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I love this website however I wish there was an 'edit' and delete toggle.

I don't know about others, but not only am I losing my mom (my dad died in 2008) I'm losing my favorite Aunt who is a year younger than my mother.

I was looking at a family picture today which was taken about 1926 with my grandmother (who died before I was born) and at least twelve of the eighteen children that came down from Canada to the United States. The oldest is 21, the youngest is my aunt, who is about 2. My mom is about 3.

I'm losing a kind of extended family. I found out today that my cousin's wife has a newly diagnosed cancer of the colon and is on her third round of chemo.

Where did the time go? Just yesterday, my last child and my cousin's first child were born less than 24 hours apart. Today, they are grown with children of their own and we've gotten 'old'.
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i agree with you tryintocope ,
in later stages of dementia my mother expected me to make her house look like a showplace . not happenin . i didnt understand it then but now i realize that ocd developed with the latestage dementia .
im cooking wild boar hamsteak and beans in a pan that still has residue from choc / oatmeal nobake cookies in it . a clean freak i am NOT .
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Veronica she has been living with me for 4 months - but for 4 years prior to this I took her here for visits several weekends a month. She was not always like this but she has been this way for about 5 years now - which is when I believe her dementia began. She is 85 y/o with dementia - I believe around stage 4 - 5. As the dementia gets worse the OCD over bugs - spots - specks - hairs - becomes worse.
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Trying to cope, how long has Mom been living with you and has she always been like this? Maybe you can keep the bathroom and her room spotless and do what you usually do in the rest of the house.
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Today's rant. I know this sounds petty.....but having to keep my house "company clean" all the time is wearing me out! LOL I am not typically a slob but I believe in living in my house without fear of it getting dirty and then cleaning when it does get dirty. Since I have moved Mom in I have to clean constantly. Everything to her is a bug. To try to avoid upsetting her, and so I don't have to chase "bugs" all day, I feel like I am constantly picking things off of the floor - with a regular vacuum, with a handheld dust buster, with a quickie mop, with a sponge, with my fingers, UGH. I kid you not that most days I do not brush my own hair because that means I have to then pick up any hair that sheds onto the bathroom floor immediately instead of sucking it up every few days LOL. I do dog boarding in my home so I most always have pups in, then there is hubby, myself and mom. People and dogs shed, clothes drop lint, dirt gets tracked in. Life happens! But mom can't accept a speck of anything anywhere. I have two fears - one is that I will crack! But the other scares me even more - that picking up pieces of lint, chasing stray hairs, and following hubby's boot tracks with a dust buster vacuum will start to feel normal to me! YIKES if I do this for too many years will I become my mother????
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littlemiss... isn't there some way she can get additional hours of therapy? That is SO important for proper healing and alleviating her pain. A few months doesn't seem long enough to properly heal from her severe injuries, not even if she was young and healthy. Got to love our healthcare system eh?

I hope you get this worked out and some additional help.
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My whine moment is this...my grandma fell at the end of October and broke her neck and pelvic bone. They are healing nicely but she still has a lot of pain in her shoulder. So we had medicare step in and the nurse came to visit, the occupational therapist came to help, the physical therapist came to help and we were allowed to up the number of hours these caregivers come. Well the nurse left last year stating the others would continue to come. The occupational therapist left on Friday stating the nurse said she was all better now. The Physical therapist (even though she still has pain) is leaving tomorrow and the caregivers hours are going back down to the normal 2 hours a day. Everyone is leaving us alone to deal with the pain and continuing her exercises when she won't do those for us. I get she's doing better but I hate the fact we are being left alone again until she falls again.
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man its going to be a 25 below wind chill here tonight . the only refreshment in the house is cold beer so you can see my dilema here ..
heather will be screaming to work tomorrow and it aint gonna happen . handling cold stones multiple times pulls the heat out of your body . my occupation looks simple to the average bystander but it really isnt simple at all ..
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knock knock knock.... on wood ;)

Yes, better days indeed! It has been a refreshing change, even the sundowner's isn't as noticeable.

My son is coming to visit us in 3 weeks. My p/t carer is working in lots of extra hours for us to have visit.
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Yea, Jeanette. You needed some better days. Knock wood that there are some more coming your way.
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This isn't a whine by any means. Just a incredulous observation....

