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MIL was up, washed, dressed, medicated, and fed by 7 a.m....that was after blowing her whistle because she wanted me to get her up at 12:00, 1:30. 2:30, and 4:15...that was with a sleeping pill...another day in zombie land for me....it would not be so bad but she will probably be nodding off in her chair before 8:30...
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....Speaking of cable.... We don't have any and don't plan to get it, either. Anything we want to watch on tv we can watch online. Any documentary, any movies, news, weather, you name it. Plus, the expense for cable is highway robbery. It's so outrageously expensive it should be an embarrassment to the company. When my mom was here she HAD to have channel 40-something. Unfortunately, the company did away with that channel in it's basic package, so we had to get a different package. My mom was driving me up the wall talking about that channel so I got it. Our cable bill, with internet, was close to $300 a month after that. No thanks. Yeah, we had a gazillion channels, but a lot of them were repeat HD channels. Like I said, it's a rip off. I'm not a tv person and neither are Sean and Dylan, so...

Well, now I'm off to get a new mop and bucket for the sun room. Going to be scrubbing, mopping and cleaning windows today. It's going to be close to 70 degrees at last! :D So tired of being cold!

Later everyone!

Oh, did I tell you guys that our big, fat cat Fuzz has developed this weird habit of hissing and growling at his butt? O_o No idea what that's about. At first I thought he might have something stuck on it so I checked, but no... He just growls and hisses at it when he cleans himself. Well, he's going to the vet soon, along with our other two cats, so maybe we'll figure it out.

Later!
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And Reddog, really...that whistle would be at the bottom of our lake by now..
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Allison. it sounds a though you have made some progress hope you can keep Dad writing those checks.
SA the new furniture and acessories sound delicious - no males allowed or dogs for that matter. Glad you and Sean are seeing a lawyer at least you will know where you stand. Had you considered ceramic tile for the sunroom? that could be even cheaper than laminate and look really good in there. I think the laminate will look very nice if you choose a darker color. Wicker used to be cheap till it became fashionable and came in nicer colors. Unless you are doing it yourself labor should be about the same. I could do all that kind of stuff myself until my body gave out. I think I could as long as someone was not breathing down my neck and telling me I should not be doing that. Hope Walmart hurries up. I love that site to store I have ordered several things that way. they just take a long time to ship.
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SA .. ::drips envy:: .. your planned sunroom sounds divine! We get this catalog (Edna loves going through them over and over) at the house that every time I browse it I think, "I could furnish my entire home from this catalog!"

I hope you enjoy every minute of it, and that your kids get a vision of what life can look like when it's not filled with the kind of angst the last 12 years put into your lives. I know that if it were me, I'd sit in that room, call them in for a cool drink of something we all liked, gaze out toward the lake, and promise them that I'd never, EVER put them through what your mom just did. That *this* is what I want to pass down to them. Not the pain. Not the angst. Just peace and love.

*hugs*
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When it comes to large expenses, I split the cost of it since I do have a job. To repair the shower cost $800. I approach father with the problem, why it needs to be repaired (or bought), the cost.... and then if we spilt it in half, his portion is Only this much. When he does not see any reason why it needs to be bought or repaired, my nagging begins. Daily, I will bring it up until I finally wear him down. And if I don't succeed, I wait until it breaks. When he called me at work about it, I bluntly tell him that I'm at work and there's nothing I can do about it right now. I come home late, so most times, we have to wait until the weekend to get it solved. So my father has learned very early on, when I say that something needs to be fixed or bought, then let's do it. And not wait until it breaks down during the weekday. ABB, so many ways to get what we need done with them paying for it. Just adjust it according to you and your father's circumstances.

