This is just the way that this week has gone. I must have pressed the wrong button and ended up posting my message, when it was only half done. I suppose the good thing is that I didn't lose it althogether.

Back to my story.

About an hour after I left, the home phoned me and said that they thought that the wrist was broken and that I had to pick her up and take her to a hospital emergency. They were clear the I was to take her to a hospital emerg not a medi-clinc. If I had taken her to a medi-clinci we would have been in and out in about an hour.

Four and a half hours later, I got her back to the home. We waited for 3 hours for a doctor to look at her and say that she needed an xray. Of course we had a bathroom adventure where there were three of us in a small washroom trying to help mom. This while mom was screaming blue murder.

Waited for a porter to take us to xray. After 20 minutes they told me to take her myself. The lady in the elevator that rode up with this, pushed her way in fronjt of us and as a result got to the front of the line.

I could go on for another page about the rest of the story. I felt so bad because I shouldn't have listened to them. I knew it would be a wait.

It was like taking a small child the the hospital, who is in great pain. She kept asking me the same questions about what was going on. I couldn't get her to understand.

I was getting ready to leave and take her somewhere else but the home had been quite specific on where I was to take her.

I will stop now because I am very angry. Like I said we were both pretty well in tears by the end of the cab ride. I gave the driver a huge tip for having to listen to us on the drive back from the hospital.

Never again.

Of course my brother was on holidays so I had to take care of it all myself.

Will finish story on another thread.

Yes I will be renting the sling when the time comes when I can no longer get mom out of bed they really are not that difficult to operate at home......as London as you have a big enough bedroom..

Hope your mom is ok with her arm I would request the facility doct or to order a x ray for mom. But I know your power is less when in a facility.

God bless

Thanks shurl.

There is no facility doctor. All residents have to find their own doctor from the list that they gave us when she moved in.

The doctors come, on their own shedule. The one that agree to see mom comes by at 7 am, asks questions (few of them) at the desk and then move on.\

They rely on the LPN on duty to fax the doctor and then wait til he gets back to the home with what course of action they need to take.

When I went tonight,. I asked the aides at the desk just what had happened this afternoon and just mumbled somehing about feeding her supper in bed. The LPN that was on tonight so would be the one that gave her pills looked at me if I was from another planet.

I will go tomorrow and try to sort it out. The problem witt this is that I am almost at the end of my tether.

This is not a good thing because my daughter and grand-daughter are coming to stay with me for the weekend. It will definitely lift my spirits once they are here, just not sure how I will get the house cleaned up (and child-proofed,grandbabby has been walking for two weeks) after dealing with mom's stuff.

I have suffered from the bipolarII diagnosis for many years. Think most people know that stress is not a good idea to have if you don't want to go south quickly. Hoping I will be able to hang in there

Aw, I am sorry you and your mom are having a rough time. The people that work at the facility....is this their typical way of interacting with you? Do I understand you correctly that the doctor comes in and doesn't even see your mom? (Sorry if I missed these details in other posts.)

If so, and I know this is a big deal and I don't want to add more to your stress level, do you think you should think about trying to move her? The workers there should not be "mumbling" anything to do you. They should be providing straight-forward information and working with you to provide the best care for your mom.

I'm not sure how long baby proofing would take in your house, but is it possible that your daughter could help you baby proof when she gets there? ...just to take a little stress off you.

I hope you enjoy your visit with your daughter and granddaughter and I hope your mom is OK. Oh, and I'm glad her eye appointment went well.

The folks at the facility are not in charge of the choices that you make. Going to urgent care is reasonable. They would have sent you to ER if they saw something more serious. You are allowed to make reasonablly sound decisions.
Unless you are actually ignoring her obvious needs by leaving her lying on the floor or letting her fall constantly making no effort to help her up yourself or fail to feed her or other obvious things like that, they have no say in what happens. Certainly forcing her to wait 4 hours can be seen to be unecessary from your perspective and would be seen as reasonable part of your decision to choose urgent over ER.

You are allowed to make reasonable decisions.\!!!!
The facility is a paid provider. Your mother is the customer. As her representative, you are a client as well. Keep in mind that you have the say in what happens. The facility does not get to tell you what care mom receives beyond life saving urgent care in your absence.
You are not being a pest with complaints or requests. So the facility needs to listen and respect your requests for mom's care.

Try to stop beating yourself up for making a mistake. Can you make a pact to stop "shoulding" on yourself? That will make this journey much easier!!
You did the best that you could with the information you had at the time.
YOU DID THE BEST THAT YOU COULD WITH THE INFORMATION THAT YOU HAD AT THE TIME!

Each time you hear yourself say "should", you are telling yourself that you needed to somehow read minds or know before hand that a choice would be wrong. Even if you THOUGHT it was wrong.

No one can KNOW for certain ahead of time that a choice is right or wrong! (Well maybe GOD can - but we are not her equals!!!)
Now you can make future choices with this new information that you have garnered.
This sort of affirmation will help you be more confident with mom's care. That will give you more peaceful times with her. You will build memories that are plesant and nice to remember.

Keeping you in my prayers.

I do not think your information is accurate when something goes wrong the np will contact the doctor since you have given them that power when you put her into the facility they how ever are to inform you of falls or serious changes they will never call you up and ask for your opinion on how to proceed with moms care. They will inform you when she falls just in case you try to blame the staff for neglect and improper care. The pendulum swings back and forth.. The power you once pocessed has been given to them we may get a reprieve by choosing this route but is not without losing something that will,prove to be crucial later down the line...

