. There is not much traffic in the town my mom lives in and the streets are laid out in a simple grid, so it's very easy to get around. Mom doesn't know how to use google maps nor even a paper map, so there may be an intelligence problem here in addition to agoraphobia.
She also makes a lot of poor shopping decisions and often pays for services that don't provide extra value or items that are overpriced. I won't go into a list here, but it seems that the reason she does this is that she doesn't know how to research typical prices, she isn't assertive enough to ask around, and not sharp enough to use the internet or know what questions to ask/how to figure out her options. I mention this because she suggested that I manage her money, and in the same conversation, said that old people should be allowed to order stacks of uninteresting magazines because it's fun to get things in the mail. (Perhaps I should put her on more junk mail lists...)
Anyway, I'm going to visit her in a few weeks, so I'm trying to think of what I should prepare. I thought about talking to her doctor, but I don't think she'd be happy about that & I don't think he knows her well enough to help. Although she does think Men Know What To Do, so enlisting him &/or my husband might be necessary, in spite of my superior intelligence :/ .
All this detail is more of a summary for me to use as I navigate her care for what could be the next 30 years. If anyone has any thoughts feel free to comment.
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I know this is stupid, but after not being able to find a job after graduation for almost two years, I ended up just taking an online teaching job because I couldn't find anything in my field. I was trying to get out of teaching and I feel so devastated. I felt this crushing feeling when I signed the paperwork and when I was in the meetings. I know that sounds so dramatic but it is how I felt. It...
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Tomorrow is National Massachusetts Day!Have you ever lived in or visited Massachusetts? If so, tell us what's great about the Bay State!
One of the best pieces of advice that I have, one that many of us here swear by, is to make sure that you and all your siblings are constantly updating each other on what is going on. When it became obvious to everybody except for my MIL that she could no longer live alone, her 4 children worked as a team to resolve it. (She came to live with my wife and me, it was the obvious solution as far as everybody was concerned. Me too!)
Although one or another of you may take the lead in everything, or in different things, always, ALWAYS talk to your siblings! There will be enough stress down the road to shake any set of sibling relationships, so the more you work as a team the better you will manage the crisis situations that will come up.
(I'm channeling TroJan here!) Make sure you get the legal stuff inline. Somebody needs power of attorney. It sounds like you will/should have power of attorney over her finances and that your sister (did I read it right, she lives very close to your mom?) should have power of attorney for her health care issues.
All of you should be on your mom's medical charts as having permission to talk to all doctors even though only one of you will have medical power of attorney.
Don't forget to keep your spouses and children in the loop! Although our job as a spouse is to help our spouse as they make what ever decisions need to be made, they deserve to be appraised. Keeping your children in the loop depends on their age and how well they can handle things like that. Neither of my kids were good with medical emergencies, so we try to keep them close, but at a comfortable distance when medical things come up.
Sorry to go on and on!
Again welcome!
You're right about the Power of Attorney. Mom said sis would have medical power of attorney & I'd have financial.
The funny thing about this is that it's not as though she's suddenly declining, it's more like she's always had issues but nobody has ever acknowledged that this is abnormal. It's just never been a problem for anyone else before. I can see it becoming an issue as she ages, much like dementia in my father-in-law and maternal grandmother seemed to be merely an increase in their annoying personality traits (probably mild Aspergers & OCD) until they were diagnosed.