I'm sooo glad he gave you some money to defray the cost. Remember.. document, document, document! Do you have an Excel spreadsheet in your computer? Log down the check number, date and amount. Beside it, note what you used it for. Do you have a scanner or a place you can photocopy the receipts? This will protect you from being accused by the family.
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ABB - Wow, wonderful that he is finally realizing that you need the gas money. Take care of you!!!!
SA - You must be having fun planning the sunroom. We got laminate after a bad water leak. It is pretty but can be a pain to clean. Hey, maybe Fuzz does not like his butt anymore and that is why he growls at it. No, it sounds like something is wrong I am glad that you are bringing then to the vet. Take care of YOU!!!!
Hi ya'll - Well, I was in the back yard just now and had gotten some flowering plants to put in the pots in the back. All of a sudden I started remembering how my Mom and I used to plant them together. I started crying and asking her if it looked okay. I planted three plants in one big pot because mom always told me to do it that way. I was just sharing until I fell good enough to go back out. Thanks you all for being there.
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lavender - keep those precious memories close. I plant blue forget-me-nots in a pot every year for my deck (they never seem to survive tho' they are a perennial) because my Mom loved them. I'm glad you could cry, Moms never leave our hearts; Dads don't either, but it's different with Mom. Blessings and Hugs xxxooo
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I felt ashamed last night....mom slept after we had a nice dinner and woke up in horrible mood. Nothing would calm her down and nothing made her happy. I was so frustrated I just wanted to run away. I know with her sundowners nights are generally just horrible. She does seem to be better during week when caregiver is here. Sometimes she just gets tired of seeing me. She did her normal calling me names and damning me to hell, had blankets on her bed and accused me of burning her blankets. She finally went to bed about 2am. evernight she normally falls asleep early and waked up at 2am. think its better if i just stay up to 2am then go to sleep. melatonin doesn't seem to help much think i should try a larger dosage doctor told me to start with the smallest. So after a few deep breaths and a long cry i was definitely ready for bed.
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Chrissy - I am so sorry you are having a rough time. No matter what time my mom went to bed I went to sleep right after. The name calling and other things are so hard to go through. I know how that can make you feel. I think a lot about you guys and what you are going through. It is so good to be able to share here. At least she is being taken care of well during the week. Please take care of YOU!!
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Today has been a miserable day...MIL sight is getting worse all the time and with the dementia she doesn't understand what's happening...today she kept saying she could not see her tv and kept wanting the movie changed. After the 4th one that she watched all of 15 minutes and wanted back on her channel 13, I told her no more movies. Then her back started hurting and she wanted me to rub it which I did. There are no breaks in the skin but I don't know if the pain in the lower back is from being on it sitting all day or if the cancer is growing and starting to hurt her now. I called the doctor and he said it was ok to give her one of the pain pills that had been prescribed after one of her procedures but to hold off on the sleeping pill... just put her to bed and hoping we can go longer between her wake up calls tonight than we did last night. her having a bad day and me running on almost no sleep is not a good combination...
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Red, {{Hugs}} of encouragement.

