This seems to be a question that is not asked enough or we think what we are feeling is not as important as what our loved one is going through. This job we have taken on is a tough one and there are days when I think my "stress rope" cannot be pulled any tighter. Then there are other times that make those bad days just a memory. Do you feel like banging your head against a wall one day? And then the next day your loved one is attentive and loving and comprehends whatever you say? There are some who keep those feelings bottled up within themselves; others take the time for outside resources and others who look at sites such as this for some understanding. I do better when I have someone else to bounce my feelings off of. Let's face it....we aren't superhuman and besides ourselves and perhaps a family to take care of we now have taken on the responsibility of another human who is incapable of taking care of themselves. Do you breeze through the care giving without a problem? If so, I would like to know how you do it, maybe you can offer some new ideas; do you have feelings of frustration and need to talk about those? Come and talk and know that you can speak freely and without judgement and without finger pointing.
I am caring for my mother-in-law and have been for about 1 1/2 years. She has moderate dementia and incontinence. Other than that she is very healthy. Sometimes that short amount of time feels like 10 years and I wonder how long I will be able to do this job. I get so very tired of hearing the same thing day in and day out, but I have to remind myself that to her, each time she sees me, she is offering new information. At times I have no problems communicating with her, but it seems like more and more she cannot retain a thought longer than 5 minutes. We have had to make signs for her so she will know what she can and cannot do. So far it's working, but for how long? Maybe I will have to end up making her a "Book of Do Nots". She is on memory drugs, which don't seem to make a difference. So why do I continue to dole them out to her? I guess I'm afraid of what might happen or how she might act without them. I might have to rent a boat or buy a helmet! Sometimes I see something in her that leads me to believe that she could get aggressive and what would be my reaction to that? At the end of each and every day, after she is tucked into bed, I breathe such a sigh of relief. The "inner beast" is quiet at last, or at least for a few hours.
Pull up a chair and visit........I would like to know how you are coping everyday..be it good or with handfuls of stress.
Thanks for the tip, Miss Madge.
{{{{HUGS}}}}
MsMadge, pumpkin pie for $2.99 is a steal. Here on island, local made is $10.60. I don't buy it because when mom used to bake pie from scratch, her pies never had fluid on top. And her crusts were definitely baked golden brown. Nowadays, the pie crusts are pale, thin and obviously under baked (very white). I miss mom's pies. Our favorite was tutti-frutti pie. Relatives and ex-in law have been asking for mom's special recipes. Nope. It's family's.
I've become really good friends with the woman who runs the cafe. She is an angel and good friend to mom and we've all grown quite close. In fact we've seen her and her husband twice in the past three days. They had my husband and I and my brother over for dinner on Saturday and tonight we met them at a restaurant.
She had tears in her eyes tonight. B has seen a lot of dying people over the years and she wanted to let me know she thinks mom is close to dying. There is a somewhat language barrier (German) , but I understood perfectly what she was saying.
My brother is fluent, and they like him, but B and I are close and she says things to me that she won't to him.
Mom hasn't had anything to eat since Sunday (four bites) and is nauseous now. B got her a bowl to empty her stomach today. Nothing there.
Stupid AL nurses promised they would have a weight on her by yesterday. 84 pounds on 1/3/17. Didn't have it today. Maybe I'm a control freak, but I'd just like to get a handle on how much time we are dealing with here. That is a pretty accurate indicator. My brother leaves in 10 days. I want to make this the best time as we can for our mom.
B told me mom says she wants to be at home with us. She doesn't want to go out to a restaurant or anything. We will make that happen on Sunday if it is even possible.
B told me mom is probably just hanging on until my brother leaves. Gah! I'm conflicted about that thought. I will be the one sitting with mom alone in her last hours. It would be fitting as I'm used to dealing with this stuff by myself. We set up the funeral home stuff together the first week he was here. That was comforting to have my brother here.
Walking on eggshells. Hoping you all have a good night's sleep. I know it won't be easy, but sometimes you have to turn the mind off. The phone not so much! :(
My mom's vitals were checked today and they are pretty good. However she lost 5 pounds, now down to 79 pounds and still nauseous and not eating. I honestly don't know how she hangs on.
My husband is with his dad this evening. His dad told my SIL today that he had breakfast with my MIL who passed over 6 years ago. He's also not eating much and staying in bed.
We're kind of freaked out wondering how we'll manage if they both pass on the same day. These are just sad and scary times. :(
Cwillie!!! That was funny.
MommaJamez , when I was in elementary age, Nana would take off her blouse and flop her long sagging breast over her shoulder. We thought it was hilarious and kept laughing at her antics.
I almost made double payment on the cable bill. I don't remember paying it. I couldn't find the bill. So I went to the cable company to pay it. The cashier said that there's no outstanding bill. She didn't give me any additional info since the bill is only under dad's name. Confidentiality stuff.
I've been struggling with words. I run blank in mid sentence. I've noticed lately that sis, several of my nieces would either fill in the blank or keep guessing until they or I finished it off... I was supposed to make an appointment with my doctor. And I can't remember why....
You need to take a nap - you're on overload
I forget where I put the mail sometimes it's so overwhelming with weekly stuff for mom and now I'm trying to get her taxes organized - haven't even thought of mine yet
I had a dr appt yesterday that I didn't even know about so when the auto reminder hit my cell Thursday night I hit cancel
Does your county tax office have an online system ?