God bless

My response in the last post is directed to bunnys response whom I believe to be a promoter of nursing facilities . Which in circumstances when one has no family at all needs to be in a facility where they can receive care that they would normally not be available to them.many people who have no family to speak of often die at home alone with no care at all and unable to care for themselves in that respect nursing homes are appropriate and essential

I am not totally against this work of mercy for those whom have nothing. But with this comes more worries not being able to see for ones self the care the loved one is receiving only being able to observe through the visits. And realizing how much later after the newness wears off and the reality begins to show it self in little ways that seem to grow in each passing day.

It's like buying a house it looks good on the outside but after time you discover all the hidden things that were not mentioned when you bought the house....


God bless all of us

When they called me on Wednesday the nurse told me, that when she talked to the doctor that he had said that I was to take her to a hospital emergency. room.Since I am not a medical professional, I did what he told me to do

We had never had to deal with this doctor.Since I am not sure of what circumstances would cause me to question what her physican told me to do to take care of her issues.

It is true that in the end, I did follow through with what he had told me to do. Next time I will make sure that I ask more questions, before I do anything concerning, out of facility health procedures.

As I said in a previous post, I am not happy with a doctor that is treating mom, and has never seen her.

I have a terrible cold so didn't go and see mom today. I had to deal with the staff over the phone.

I have always been very respectful when I talk to the staff. I say thank you, often to the aides. If I am able to go tomorrow I will also be respectful.

She is now in great pain. She screams when they try to get her out of bed. She isn't eating. Very lethargic. Drifts in and out.

If it means that I am being a pain to the staff because they have to deal with answering my questions, just so long as I am polite, I will deal with that.

My mom can no longer advocate for herself, so yes I am going to make sure that she gets the best care possible.



When mom went into her facility we had to fill out a form that indicated, under what circumstances, they were to inform us of her health.

We checked of "their" boxes that we wanted to be informed if she fell and also if there were any medication changes.

This is the fourth time that I have tried to write this reply. So I don't lose it all again, I am going to split this reply into two sections.

The LPN from the home called me this morning. She said that mom was doing better and that she seemed to be in less pain.

My brother had gone to visit her last night and reported back that she is less lethargic.

He also said that she was more comfortable, physically wise.

Unfortuantely I have a terrible cold. As a result I am not able to go and see her myself today. And probably won't be able to, tomorrow. The LPN will call and let me know how she is doing.

Also my brother is going up tonight to see for himself.

I guess that the news is good today. She isn't in so much pain and they hope to get her eating.

Frustrating that I cannot go see her on my own. Mind you I am not sure that she realizes that I am not there, anyway.

BTW is am not sure where you people live. I happen to live in Saskatchewan Canada.

We have personal care facilities that peopile can put there loved ones in if they can no longer care for them at home.

Our family decided to go that route when I could no longer care for mom, safely at home. It was a 24/7 job and I just couldn't give her the care she needed.

When we had to start taking her to get her head stitched up, from the falls that she was taking that we decided that she needed to be in a personal care home because it just wasn't safe for her at home.

It was a very difficuilt decision to make. We had decided that we would keep her in her home, as long as we could but we just couldn't

The personal care home is not government funded, or even regulated. We weren't happy but there were a limited number of homes that had staff up for 24 hours.

It got to the point that the home couldn't even make sure she was safe.

When a private home can no longer take care of a resident they are assessed by a board as to whether they qualify for a spot. There are a limited number of spaces so there are 9 criteria that have to be met before they are accepted.

When her case was put before the Board they decided that a placement in a long-term care facililty was warranted.

Then we had to wait until a space was available. Two months later they offered her a placement. We have the choice of taking the spot (in whatever home they specify) of getting her taken off the list.

There are some real hell-holes out there so we decided (as a family) to take it.

Once placed we can request a transfer. Once. The place she is in is one of the better ones. She will stay there. Mom is on a secure until with 11 other residents. There are two care-aides on at all times. There is also a LPN and a registered nurse that are floaters on the unit.

I may not be entirely happy with the goings on at the home. We cannot move her. So yes I am going to tell the staff "if" I think that she is not being adequately cared for.

I really don't care if I talk to them, every day if necessary. Just so long as I am not demanding anything, or rude, I can't see any problem in advocating for my mom.

glad that mom is doing better today and that she is eating once again
god bless

I think you need to decide if you are going to put your faith in the doctor assigned to your mom or look for another. It's very important to have someone who you feel comfortable with, can communicate with and trust.

Some of the replies to your post I believe are not relavant because you are in Canada and the responder is from another country. Maybe contact the nursing home administrator to get more info about what is the correct and necessary procedure for cases like this. There may be rules about where your mom has to go for care and who has to approve or order care. Then contact your health organization to confirm what the nursing home tells you is correct.

I'm glad your mom is feeling a bit better. Remember with the elderly any injury or illness will affect them much more. Also any meds, especially narcotics, will affect appetite.

As with most support groups. I understand that most of the memberes are from countries, other than Canada.

I appreciate all of the replies because for most of them, it doesn't make any difference what country you are in. Some of the problems with agiing parents are universal.

As with most support groups that I have been in, the overwhelming amount of members are American.

We have heard about how your American Health System works.BTW also Obamacare.

Even though our systems are very different a lot of the problems that come up here, are universal. I the support I get here, very helplful,

I could see the way that the thread was going and that was why I mentioned that I am Canadian. Your method of health care services varies dramtically from ours,

I was just venting.

Hi Wantm.. I'm from Montreal and my Mom is in a NH in Ontario. She is in an extremely well care for NH (govt subsidized) and just from one province to the next there are enormous differences.
When Mom was still mobile, she was falling constantly and they would call me and let me know. Mom was very restless at night and most often this is when they would find her on the floor.
She needed to walk with a walker but would never remember to use it. Thankfully she never broke anything. Following one of her falls, she did get sent to the ER once because she was really complaining about pain in her knee, again this was something they did with my consent only.
I have heard horror stories from some NH in Montreal and I'm glad mom is where she is.