Baby bro has been home for 2 days now. He said that he doesn't know how sis and I can deal with father's mouth all this time. I purposely ignored father's requests, so baby bro ended up getting up and down doing whatever father wanted. I even pretended to be taking a nap so bro had to continue to deal with father's requests. =)
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I love daylight savings time! It's that much closer to Spring and all the snow melting...Yippee!!
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I experienced the strangest thing this weekend.... took me two days to figure out what was going on.... it was 'rested' and 'not stressed'.... OH MY !!!!!!! Been so long, I had forgotten what it felt like.. it won't last and pissed it took me so long to figure it out !!!!
Hugs to everyone... and yes Assa, we need Spring, badly, we need something else to bitch about , and in my case it will be our God awful summers.... love ya'll..
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On top of everything else going on around here a few weeks ago a lady from church approached me about having a class in our home so I could be part of it...husband does not like to be left alone w/ MIL any more than absolutely necessary. I said ok and she said we would start on the 11th...been cleaning and getting things ready for the last few days...she called this morning and said time got away from her and she's not ready to teach it yet and wants to put it off for another week...oh well...the man comes to switch MIL cable today between 12 and 4, at least everything is clean for him...another day in the life...MIL seems to be a little more confused than normal today...not a good sign, her oxygen was at 86 when I checked it, and that's after being on oxygen 24/7...have to remind her to take deep breaths for a while and see if we can get it back up. With the pain pill I gave her last night she was still wanting to get up around 4 and held her off till 6...got her dressed and at the breakfast table and now she can't remember what she's supposed to do...
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reddog.... I know you are used to mil and her behaviors. but also make sure she does not have a UTI.... it is so hard to tell with alz/dementia..... but it slips by us sometimes..... hope your day improves... sending you hugs...
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ladeeM, congrats on rested and not stressed! You deserve it friend after all you have been through. Big hugs sent your way!
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ladeeM thanks for the heads up...MIL has cancer in her left ureter (on top of everything else) so is showing more blood in the urine all the time...it doesn't look cloudy so am assuming that there's no UTI...when I say blood, it's like a woman on her period. Her oxygen is low today, although she's on oxygen 24/7 now it still occasionally dips down and then comes back up. Basically she's on comfort care and as long as pain is controlled she wants to be left alone. She signed papers to that effect when she was still thinking fairly clearly and my husband who has her POA signed some more for the same thing the last time we took her to the doctors. Right now her sight is failing rapidly and sometimes she can see and sometimes she really can't...not so much her eyes as it is the Parkinson's not getting the message to her brain from her one good eye. At least that's what the eye doctor says but may be just trying to cover themselves. All of her doctors keep pushing her appointments farther and farther out and it's because none of them can do anything to help her. All they are doing is monitoring her decline. Her primary doctor says they need to keep weighing her because when she starts to loose weight, they can diagnose her as failure to thrive and send Hospice to help. She as gained like 30 pounds but it's all in the belly and it's really firm so I don't think it's fat I think she has a tumor growing in there. We were told that her cancer is really slow growing and that could go on for years...at 91, I don't know how many more things can go wrong before her poor old body gives up. She's called me in there twice today to tell me she doesn't know what she wants and has had me awake since 4...I'm just tired...thanks for the hugs...sending hugs out to all of you too.
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Ouch, Red .. *hugs of energy*
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Ohh Reddog.... I didn't realize how serious everything is with her.... bless her heart.... she must be very very tired.... not to mention how tired you are plus having to watch this decline in increments.... I hate our job sometimes.... people think all we do is ' give care', they have no idea what we have to watch on a daily basis..... sending lots of hugs.... and hope you get some rest soon.

Thanks Suze..... we all need to feel what I felt this past weekend..... but I know its not going to last.... so will enjoy it while it lasts.... I so wish I could send you some of the 'detachment with love' that I am experiencing with my son.... to not have to put yourself thru all that with your mom..... and without the guilt.... I am so grateful I joined alanon.... is helping me tremendously with the issues


with my son.... and have ways to deal with the guilt when and if it pops up.. I think this would be a great 12 step program for caregivers also....just worded different..... think of you all the time and hoping you find another frog in your plants in the basement.... that would be a great springtime surprise for you.... hope Bro comes thru for you this summer.....sending you lots of hugs.....

Well to work this evening.... see yall tomorrow... love and hugs...
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Red that huge belly concerns me. Thirty pounds is lot to gain when she probably eats very little. There are two possibilities. One is an enlarged bladder the other is called ascites which is a build up of fluid in the belly. I don't know how medically knowlegeable you are so don't be offended. If she has a catheter draining her bladder it probably is not urine. If she is peeing naturally I would want her to be catherized to see if it is urine. if she is catheterized it is very important that the urine is drawn off slowly because she might go into shock. Best done in the ER. if it is ascites from the cancer the Dr can draw it off and that will make her feel so much more comfortable.. Now it will come back and they may need to draw it off every few days if she can tolerate it.or leave it draining into a bag that you will need to empty. Not a big job. Again it can be done in the ER or even at home. They will numb an area of her abdomin and then insert a needle and let the fluid drain. They will probaly monitor it with ultra sound.
As far as hospice is concerned my opinion would be that she already meets the criteria and does not need to loose weight. She has cancer after all and that is usually enough. You can contact hospice yourself and tell them what you have described to us. The Dr does have to approve the admission but you can make the contact yourself.
Once you get hospice in you can stop dragging her to Drs appointments and just keep her comfortable at home with all the assistance hospice has available.
When this stage is reached life expectancy is usually a matter of weeks. the hospice nurses will give you a better idea once they see her. Blessings to you and MIL and hubby I am sure he is trying his best.
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Red, what V said...that is worrisome... I hope she's not in any kind of pain... I feel so sorry for her and you and just sad as hell for all of you going through this.. I was there myself.


