notrydoyoda Posted January 2012
The Caregiver & Dysfunctional Families: How are you doing?
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Side note: Amazing dreams you have!
Two weeks ago she came down with pneumonia and was in the hospital two weekends in a row. They found some pneumonia still in her lungs, but also found that her low oxygen level was staying low even on oxygen. On top of all of this came congestive heart failure.
Last Thursday night my wife's sister was so frantic that she called us to come up there. So at 12 am we left and got there at 4. I had to return later that day for I had things to deal with related to our selling our old house, etc. I drove up Tuesday to take my wife her diet food for the week. We are on the strict part of Optifast. I've lost 15 pounds in 2 weeks. I stayed for yesterday so that my wife and I could go out for supper and we ate a healthy normal, low cal, meal.
Yesterday, I observed how week my MIL is, heard her say she hated food, and heard her say that she was only going to be there 3 days and then to back to assisted living. She is very stubborn and likes being in control which means she is not cooperating very well with her treatment team. My SIL is killing her codependent self by spending 11 hours a day at the rehab place and there is a care giver who spends the night. My SIL has been told by a therapist she no longer sees to set boundaries which she has never done. She needs to hire 3 care givers to be there for 8 hour shifts for her mom but she is too afraid of making her mom angry. She's an ovarian cancer survivor since 2001 and has complications related to the treatments which hinder her.
The treatment team was busy today. My wife helped her with what little breakfast she would eat. She had not yet taken the medicine they had for her to increase her appetite. She can't see well enough to feed herself and her hearing is terrible. After breakfast, it was medicine time and liquid protein time because of her puny eating. And they finally got the increase the appetite med in her. Then she was off to PT. When she got back from that it was time for her nebulizer to help clear those lungs out and increase her oxygen level. Then, it was time for another kind of therapy. At lunch time my SIL came and I left.
I found out from my SIL (wife's cell phone is not working) that their mother had been very mean that afternoon. She was hateful and told them that they better get her back to the assisted living place or they would regret it. She's always holding the will over them like a carrot.
Her stubborness insisted on going to her 90th birthday party at her duplex planned by her care giver on Valentines in her wheel chair with an oxygen tank. She came back exhausted after 3 hours and today hardly remembered any of it. Also, she does not want to use a walker like the PT person wants her to because she thinks that a walker makes her look old? I wonder how she thought she looked in a wheelchair yesterday with oxygen?
My wife and I have our opinions, but her twin sister does not listen to us anymore than she did to the therapist. So, we don't say anything anymore. My wife has boundaries with her mom that she fought to get via years of therapy, but her sister does not. Her husband feels like his wife is married to her mom. Emotionally, she is. My wife is staying up there for a few more days before I pick her up on Tuesday with more diet food that we get every Tuesday. We have things to tend to related to closing on the house and medical appointments.
One weak link in the chain is the uncertainty about the care giver who stays at night's health. She went in for some kind of exploratory evaluation this morning. My MIL thinks that this lady should stay with her 24/7 because when not needed at the moment, she sits in her chair and reads. How selfish and unrealistic of my MIL, but typical. She's been like that since I met her back in the 1980's. The only reason that she misses her late husband is that he is no longer around to serve her worshipfulness.
Well, thank you for letting me vent about something that is not even my problem or circus. My wife may need to see her therapist when she gets home. That is a situation that no one can fix or control, but Debra needs boundaries.
Years ago, I had some very heart to heart discussions with books about her dysfunctional mother which has helped her understand a lot of her family of origin dynamics, but I wonder how much of that is just in her head but no in her gut.
Ok, vent over. Now to focus on something good like how much money we will get from selling our old house and how we are going to spend some of it on the loft in our new house which has 1,000 square feet. No more two mortgages a month, two utility bills, two home owners insurance, and two property taxes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Alone at home, on a diet, family in distress!
Nice car!
Did you know that many favorite t.v. series have additional episodes added?
If you ever need to distract oneself from other people not letting go.
I still watch Madam Secretary and NCIS.
What is it, in the past, that would have been your go to food?
Does your diet allow a splurge?
How about popcorn?
