I'm tired of cooking/preparing 3 meals a day. It's just the two of us but boy oh boy can that woman eat!! She stays slimish, I get fattish. It's bad enough I do everything here much less start making her one thing and me the other. At times I feel guilty when I buy her fast food cuz of the nutritional value....not to mention I eat it too.
A good thing is that she has started walking again. Another good thing is that she is sleeping through the night and staying awake most of the day. So the good is outweighing the bad. We're supposed to raise her dosage of Remeron this week, so we'll see what happens. If it sends her over the top, maybe we'll just keep it at a lower dose. Whatever works.
I have a feeling I am going to need a new helmet or maybe even a full suit of armour. I have been having a terrible thought. What if this goes on for another 10 years? I didn't sign up for infinity, so I am worried about myself here.
No crises re-my mother in almost two weeks. The relative quiet feels strange and tense, as I wait for the next thing. Hope I didn't just jinx things.
Whenever my sig other complains about my parents, I remind him he will act like that someday... oh no, not him.. never.... he's been the absent minded professor since he was a young adult according to this grown children.
Also worried about Mom. In addition to the abdominal swelling, she seems not able to answer me about what she had in the rehab for lunch or dinner...like she can't find the words to describe the foods. She hasn't been diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimers and this has never happened before. Everyday it seems to be a new or worsening thing to worry.
i rode a motorcycle in the rain to AL one time when mom was in there and got soaking wet . i was trying to dry my boots one at a time in the microwave when an aid caught up with me and got all bent out of shape . she threw my boots in a clothes dryer and tho they made racket like a mule in a tin shed , by dam they dried out rather well .
veronica,
yup were slowly transitioning from carer to senile , difficult elder ourselves . i think dementia and alz will be stopped in its tracks pretty soon . theres a lot of international focus on those diseases right now . old age wouldnt be nearly as complicated if our minds didnt fail us . ( imo )
Things are not much better here, I'm afraid. Dealing with the drama of the daughter/grandkids being here and her situation, plus Mom is getting worse again with the memory and cognitive issues. Not remembering things that she has known for decades as fact, confusing who she's talking about in a conversation, etc. She asked if there was a light outside the back door - uh...yes, has been for about 40 years. Then we were talking about a relative in a nursing home and how expensive it was, and she mentioned an episode of Golden Girls that was on today that had to do with someone leaving a nursing home and ending up in a homeless shelter because of the cost - then she looked horrified and said, "Well, they (named the son/daughter of the relative we were discussing earlier) didn't leave her in that shelter, did they??" She went from talking about our relative to thinking the person on the TV show *was* our relative and she was in a homeless shelter - all in the space of about 60 seconds. I went out to get groceries tonight and was gone for a couple of hours, during which she's normally ok. Came back to find she had no incontinence pad on and had totally soaked her clothes and chair pad. (Thank God for those chair pads, though...)
traditionally patience aint my thing but sometimes its worth the wait .
Jeanette, I think you are right to keep away from this terribly misguided young woman. The last thing you need right now is to be baited and then picked on. What in the devil is wrong with that girl?!!
Freqflyer, I am having issues dealing with my Mom's teeth right now too..It is hard when it gets uncomfortable for them and they don't understand why the dentist does things.
I am going to probably go to sleep very early tonite...just glad this day is almost overwith....
Once again Mom was complaining about her hearing aid.... seems odd, when we do take her to the hearing aid place the doctor is able to put on her hearing aid and it works to the best of its ability since my Mom's hearing is almost gone. Now 2 weeks later it doesn't work. I know it is user error, it's always been user error. Now Mom wants to try a different hearing aid place... oh well, at least it is only a mile down the road... I can understand Mom's frustration but I wish she wasn't in denial that she is 97 years old, parts wear out.
Same with her teeth... she recently broke tooth that holds one side of a denture, and the dentist said there isn't anything more he can do, and if there isn't anything more he can do I believe him. Mom now has to use Poligrip and she doesn't like how it feels or taste. Of course with Mom's lack of hearing she doesn't understand there isn't anything more he can do !!