D*** these bad dreams that continue.

The other night I had another nightmare, or at least a dream that was very upsetting. All I remember about it is the look of absolute fear on my mom's face. I could see her, but I couldn't reach her. I kept calling her and she was staring at me, but I couldn't HELP her, couldn't seem to get to her no matter how hard I tried... The frustration and my own fear in that dream was intense. I woke up from that really upset.

This afternoon's nightmare was a doozy, a scary one. My mom was in some kind of old, abandoned warehouse and I was there with her. It was empty and dark, but I could still see somehow... My mom wasn't quite my mom. It looked like her, but I knew something was seriously wrong. We were walking down this long hallway with concrete floors and at the end to the right was a doorway with stairs leading down, down, down a looooong way. She kept saying 'I have to get back, I have to get back' over and over again. I asked her what the hell she was talking about, what she was doing, thinking about going down those stairs...even in the dream I KNEW that whatever was down there was bad news, I wasn't going down there and I didn't want her to go and I tried to stop her. When I did she turned on me and attacked me verbally, screaming at me and pushing me away... Her voice was gutteral, almost demonic and she had a horrible, hateful look on her face. It was her, but it wasn't. Scared the bejeezus out of me. She went into the doorway, I'm trying to grab her, she's fighting me and wins, and starts going down... Suddenly, this dude pops up and is there out of nowhere, and I'm screaming at him, telling him that my mom is in trouble, that she just went down those d*** stairs...I'm running back and forth, between this guy and these stairs, completely panicked and frantic, he's telling me not to sweat it, that she's just fine....then I wake up, bringing the panic right with me into reality. Just...ugh! I just wish this shit would STOP already. :( These dreams are very upsetting. I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to dread going to sleep.
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LadeeM So it's "Ho ho off to work we go" tonight. I bet Mr M will have lots to talk to you about tonight he must have missed you.
Had dinner at Denny's last night what a disaster. The bar tender did not know how to make the drink Hubby ordered then he did not know what wines he had so he brought out three bottles to show hubby. He need not have bothered they were all undrinkable. Not that I am really drinking these days just the odd glass when we go out. Could not even finish mine last night. I ordered salmon only to be told they were out so settled for very inferior fish and chips. Took half of it home so hubby had that for lunch today. The waitress told us she works 50 hours a week and is only paid $2 an hour so hubby overtipped her
This afternoon hubby took both cars to the car wash which was a great improvement.
Have a good night Love
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Lav....mom is doing good just seems to be like the energizer bunny and NEVER STOPS. once in a while she will give in and pass out for maybe 5 -10 minutes so i try to nap too but then she goes through house screaming for me. This week i'm going to return to gym again. whether its just me on treadmill, bicylce or maybe sittin in the massage chair it will be an hour after work before i pick mom up at daycare. Plus it couldn't hurt to lose a few pounds LOL. I used to love the weekends but now i look forward to going back to work because besides spending time with my boyfriend which doesn't happen enough work is my other getaway. Mom will start going on daycare bus again when it warms up. Bus driver is very immature and I didn't trust her taking care of her in icy and snowy conditions.
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Linda, Oh lordy no! No more froggies in the house. It was sweet of you to remember that whole deal though. We still have 5 foot snow banks outside and there'd be nowhere for Homer to go again. I don't know why I get so attached to the little amphibians. At least it's in the 40's today so the melt has begun! Hooray, hooray, hooray!