Stop. Drink a big 12 oz. glass of your favorite water.
Then, have the popcorn?
Twin dynamics are very different. Such a close attachment since conception. And MIL and her needs/wants real or imagined are very real for your wife and SIL. Does she need boundaries? Yes, probably so. But they do diminish when a parent's needs are so extreme. Holding the will over their heads? Yes, absolute manipulation to try to get what she wants. She wants the caregiver 24/7. Can that even be done? Would it harm anything to just go along with it, providing the funds are there. Would give your wife a break to not have to listen to that one thing MIL cannot complain about.
Think about getting the house sold and one less thing to stress about in your and wife's lives. You maybe need some boundaries yourself? You can only control yourself. Soon wife will be back and you can settle back in to a normal routine.
It helps too that others are going through some of the same things.
Hope it won't be taken the wrong way, (and it's not you), but when others are seeming to be worse off, I start to feel grateful when I only feel a little bit dysfunctional. I learn from others doing badly. ?? Does that make any sense at all?
I hope that I did not advise him to ruin his diet. 15 lbs. in two weeks is quite amazing.
Thanks and you are so right. Money is not and never has been an issue with her other than just not having enough and living as if she is poor. She wants her daughter there and that caregiver when her daughter can't be there. It would make MIL mad as **&^% if Debra acted like a POA and hired three people which would cost her mother money. While I was up there, I had as little direct contact with MIL as I could work out. I did not like having to be there much later than my wife said we would last night or so long this morning.
My wife and I have discussed how we can't control or rescue her sister. She's stopped going to therapy who told her boundaries also. Debra has reached out to us many times, but never takes our feedback. I've even gotten glances from her eyes saying help me. I think she wants me to be the husband that she does not have to stand up to her mother like I did for my wife. I've been there and don't want to do that again. My wife never got her freedom until she stopped hiding behind my pants and dealt with her mother head on.
I know what my go to food is and it is certain nuts that I love and chocolate chip cookies. However, with this strict, low cal, diet, all I could do is eat extra diet food but then I would be out of food before the end of the 7 days it is for.
Oh, and my car pic. It is a 2007 that I got in 2010 with only 36,000 miles on it. That has increased to 136,000 miles now. It runs and looks the best of any car I've owned over the years. I plan on driving this one as long as it does not nickle and dime me which it has not.
I have trouble speaking up shen so many have it worse than I do, what can I complain about?
It is nice learning from everyones experiences. Much appreciated you all sharing.
cmagnum - not much to say about the situation, but adding my thanks for starting this thread! I am soooooo grateful for it. I felt really alone until I found this site and especially this thread.
I am so looking forward to Friday and especially Friday evening! My weekends at home have become a treasure I look forward to. Got plans to see 2 girlfriends on Saturday, and then Sunday I'm going with best guy friend to have the Indian buffet I missed last weekend. *happy dance*
The diet that I am on is called Optifast. It runs over 12 weeks and in the first 6 weeks, your diet consists of shakes, soups, and bars. Your calorie intake runs about 1,000 per day and you eat 6 times a day and you drink a lot of water.
Your doctor has to approve you being in this program and they keep an eye on you. For example, as a diabetic, I must make sure that my blood sugar does not drop below a certain level.
Another part of the program is exercise and they help you develop an exercise plan. This is taking place at a fitness center owned by the hospital. There are trainers there to help us.
Upon reaching week 7, you meet with a dietitian to plan eating healthy normal foods plus any of the products that you want to keep eating. My 12 week goal is 25 lbs. I lost 10 pounds the fist week and 5 the second week. The dietitian warned me that this would slow down even more. I hope to loose 2 pounds per week, but that is going to take some consistent exercise.
My long term goal is to loose 25 lbs every 12 weeks for 24 more weeks which is 6 months. At the end of the 12th week, they will measure my basic metabolism rate and from that figure what kind of diet I need to follow to reach my goal for loosing weight.
Thanks, I'm glad that you have found this site and this thread to be helpful. It amazes me how this thread just keeps on going now for 6 years! That means it is speaking to a major need.