My mom has been pretty coherent for two days. Small anxiety this morning in which she thought she was going to be killed, but even that wasn't the norm? It's like it all made sense? Hmmm...
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A good friend is like a priceless jewel , worth a lot, but hard to find and even harder to replace.
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The best solution is a good friend
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my va therapist is hotter than hammered h*ll . i dont delude myself by thinking shed ever be interested in an abomination like myself but its a fact that may times middle class marriages between professionals often turn out to be a delusion too . aint been that long ago my dental hygeinist found out her loving hubby was a farce and a cheater .
na na na NA !!
baby you can drive my trike , swing by your house and ill punch mike .
dont forget you scription pad , we'll be good then we'll be bad .
i know my clothes are stained , but ill look fine after it rains .
i have big hands for fixin cars , yours are small for washing jars .
so while im punchin mike , siphon his tank and fill up ike ..
your smart and sweet and proper, with a h*ll of a cute turd chopper ...

so anyway , being a jerk and smellin like a goats a** hasnt worked for me yet but i just havent met the right adventurous , bored professional girl yet .
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Last year I went to a therapist, so do my sig other... he has issues with too much attachment to those who had passed on, I felt like I was always competing with ghost from his past. He didn't care that much for his therapist but I saw it did benefit him, even if he didn't realize it. My therapist wasn't that familiar with elder issues, but she was easy to talk to, I did learn a couple of things.

I found the best *therapist* was my desk mate where I did volunteer work at a hospital... even though she is much younger than I, we clicked.... she was dealing with aging in-laws who came over from the old country to visit... the most recent visit lasted 1.5 years and the aging in-laws rotated among the three siblings. Every week there was a new story with both of us. It felt so good to talk to someone who's wearing the t-shirt :)
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It is not funny, but then it is somewhat...but back when I finally went to a psychiatrist..allegedly one of the top in his field in our state, and one of the issues was a life long feeling that I always got shoved off to the side for the benefit of someone else....I already had one appointment and was back for a followup and I was ten minutes before my appt time and so I waited, and waited, and waited.....and waited some more...finally ALMOST AN HOUR LATER...he drifted in and told me in a frantic talkative manner that he was so sorry but he had a patient who needed to be squeezed in for an appointment and as he was up here on his circuit ( I saw him leave, he was a judge) and he (my doc) knew "I wouldn't mind"........wth........he hurried through my appointment, told me I was looking great.....and charged me $200 (my copay) Lord only knows what my insurance paid him.....for TEN minutes....I promptly cancelled my next appointment and regular doctor wrote the scripts for me on my meds and that worked just fine for me. I kind of lost respect for them after that...still I know they do help some folks...for some reason kind of funny looking back..but sure wasn't at the time...
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Drugs are not the solution if the person's depression or anxiety issues are mainly situational. like clinical depression vs depression because of the situation. Even then, meds are not the total solution which is why people with clinical depression, schizophrenia, etc. also benefit from seeing a therapist more often than they see a psychiatrist.

Other times, meds are more correctly used to stabilize a person's moods so that talk therapy can get to the bottom of the real issue. The use of meds and going to a therapist in that case is until a situation is deal with and is only short term.

The tough thing very often is finding just the right medication and just the right dose which sometimes needs to change because our bodies tend to change. The other challenge is finding the right match with the right therapist either because of their personality or their training for the kind of problem that we are dealing with. Plus, as always the amount of experience that a therapist has had is also a factor.

From my own experience, I once had a psychiatrist who was beyond the time of retirement for in terms of age and outlook. While he had me on welbutriin and lamictal which I needed, he was so afraid of mania that when I came very close to having a manic episode, he put me on seroquil and then on abilify which are anti-psychotics and really knocked me out. It was not long before I changed psychiatrists. She took me off of the abilify and the seroquil. She has since added one more medicine but everything else has remained the same. She is younger, easier to talk with and more on top of her field of work in my opinion. My wife also sees her.

However, my wife and I see different therapists, have seldom seen the same therapist together although that was needed when it took place and she has had a variety of therapists good and not so good since 1998. Frankly in my opinion and in her twin sister's opinion, my wife became far too emotionally close with the first therapist who was female and had seen her for a few years back in the early 1980's which I did not know about at the time which was before and when we were dating. All I ever seemed to hear about for those years was ___ this and blank ___. She was obsessed with talking about ____. There are times as a couple that you just don't up and start talking about your therapist that you are being helped by, your mom that you are having trouble with or your children for whatever reason, but you focus on the two of you just being together. Well that was a very difficult time for her and for us. She claimed that she was that close to her therapist because her therapist was trying to be the mother that my wife never had. Strange, but I rejoiced when I no longer had to hear about Joyce.

Her next therapist did not allow my wife to become so enmeshed with her, but was wonderful in helping her with her mother issues that she was finally coming to terms with at a deeper level and helped her with needed boundaries. The therapist that she sees now basically helps keep her on an even kneel. My wife has not been to the mental hospital in four years which is an amazing change compared to how things were when she started to frequent the mental hospitals back in 2000.