This weekend was consumed with in-law bickering. *sigh* Had a day off of visiting mom which I enjoyed. Hubby, son, nephew and I went into Minneapolis and went to a Mexican restaurant I'd been dying to try. It was so darn gooood. Then we went to the Twin Cities auto show and drooled over cars that are the price of a house! They sure were beautiful all shiny and parked on immaculate carpet. Then it was time to go back outside in the slush and crud and my not so pretty car. Gets me from point A to point B and that's all that matters to me. :) It was a nice late winter escape.

Think of you too a lot woman who ate my sister. LOL! That's my worst typo of all time! :P
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Red: you should call Hospice asap; your situation definitely qualifies you and call Hospice yourself. They will come and make the determination, but give them the doctor's name too. No question they will take over the medications, a nurse will come on a regular basis in the beginning and you can have CNA's to come do chair baths, etc. They are wonderful. Get them involved right away; you will be amazed at how much they help you. I've been there, even called them in the middle of the night and the nurse came. Blessings, prayers and hugs.
SA: are you taking any sleeping meds or meds for depression? They can cause such terrible nightmares or daymares; Don't be afraid to go to sleep - you are needing sleep from being so exhausted. Please see your doctor and tell him what is going on. Blessings, prayers and hugs to you too.
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I feel tired, stressed. I've had a hard afternoon. I had to take my Dad to the bank just to let him know today it's closed. He was sure he went to the bank and got some money. He was looking for it and couldn't find it. I tried to make him hunderdstand that today was Sunday, but had no success. I told him it was just a dream. That didn't satisfy him. So I decided to take hin there so he could see for himself, then came back home. Now he's Ok.
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Red, ladeeM is right with the back ache there could easily be a UTI. My mom has had 6 or 7 of them since last May. The first one she showed a back ache with increased confusion. All the others were agitation, increased confusion, etc. Oh, but there was the UTI that put her in the hospital for a few days because she was exhibiting stroke symptoms. Couldn't walk, and speech very garbled.
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SA, once upon a time I took Ambien to help with sleep. It caused absolutely dreadful, frightening nightmares! Stopped taking it odd dreams were gone. If you need something for sleep try the new product by Nyquil that is liquid, without all the cold stuff added. It is absolutely wonderful!
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Thank all of you for your input and suggestions and hugs...her back was fine today...I think yesterday was just sitting in one position way to long...she is urinating just fine so I'm not in the least worried about any blockage there. Half the time she pees on me when I'm trying to get her changed. It's like a constant dribble, interspersed with hard flows, her diapers are always saturated in no time. She has no pain in her stomach and does not complain of any pressure in the area either unless she gets constipated...I give her a stool softener every night after dinner and tat seems to help. My understanding is that hospice is when they think you have 6 months or less to live. She doesn't eat what she's supposed to but she does eat...has a sweet tooth that won't quit and would eat only sweets if it were up to her...she will push away half of her lunch because she wants to eat her ice cream cone "NOW". She will eat a hotdog and drink a mug of tomato soup for lunch most days so she really is eating pretty well considering everything. We just switched to that from her chicken pot pie that she was requesting every day. She did have a UTI a while back but her urine was cloudy then...it's not now, it just has a lot of blood in it which is what comes with the cancer that she has. She opted out of treatment for that and has decided to let it run it's course and her doctor agreed and said that they will give her meds to keep her comfortable when she needs it. Yesterday was the first time she complained of any pain and from what she was describing it sounded more like a pinched nerve than anything else but seemed to be ok today...her vision going is throwing her for a loop and I can't blame her...last visit to the eye doctor we were told there is nothing more that they can do for her. She is on every high powered eye drop they seem to be able to throw at her for glaucoma...lotomax, prolenza, azopt, travatan, and systane for moisture...they have opted to not even try to cut back on the lotomax which is a steroid because everything gets worse when they do. Thank goodness she has good insurance for her meds. We just got her to bed and I'm going to go enjoy some time with my husband...watch a movie and nosh on something...
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