In catching up on this thread this morning and reading about others' better diets I decided to splurge on a hot air popcorn maker and channel my nervous energy into popcorn. It's usually 1-2 boxes of Ding Dongs, though I do try to ration them to 2-3 a day. Money's very tight for me, but the popcorn makers are cheap and switching to plain popcorn (with occasional drizzled melted caramel and chocolate for special times) will be good for me. Thank you all!
After a bit, I said, "I thought you were going back to bed." "I will," she said, lighting yet another cigarette. "You just finished one," I said. She just ignored me and kept lighting cigarettes - ignoring my coughing and that I was covering my nose and mouth with my hands. Finally, I'd had enough. I picked up the remote and turned off the TV. I said, "Ok, time to go back to bed." That set off the nasty, I'm afraid. "Why did you turn it off?" "Because it's a month-old news show." "Well, so WHAT?" she snapped, in that really nasty tone of voice. "You're using it as an excuse to sit here and chain smoke, and I can't breathe." WELL. That REALLY got her ranting at me. Totally dismissive of my issues with the smoke, and totally effing NASTY.
God, I HATE that side of her, that nasty, nasty.....I saw a woman on Dr. Phil* the other day, who acted and spoke in a similar way. He had some "expert" on who diagnosed the woman as being emotionally stunted, "emotionally 13 years old". That's my mom, in a nutshell. Emotionally 13 years old. I'm starting to be able to let it bounce off me in the moment....thank god I have this forum to get it out, or I'd probably go off my nut. But ARGGH!!! I just want to SLAP her when she gets like that. And it's a good thing I am not inclined towards violence, but MAN. That nasty side of her really is an emotional 13-year old. Just like when she was drinking, only we get to blame it on dementia now.
* I feel obliged to note that I don't normally watch Dr. Phil, and most times I think he's kind of a quack....but I happened to have it on in the background that day when mom was at dialysis.
She has ZERO respect for me having quit smoking, ZERO respect for my health, ZERO respect that I already had one cat die of cancer from second-hand smoke, only a year ago. She doesn't care, not one little bit. I know, or I'm supposed to know, that her brain is broken. But I don't effing CARE. Her brain can be broken AND she can also be a gross, selfish little addict who doesn't give a sh** about me, or the animals. She's totally aware of what she's doing, it's not like she's in la la land when she does this. And I know it's that it's just me (and the animals, because she doesn't even understand animals, let alone respect them) she doesn't care about, because she absolutely WILL respect the home support workers when they remind her not to smoke in front of them. She'll be careful NOT to smoke if I have a non-smoking friend over - I don't even have to say anything. But no respect for me, nosiree. And I can't even open a window because she's always cold and gets whiny about that, and will just up and close it anyway. She doesn't care if she poisons me to death. She never did.
/end rant
Can co-dependency apply to smoking as well? Because I think I am finally shaking off some kind of smoking co-dependency, and I think she really doesn't like it....I think that's what sets off the nasty. Seems like the only thing we fight over anymore is her bloody chain smoking.
I don't think there is any compromise achievable on smoking.
I remember - do I? - that mother is banned from smoking in her bedroom; and yes, fire hazard and all that, I can quite see why. But if she can't smoke in her own room, and it isn't fair for her to smoke in your shared living room... anywhere else she can go? Balcony, den, study?
When you have been smoking companions with someone and that person successfully gives up, you can think one of two things: 1. Good for you! 2. Traitor.
You can think both at the same time, of course.
One of my daughters smokes and the other doesn't. If the one gave up, I would *never* even take cigarettes out in her presence, I should be delighted. But then again, I don't smoke in the house nowadays, either (can't, it's in the lease). Perhaps I'm less committed than your mother?
During my non-smoking periods (pre- and pregnancy, nursing) I was a monster to anyone who came anywhere near me with a lit ciggy. Mind you, one of them was my husband, a doctor, who only smoked when he was on vacation and flatly refused not to - can you believe it? Tchah. One of our franker exchanges of views.
There is no compromise. Leave the room if she smokes, any time she does. It's not right. It's just not *done* to smoke in front of quitters, not in any modern smokers' etiquette handbook.