The therapist that I started that I stared with back in 2002 was young, beautiful and very outgoing which was a bit distracting and was not very experience. Her solution for everything seemed to be giving me another handout to read. She was helpful though with my struggles concerning my need for boundaries and there were some things that I needed to talk about that I was able to do with her, but could only open up so much. However, I did have trouble letting go of her completely for a while because I would write her letters about once a year letting her know of my progress and if I saw her in Wal-Mart or somewhere, I would try to update her quickly. I heard through the grapevine that she left doing therapy to focus more on her young children. My current therapist knew her from her time in that practice group of therapists and said he was always intrigued that her answer for everything was a handout to read. I only saw her for about two years.

I was glad and sad when she moved to another practice for that practice moved me to another female therapist who was older, more experienced calmer, and very helpful. However, she had to leave to another city to help take care of her aging parents. That was after one year.

The next therapist in the practice that she referred me to was also a middle age woman, but seemed to learn more from me than I was learning and being helped by her. She tried some sort of therapy on me that she was just learning about, Rapid Eye Movement Therapy, for people who have trouble with anxiety and have had traumatic experiences in their life. I don't know if she did not know what she was doing yet, lacked confidence in what she was doing, but it did work. Somethings she did, whatever they were, did help me talk calmly with m wife about some important issues. However, I had not found a therapist that I could really open up about my childhood totally with and especially about my mom. My first therapist pointed out to me that along with my depression and bipolar issues that needed to deal with some mom issues. That third therapist decided to refer me to a male therapist in that practice whom she thought would be able to help me better and whose education level was far closer to mine than hers. I don't know why she had an issue with my having a doctorate and her having only a masters in clinical social work, but she had some kind of issue with that. It was not long after I changed therapists that she left doing therapy.

So, after a little over a year of therapy with the rapid eye movement lady, I changed over to a late middle age man who was closer to my age and had a doctorate. I found him to be very experienced, and not one who used handouts or some freaky new therapy technique, was relaxed and confident and easy to open up to about my childhood, my mother, and related issues to all of that. This is when I really made progress in my therapy journey. I had found the right fit, the right match. That is what must be found but sometimes it is a journey to find.

All in all, a good therapist is a paid friend who will support you with your issues, accept where you are as you open up, but they will also ask questions that few friends ever would and will point out areas that need to be resolved or truths that need to be spoken that few friends ill venture going that deep into a relationship in.

So, that is basically my journey with psychiatrists and therapists.
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Migraine at 4 am. Tires low on air and it's 14 degrees outside. Bud Dad's clean, dressed and fed so what's to whine about?
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Oh you are so right! I am totally alone here except for you folks...The hospice nurse was just here because I called them ...thinking Mama "might" have a stomach bug...while she told me she could have some issues from the bad cold she has had, she feels like she must tell me that she believes Mama is now declining. I needed to hear one of them actually SAY it....We talked a long time about it...I know none of us know when we will go home....only God knows that, but I have felt for a while now she was preparing to go. And I have tried to make sure everyone else knows it, I don't think they're listening though.....It was not coincidence that this particular nurse came today. She was our nurse prior to her having to leave for a couple of months on maternity leave...So the last time she saw Mama she was smiling and laughing and talking ...the minute she walked in, I saw it on her face...she didn't have to say the words, but I needed to hear them....and now I know the dream I had was another way of God's preparing me for what is to come....
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Absolutely Jessie... I agree! ... Good job!
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This reminds me so much of when I had my first bout of panic disorder when I was 19. My mother said it was because I was not living right. I went to a quack psychiatrist who put me on a stout dose of Haldol -- can you believe it??? I was a zombie for years from the drug and didn't get better until I stopped taking it (against his advice). It really messed up 5 crucial years of my life. Of course, I have to blame myself because I was not living right.

Anyway... my experience with therapy and drugs was quite tainted by all this. Our greatest strength and happiness comes from within. Unless we are very low, we can do more with ourselves spiritually and emotionally than any drug can do. And it's free of charge and any unwanted side effects.

