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Veronica, I had the valve repaired 5 years ago via catheter and robotic surgery - this time full open replacement. The rehab is in another wing of the hospital. It’s a new wing. All private rooms with private baths. I have a friend who is a RN. She says it’s well staffed. I’ve already hired 24/7 RN’s for the first two weeks of rehab. I’ll go from there and see what happens. I think I have everything organized, but who knows. Just want to get this over and move on to the next surgery.
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Becky, Wishing you all the best. The rehab wing sounds like it will be ok, well staffed and good that you have RNs for the 2 weeks. I had my retinal detachment surgery at 5am and was glad to be in there early to just get it done! {{Hugs}}.
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Today has just been one of those days. *Sigh* Kids are out of school now so can help somewhat around the house, but it's been a zoo here today. My toddler broke a glass earlier, thankfully didn't get hurt, but had a huge mess to clean. Mom was trying to help but making an even bigger mess. Youngest son crying that he lost a part to his video game console. Mom has been paranoid all day not wanting to let me out of her sight. Had to put my foot down so I could take 10 minutes just to go to the post office by myself, after reassuring her there were no intruders going to break in while I was gone.

Then find out from mom's attorney that we have to file a separate civil suit to get the title to mom's car and house transferred back into mom's name, after my sister put it in hers while the guardianship proceeding was going on and while mom was incapacitated. Sister still living rent free in mom's house, supposed to be out by tomorrow, but if not the lawyer says I have to file an eviction proceeding as mom's guardian, which I wouldn't be able to win until we get the title mess straightened out.

Still trying to figure out finances to be able to move mom to the place that she likes, and meanwhile I'm going crazy. It's like I have two toddlers instead of one. Mom wouldn't go to bed until 3 am last night because she was scared, so I stayed up trying to reassure her and convince her that she was safe to sleep in her room.

Just such a complicated mess all around. I'm glad I can vent here. I seriously felt like breaking down crying earlier but I held it together because we can't ALL go crazy at the same time lol
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Frazzled, I’m so sorry that you are having that kind of day. Maybe tonight will be better with your mom and get some sleep. Summer with a houseful of kids, plus your mom has to be difficult. Try to get a nice long cold shower this evening or a soak in the bathtub. Take good care of yourself.
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Hugs Frazzled.
Hugs Becky.
You all are having a rough time of it, i will keep you in my prayers. That everything gets better and turns out ok.
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Thanks for the support, it's just a complete nightmare.

Called today to disconnect utilities at mom's house. No sense in her paying them while she's living here with me. Well, she absolutely flipped out. I said, "Explain to me, why do you want to keep paying them if you're not staying there?" She said, "Well, I want your sister to be able to do laundry and stuff." So essentially she wants ME to take care of her with no time for MY kids or MY husband, or even myself, while my abusive sister lives in her house rent free, with her name still on the title. And I'm supposed to be okay with that?

I told her we can get them reconnected if and when she moves back home, but that I think it might be good to put the deposit for now on the facility that she liked. She kept saying she wants to go back home, that she can't afford that place (she can, at least for a couple of years with her income and the little she still has in savings- maybe by then we'll have the mess with her house and car straightened out). And she can't go back and live there totally by herself, and doesn't have the funds to hire a live-in caregiver or 24 hour care. It would be expensive just to hire a skilled nurse to give her insulin twice a day.

It's just beyond frustrating when I'm trying to do the right thing and trying to take care of mom and her health, and I feel like she just craps all over me and wants to defend and support my sister who abused and stole from her.

Thank you all for listening. Even to me it sounds like the same crap, different day, but it is what it is.
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I'm so sorry Frazzled that you're going through all this. I have a similar situation although I'm an only child. I don't know what kind of house issue you're having with your mother's house, but mine has gotten herself into a huge pickle with hers and it would take another of my long posts to explain it all...(((hugs))) to you and hope you get some peace soon!
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Yeah Frazzled, same crap, different day, but maybe not tomorrow?  I keep finding that when I just want to give up, something totally off the wall happens the next day to change things - usually a phone call out of nowhere.  Often it's a "God thing", and then it's all different - who knows?
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FrazzledMama I watched my aunt slowly die as her daughters squabbled over her
care. It was so weird how she defended the worst of the four. The one who had
calculated every penny she thought was her due. Drove a van up to her mother's
house to load up her mother's collectibles so she could sell them. Pocketed all the
money for herself, despite the fact she had much greater assets than her mother.