I can type in the parcel number or address and pull up the amount due - one year I paid a penny or two off - in a hurry writing out the check -
Eat well and sleep tonight
Usually I can talk myself down. I've been down this road before with my dad. It's a dizzy feeling for me, not quite coherent. Gah!
I've been quite ticked off lately about a few things. My agitation weirdly keeps me focused. Maybe it keeps my blood pressure up, though I don't need that. I hate not being on point on everything. I'm hyper organized from changing towels to sheets to vacumming. I'm a cleaning weirdo.
I'm the same way about bills. Pay them and off my mind.
My brother leaves in 5 days. Mom is eating again and seems so much better.
I want to throw up as I write this. She is going to die when he leaves and I will be on my own again. She is showtiming for him even though she doesn't have dementia. I don't know what that is called.
It is extremely galling when their little faces light up for the absentee, when your 24/7 support goes apparently unnoticed. The only positive I could find in it was to be happy that mother was happy, even if the reason for it did get right up my nose.
My husband and bro brought mom over today. While they were picking her up I made some yummy bites. Put together prosciutto, fresh mozzarella and olive bites. Roasted artichokes, mozz and olives for non pork eating brother. Made fresh guacamole and a really good cheese plate. Mom loved it. She ate more than I've seen her eat in ages. Mom kept making weird references that she won't be around long. I believe her.
My hubs and bro forgot to bring her morphine dose with her when they picked her up. Yikes! Sorry guys, but daughters think of these things. Geez! It was noshes and a break for me and they screwed up. She was three hours off. Uffda!
Got her the pain meds right away when we brought her back to her AL. She was wincing in obvious pain. They left and I changed her shirt and socks. As we were leaving she thanked bro for his great care and how much she loves him. Nothing to me. That's why I feel petty. Bro told me not to take it too much to heart. I wanted to punch the SOB. I've been doing this for 6 1/2 years.
Family dynamics are so weird.
Many years ago, my dad was diagnosed with Chronic Leukemia. It was 15 years of ups and downs. His docs always said that something else would kill him, not the leukemia. To tell you the end first, yes, Kidney failure got him in the end.
About 10 years into his diagnosis, just after I'd gone back to work, having been home with my kiddles for 5 years and then grad school, my mom called, beside herself. My dad had been diagnosed with a fungal infection of his sinuses, and his doctors said that this would likely be fatal and there was no treatment.
I sat down at work and thought about what to do. I called my kid's pediatrician, who was the most thoughtful and useful doctor I knew at the time. I told him the name of the thing that my dad had been dxed with and he said quickly, "oh, I'm SO sorry". So I asked, what would you do if this was your parent? He thought for a moment and asked where my dad had been diagnosed and who was treating him. He had been first seen at Sloan Kettering, but his ongoing treatment was being handled in Westchester. Dr. A was silent for a moment and said, "call his doc at Sloan; find out if they are doing a clinical trial".
I called the oncologist who had first seen dad; he was quite interested to hear what was going on and asked all sorts of questions about his treatment. Then he said "can you get me slides of what they are seeing in his sinus?" I said I would get them to him and got the info about where to have them brought. I called my brother (who lived closest to my parents) and told him what was needed. he called Dad's doc and had the slides prepared and drove them to NY to Sloan. They got him into a clinical trial and cleared up the infection.
The punchline is that my mother, to this day, refers to this as "the time your brother saved Daddy's life". You really can't change the perspective of a person who is determined to glorify one child over another. It hurts, yes, but it's as old as the stories in Genesis.
I think stuff like this is why I keep working. Getting kids with autism into proper education programs somehow seems more important. Keeps me from dwelling on family inequality.
Not as bad as my husband's family, though. When he and his brothers get together, there is inevitably a " who can drink a glass of chocolate milk the fastest" content. Oy.
Well, I went to land management to get a copy of the land tax bills. They call you inside the inner offices, seat on their left, and you can see the computer screen when they use it. I gave him our land tax from 2 years ago.
I'm not a numbers person. You tell me something is 3 yards away. I'm still trying to figure out how many rulers fit into 1 yard. You tell me that the bag is 3 feet, I automatically think 3 rulers - one on top of the other. If you tell me that the height is 6 feet, I automatically think my height of just under 5 feet + 1 ruler. One time, my brother told me how much each of us 8 siblings would get from our not subdivided gifted land from dad. I gave him a blank look. So he said it's like the size of 1-1/2 football field. (in my head, I was trying to figure out how big is a football field since I don't even go to sports games at all.) ....
Anyway, the land agent looks at the old bill, gasped and said in wonder, "29,001.00 sq mtrs!" I gave him a blank look. He turned to his computer, typed in our land number, and it popped up. Oh my!!! There is this huge mass of land, surrounded by teeny tiny small division lands (private homeowners and their land boundaries.) Oh my gosh!!! Our land is huge! I said, Wow! He turned to look at me. I'm still staring at the computer. That is sooooo big when you see the small lands around it.... Ha! I told him it's useless. Try subdividing it into 8 slots and everyone wants the best land. No one wanted to sign it unless they got the top. He stared at me and said, "Landlocked." He told me that this has happened before, and they had to go to court and it was done by drawing. Cost the family close to $45,000.00 to go this route. All that prime land and we cannot even touch it, build on it, etc... He kept muttering under his breath and shaking his head, "landlocked."
Dad's still coughing hard. At nights now, he's snoring. He didn't snore before. I've also noticed that he seems to choke when drinking his nutrient drink. But has no problem with the eggs. And yes, he's still saying no about going to the clinic. The 'quacks are going to kill him.'