Same with her eyes, she has macular degeneration and there isn't any magic fix for that. Again, there isn't anything the eye doctor can do. But she keeps wanting to go back to see if she needs new lenses in her glasses..... [sigh]
Oh the sons new girlfriend said worse....apparently she's pissy because I change my mind about them 2 idiots getting married in my back yard.. That and I called her an outright liar saying that within 3 days of having sex with my son she was pregnant and then miscarried. Seems like they both had this grandiose idea of starting their new life here... the kicker of it all, without me going through the whole ordeal was my son...errr, ex son. He was flying back from San Diego when she started blowing up my messenger insisting that I call her ASAP! Something about how I AM stressing my son out with my refusal to accept her and him leaving his long time job in South Florida and moving to Minnesota...I had told Josh the previous night he can do whatever it is he wants, just make sure it's what you want to do and be happy. So, while speaking to her she asked me in a very vile tone of voice just what my mother dying had to do with my sons happiness. I mean, she asked me several times. Yeah, I called her a callous thoughtless bitch... so she then called my son and spewed more venom, GET THIS... he called me pissed that I spoke to HER that way,, I tried to explain but he wasn't listening so I told him I'd call him the next day.... when I called he didn't answer but rang me back a few minutes later, several minutes into our conversation SHE started yelling at me, come to find out he'd did a 3 way call, didn't tell me she was on the line so basically he set me up and sabotaged me. Well fine. He then went on to tell me how much I've changed and that I am a mean evil person. HA! Once I stopped paying his cell phone, sending him money or not helping him buy a car I all the sudden mean and evil. Long story short, I WILL NOT TOLERATE any stress from him nor her, my mother is so very much more important to me and how dare HE let her speak to me in that fashion. Basically, I told both of them not to ever bother calling or trying to contact me again, as far as they both were concerned I am dead to them.
Now... off to find some night gowns for mom that I can cut down the back.
LORD HAVE MERCY!!!!
It was going so well. She was quite chirpy, considering. Ate a good breakfast, sitting up in bed. Didn't splutter her meds all over the bedclothes, for once. Was just about to finish her tea (thickened) and then, at the last mouthful, decided to inhale at the same time. Proper choking, I had to flip her over into a recovery position and thump her back, whereupon she vomited and peed all over the bed simultaneously (her pad was off to give her btm an airing). Once she was breathing again I scratched my head: which end do you start at? Fast forward, got her transferred to the commode so I could deal with the bed. The district nurse arrived - they're lovely, our district nurses, except for turning up at random without warning - to check her pressure areas. Mother had finished so I raised her on the hoist and wiped her undercarriage, then returned her at lightning speed to the commode for an emergency poo. At which point the brand new Friday carer arrived. She is also lovely, and deaf. I am all for diversity in the workplace, I just find it easier to explain our household to a carer I don't have to be facing throughout - I felt like Linda Blair in the Exorcist trying to introduce her to mother while I carried on with our routines. It was bedlam, so carer very sensibly went off to make herself a cup of tea. District Nurse abandoned attempts to examine pressure areas but I am now well acquainted with her family's birthdays. Mother's metaphorical batteries went flat, so that I was able to demonstrate my new skills in transferring an entirely unco-operative patient from commode to stripped bed, hastily made up with bath towels, while the nurse explained that she was about to do a course on a geriatric ward and was petrified of hoists. I didn't know what to say: do a different course? But at least she didn't feel the need to meddle.
And so on for several hours. Argh. It is bed time (mine) so I will get everything wrapped up and start again in the morning. Tomorrow is another day (hope it's nothing like this one).
Ah, Dad, that only works if you are his ONLY client. If he has 200 people he's doing incomes taxes for, he can't wait until almost midnight.
Where is my helmet?
"Whatever it is you do" indeed! That young lady has a lot to learn.