It's not mom's smoking so much as the compulsive CHAIN smoking. Mom will literally sit there and smoke one after another. Sometimes she'll start to light another when she already has one going. And usually only while watching the TV. It's like the TV puts her in a trance state, and then she's off to the races! It reminds me of someone who's intoxicated, just drinking another glass, and another glass, not even aware anymore of what they're doing. Sometimes she says she doesn't even WANT to smoke. But she can't seem to help the compulsion to do it. (She's smoked all her adult life, except when she was pregnant with us.)
And when she's chain smoking, then I can't breathe. And the smell, when she's been shut up in here for days....gag!
And I would blame it on dementia except that it's addiction behaviour to a T. If she were a gambler instead she'd be broke by now. Especially HER addiction behaviour. Right down to the nasty side of her. Maybe it's both, but I don't think the dementia cancels out the addiction behaviour.
When mom agreed to move up here, she couldn't travel because of the dialysis. So I went around shooting video of all the options, and then did video of the tours. She HAD to have THIS apartment. Despite the fact that the entire property is Non-Smoking, and there were lots of other options. She SWORE she would go down to the street level and smoke. Well, she hadn't moved in 6 hours when I came over and caught her smoking in her bedroom. She thought - probably still thinks - no one else can smell it as long as she sprays Febreeze. Hah!
I used to remind her there are huge fines for smoking, but none have come. Either the building is super well-ventilated, or they're turning a blind eye to it. The building is part rental, part strata, so maybe it's just that no one knows who to complain to! Anyway, after I confined her to smoking in the living room - yes, for safety - I taught her how to stuff a towel under the front door to at least keep the smell in the hallway down to a dull roar. (Remembrances of my pot smoking days!) I figured I couldn't stop her, so....at least keep her out of trouble.
So I admit to being totally complicit in some ways.
But it's really not the smoking, it's the chain smoking. And I think that only happened because I confined her to smoking in the living room (in front of the TV). But I can't let her smoke in the bedroom, I just can't. I fear for the building going up in flames, and it's not just me and her at risk.
*sigh* I really don't know what to do about it.
I have two brothers and a sister who are very absentee, except to bully and criticize me for not working (You don't do anything all day. You're living off mom). They have no idea how stressful it is to deal with her diapers every day, wash her sheets all the time and monitor and give her her meds every three hours. I never get even a full day off. I have hired an agency to get out a little each week, but it really isn't enough.
Now my brother is fighting me over her financial POA. He wants control of her finances even though he's never around. I think I'll need to get a mediator to settle it.
It's just hard to cope with the siblings, I try to not let them get to me but lately it's been very difficult.
And I was thinking maybe she'll conspire with me, to tell mom she needs to cut back on her smoking. Mom would do it if a doctor told her. Plus then I'd have reinforcement. Like I have the threat of calling the ambulance if mom refuses to go to dialysis. (Boy, did THAT embarrass her. Plus it cost her $80.) And I think our doctor would go along with it, if I told her the effect it's having on me, plus it's good doctor ethics anyway, right, to tell your patients to smoke less or not at all?
She'd probably want to tell mom to quit, actually - I've quit 3 times now under her care (true), and she's always encouraged it. But I don't think making mom quit is fair either. I don't think she could, plus how much stress would that put on her body? I can live with SOME smoking. The CONSTANT smoking is going to kill me.
Sorry to go on and on about this. I'm just....ugh, it's been one of those weeks, you know? Mom's been pretty hellish in general, and letting her take a "sick" day did the opposite of "help" with the chain smoking problem. (And by "sick" I mean she refuses to eat anything but cottage cheese all day, and then gets "diarrhea" overnight, and then protests she's too "sick" to go to dialysis. I'm not buying any more effing cottage cheese.)
Mom's so loony this week, I was almost thinking maybe I should stay with her this weekend. THEN I thought if I don't go home tonight, I might catch the crazy.
Sharyn - I'm so not against smoking, I swear. It's this demented chain-smoking that's killing me. More literally, maybe killing my cats, because their bodies are tiny.
(((((Kbuser)))))