I've also found that the best therapists are friends. Wish I had a few around me right now. I'm so glad for this group to have someone to talk to.
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I agree Jessie...I understand all of it is well intentioned, but one time when I was going through a very rough patch, one of my "friends" literally chewed me out and told me if I would not help myself she was tired of talking to me....what she apparently had forgotten is I had already sought professional help, including therapy and medication and it was not helping and I was doing all I knew to do...It was hurtful and to be honest, when Mama started getting much more frail her suggestion to me was to put her in a NH...which is what she had done with her Mom...she had a lot of grandkids and sons who were always there for her and wanted to go on trips and she wanted to go with them and so her situation was much different than mine, so one size does not fit all for sure....and it never hurts to be kind when giving someone our opinion...my friends comments were extremely painful to me. She additionally would throw the religion card at me as if to say that if I was living as God wanted me to all this would not be happening, which IMO is totally ridiculous and not even close to Biblical teachings as I know them. Having faith and believing does not guarantee there will be no pain...far from it...but it does give you courage that you can make it through it...at least that is what I thought....I guess we're all just different....
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(Sigh) Something that can really bother me on the group is when someone comes on with a problem and they are told to get therapy and take drugs. It is like telling them that there is something wrong with THEM and not the situation they are facing. Many of the circumstances being faced I can totally relate to. Therapy and drugs can be helpful for some people, but many people just need to work through the situation.
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Gladly, Hope, I'll certainly put in a prayer for you and your mother and for whatever is best for her. Hold tight.
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Hope be at peace Mama is if she came to you in a beautiful dream. She is ready. Don't be afaid of the actual death. Mama will not suffer. Blessings
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If I am honest, I have to admit that I am so scared. I don't know if I have ever been as scared in my life. I feel like I can't breathe. Mama is so frail. The hospice nurse was here today and I discussed everything with him, but all her vitals are still OK, though her BP was a little higher . He attributed that to her getting over a cold or possibly some normal decline. But she has that look in her eyes.....I shared with someone my dream last night I dreamed there was a beautiful lady who had long flowing hair with pretty curls and she was wearing a beautiful classy fitted suit. She was so elegant and I thought the most beautiful lady I had ever seen. I felt so happy to be with her and then I realized it was Mama. She was so happy and well and I immediately awakened and felt that sense of fear....I jumped up and ran to check on her ...she is so frail. She is still drinking her ensure, but not normally. I remember right before my Daddy passed I dreamed that he came to visit me and he was just beaming, he was happy, he could walk with assistance and when I woke from that dream I remembered thinking, I am about to lose Daddy...He passed not long after that. I think sometimes you are given dreams to help you prepare. I am not sure....I just know I am so scared...but I don't want her to see it...because if she is tired I don't want her to think she can't leave...I feel a sense of panic and reality is setting in....please pray for Mama.....and for me...
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im going to be uncle sams biggest nightmare this tax season . 7 k loss / reinvestment in business equiptment . its all on the up and up . i bought 5 bucks worth of beard clips and by god wrote them off as advertising . lol i keep good business records ( for a guy ) .. tax hor said so ..
hor heather and i spent 10 hours today un fkn our quadrunner truck . the electronic ignition is no more . it has ford falcon ignition points , a dodge ballast resistor crammed thru a chevy coil and switched with a ford starter solenoid . it starts with the bump of the key like machines used to do before electronic ignition . its what i do with all my machines . clip 500 miles of fail system wires away and rerun the 7 or 8 basic circuits . the farm shop foreman was as proud as a new dad when the old quad lit up . i wont insult japanese bikes because old ike is 30 yrs old this year but you do have to de -- nippon them if you want reliability .. im very pleased , i cant do this work without the quad truck .
ike is chevy , ford , dodge , yamaha , kawasaki , nissan , honda , and a fk load of cut up oil drums . lol
when the s*it hits the fan and automobiles are stopped in their tracks , bring your biggest guns to indiana . my s*it will all still run ..
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Fligirl, I am so sorry you are going through this. It's heartbreaking. Please be gentle with yourself. Your situation must be so frustrating. No solutions, just sending you hugs.
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Had many summer clothing made from those feed sacks! Pretty things too. Well only worked 4 hrs and everything went well. Don't work much the first 3 weeks of Jan, But then some long hours!! Thanks for the luck wishes. And he did ok with feeding himself. Has a peg tube.
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Hey Captain, I too love WW2 stories, as my parents ( now deceased) hailed from Wales, and lived through some very rough times. My Mum told us of having to go to the outhouse in the back yard w/a broom, to fend off the rooster and chickens, who would fly at her feet first, she preferred the bedpan! Rationing, sounds ho rrible, and I know it was very rough! They had her elder sisters living at home as they were all married to soilders away fighting. Christmas, getting a feww nuts, an orange ( if they could get them) and a homemade yoyo, or dolly, along w/a can of Spam or corned beef (a luxury) in her stocking, for Christmas dinner! Some reall fab stories too of meeting my Dad, who was a big time music lover, BIG BAND of course, and he would take her on the train to see as many and gigs and dances as he could. I had amazing parents who immigrated to the US in 1950, and had us 6 kids all here in the Seattle area. We all all very close, so I'm very lucky in that! My husband and took in his Father, ten years ago after my MIL passed away. We lost both my parents and MIL, all in a 14 mo. period of time. As much as I love him, it was a big mistake, it was about FIL's fear of being alone, at the time, but we should have put him into a senior apt. near by, but now at near 85, he does need to be w/us, bu he is a groughy cermugeon, not happy and appreciative like my folks. I feel suffocated!!! There's WAY more to his story, but another time, lol He needs to go, but our only way out is to sell our home, and force him into senior living, so we can get our life back. I guess it sounds kinda mean, but like I said, theres lots more to the story, anyway, I'm so glad to have my british heritage, and family history, and to have such an amazing husband, kids, and family!! Good day, Stacey
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