She refused to cooperate with getting her mom into a quality AL and insisted she go
to government housing. She threw a complete fit when one of her sisters offered
to take her mom in and spend a small amount making her house accessible.

Her mom died while she was defending her precious inheritance. Grand total? $4,000--the price of her mom's life. The last time I spoke with my aunt, she was heartbroken
why her favorite daughter didn't visit her in the hospital. Last weeks of her life were spent in agony waiting for her deadbeat child to pay her back a small fraction of a lifetime of love
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I don't know why it is that the worst sibling always gets put on a pedestal. I have no siblings but my husband's only one was a lazy drug addict who took and took and only looked out for herself, yet MIL acts like she was a saint. SIL died of drug OD a year and a half ago while living with MIL in MIL's home. She was supposed to be caring for MIL and the house leading everyone to believe she was clean. Now we are the sole care givers looking out for MIL, 87, still living in her own home an hour away from us. MIL refuses to believe SIL died from misadventure and believes she died of an inherited disease that came from her side of family because SIL had told her this to guilt her out for money. MIL always told my husband she doesn't give SIL money, but we found out otherwise. In reality all SIL's problems were from her addiction of 30 years. No one was allowed to say anything against SIL and MIL would make you the bad guy if you did. I was the bad guy for all those years because I saw through it all. The worst case of denial I have ever seen. This would never fly in my own family and I thank God for my parents guiding me well. My husband turned out well, hard working, and successful because he was not coddled and worshipped like SIL who never could do wrong in her parent's eyes despite the very obvious. How could 2 siblings be so very different?
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Yes, amazing how siblings raised in the same home by the same parents can turn out so different. My most egregious BIL manages to turn up at the local grocery store almost every time I’m there. So annoying.

There’s no place else to shop around here, and I don’t particularly love turning over a % of my paycheck to this conglomerate. When that experience is combined with a self-centered monologue from BIL while I’m rotting away in the checkout line, it’s all I can do to keep the peace.
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No online options, BH? If the conglomerate - hmmmmm, anyone I'd know?! - has a local presence wouldn't they also be delivering by now?
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Rotting in the checkout line? LOL..............sorry, I know it's not funny but I've found myself rotting away in many checkout lines too. That seven-mile stare across the store. Fun, fun fun.

I don't get caught in those type of conversations though. I've gotten really good at suddenly finding something I have to do when someone tries to monopolize me. Or you can just say "Is there any discernible point to this conversation?" That usually throws them off.
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I know of several families where the lazy, alcoholic, druggie, whatever, kid is the favorite and always catered to; at least 2 in our own families.... amazing, that dynamic, isn't it?
I think the parents see them as needier than the others, but it makes so much trouble.
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Just popping in to say I'm thinking of you Becky! (((((big hugs)))))
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I definitely need to whine this afternoon.

Poo. It's the poo that's killing me. I can handle pretty much everything about this except the poo.

Mom must have got up in the night to go to the bathroom, because she left her dirty Depends in the shower and didn't put another back on. So THEN she must have pooed in her sleep, all over the bed. It was all over the underpad, the sheet, and through to the plastic cover on the mattress. The duvets, the pillows, the bedframe....

THEN she got up (I guess to get away from the poo-covered bed), dripped poo on the carpet and floor to the living room, and laid down on the couch, getting poo on the couch and laying in it. (Luckily I've been poo-proofing the couch with underpads and a sheet, ever since the first time.) That's what I woke up to.....I didn't even know she was laying in it at that point, just poo everywhere. 

I put on gloves and managed to get the bed and bathroom, and part of the floor, cleaned up by the time home support arrived. HS got mom into the shower and all cleaned up, and I dealt with the sofa and the rest of the floor. Just laundry left now, and mom is back in bed. Sooooo much laundry though.

How in the heck do you get that much poo on so many things? How the heck do you have so much poo inside you when you barely even eat???
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((((hugs, Dori))))
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Dori... The first time, my dad made a poo mess, I smelled it first. I didn’t want to go and check it out. When I was a few feet from his hospital bed, I froze. I was filled with dread and anger. I stood there glaring at him. He absolutely denied touching his poop.  (It’s not poop, it’s Dirt.) The more he denied it, the angrier I got. I remembered fighting so hard to not just walk out the door and telling my brother-of-next-door that I quit. It was terrible... I can handle cleaning the stomach tube hole, the disgusting trache... it was the poop mess that always got to me.  {{{HUGS}}}
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Oh Dorianne. I remember my shoulders slumping when I looked at the *work* it would take to clear up.

You'd almost like to move everyone outside and just set fire to the house. Rebuilding would be quicker.

She's not going to be making a habit of this, is she?
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(((((((dori)))))
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Couldn't, wouldn't do it.... you all are heroes, I guess.
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I deal with the nasty disgusting poo because I haven't a choice apart from hiring 24hour care. My mother is bed bound and would never agree to go to a nursing home. I don't think you can just put them there against their will without first establishing guardianship over them, can you? Anyway, I have reason to believe that the caregiver here on Thursday last week stole from me, so I must lock away all the valuables now. There is a chance that she may have taken my grandmother's wedding rings, and heaven knows what else. My whine is that I should have known better than to trust her, even though she was here through a reputable (EXPENSIVE!) agency that supposedly ran a background check. Trust NO ONE until they PROVE themselves trustworthy.
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Oh book.....ugh, yes. Dread and anger. I WISH my brother lived next door. I'd make a point of using his washing machine "to catch up" on the gross stuff! Lol. I actually took pictures this time in case he ever questions what I do all day.

CM - I dunno if I'd say it's a habit, but she's making a mess more often these days - usually only through to her pants or the underpad. Most often it's caught by home support before I ever realize it.  But yeah, she does make an apartment-sized mess once in awhile....used to be once every couple of months, but now I'd say once a month.

I know it's not her fault. She's dying, and she just has no control anymore, plus she just sleeps right through a lot of the time....and she doesn't even realize how bad it is unless I point it out (or she acts like she doesn't realize it). But it frustrates me that most of it would have been contained if she'd just put on a new Depends.

One of the home support workers just told me we can get up to 4 visits a day, so I guess I'm going to be talking to the area nurse this week.
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I am with mally ... I must be a horrid daughter as if/when my mother needs all that care, I could not do it either.
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And some posters wonder WHY nursing facilities smell the way they do!

Can you imagine 28 seniors (the amount of incontinent folks at my mom's facility) all peeing and pooing at once in their diaper? Impossible to keep it smelling flower fresh. If there isn't visible excrement and puddles, and there's a faint smell of PineSol, I figure the staff has been doing what Dorianne was doing.

Bless you Dorianne, there are rewards for saints like you.
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I'm burning incense. Now the workers will probably all think I'm smoking pot.
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Today i applied peppermint essential oil in my nostrils (wow! What a kick!), and then stuffed small Kleenex tissues into my nose.
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Oh, NoRecess, I bet that peppermint oil burned! But I'll bet you didn't notice the poo.
You can also try breathing  through your mouth.  😷

After 40 years of "smells", I guess it doesn't bother me. I only remember one horrific smell and that was of rotting flesh (on a live person). I had to spray the inside of my mask with air fresher to keep from gagging. God bless him, half his face was eaten away from cancer. Should I mention he was in the hospital to clean out the maggots that had taken up residence in his flesh. Sometimes it's hard to be a nurse. 

Now, smelling poo doesn't sound so bad, huh?
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Myown, you're not a horrid daughter. I was obligated to take care of my parents due to a very strong family, religious and cultural reasons. If you have reached a point that you're no longer willing or unable to continue to care for your mom, then do what you need to do for her to get that care elsewhere. Other people may try to make you feel bad but ... they don't know what it's like. The important thing is that you tried and that you have reached your limit..... Don't compare yourself to others because each of us have our own circumstances and we each chose to go down a certain road.
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I remember the dismay when this would happen. I thought I was the only one on Earth going through this. It would get on the carpet and would get tracked with the walker into her living room. The first time I saw this I was puzzled as to the brown circles in the rug but immediately realized what was going in. The last year of life Mom was bedridden in my home on hospice, but I had to deal with that and the catheter bag frequently full of dark blood. On top of the loose bowels I had to make sure the fecal matter did not get into the stage 4 tailbone wound that she got in the 5 star medicare rated nursing home the first time she went for rehab. That took some ingenuity with gauze placed just so to keep it going the other way into the briefs. No one knows how hard this is unless you have dealt with it. And on a daily basis for a long time....
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