The Caregiver & Dysfunctional Families: How are you doing?

Maybe, a lot of caregivers are trying too hard?

He could come to her?

No, I wouldn't. You say he has treated her like garbage his whole life. So if he visits her, then what? Does that make up for years of being a piece of cr*p? Then he can walk around feeling self-righteous cause he visited her. I wouldn't feel guilty about resenting him either. You are being too hard on yourself.

So, my brother let my Mom know that he and my nephew would be traveling to a town near where we live. I do not know why he even told her that.
So I emailed him and asked him if he would like to have lunch with Mom, I would bring her to him and they could visit and then I would pick her up when they were done. He hasn't seen her in a few years. And she calls him, he only calls if I email him and ask him to please call her, on birthdays, mothers day and such.
So anyway, he emailed me back and said, "his schedule was pretty full and there might be a day they could do lunch. We'll play it by ear."
So I wrote him back and said," Ok, I was not trying to inconvienence you, I just thought you might like to see your Mom. And it is difficult to play it by ear, with our schedule, that is why I was asking now."
It made me a little irritated with him. That he would be so close and not even care to see his mom. This woman has been nothing but good to him his whole life and he treats her like garbage.
She does not know I reached out to him to ask him that.
I was just wondering,
A. was it wrong for me to try and get him to see her, for her sake?
B. Should I make any more attempts?
I am praying to overcome my resentment for him.
Thank you all and may God bless you.

One might conclude there was enough tears as children growing up in abusive homes.
I did not even go to mother's funeral, CMagnum, and I have no regrets, or memories for that matter.

Becky04473 and Dorianne,

Thanks for the validation.

cmagnum - I don't think that's strange. My maternal grandfather was a bully and a bigot. He physically abused my grandmother, my mom, and my aunt.  Probably the ONLY reason he was merely verbally abusive with me was the certainty that my father would've driven 350 km just to knock him to the ground, should he ever have dared raise a hand to me. He died in 2002 and I've yet to shed a single tear.

Cmagnum, My mom was abusive - died last May. I haven't shed a tear. I could have cried when my dad died years ago. But my mom told my brothers and I she didn't want to see any emotional outbursts from any of us.

Hi, This will likely sound strange, but as abusive as my mother was when I was a child on, I have not shed a tear since she died in October of 2013. I didn't shed a tear when my wife's abusive mother died either. My dad is still alive. I'm sure that I will cry when he dies.

Happy Monday, gang!

I've started to look forward to Mondays for the first time in my life. With mom at dialysis 3 weekday afternoons, and my respite the other 2 weekday afternoons, it's the only time I get to leave mom's apartment!

The weekends are getting brutal tho'.  I think I'm gonna have to find the money somewhere for some paid respite....

Trying, yes it is scary. I keep thinking it will get better but when.

So sorry for your cousin, Golden

Glad, So exciting about your new house, landscaping. I hope all goes smoothly and turns out exactly like you want.

The whole Social Security/Medicare mess just gets worse. I'm 68 - waited until I was 67 to collect S/S so I would get the maximum amount available based on my earnings history.This year I got the cost of living increase. My Medicare premium went up to $187.00. The S/S increase was exceeded by the Medicare increase, so my S/S went down. I retired early 2017, but went back to work a month later. It seemed like it was too early to retire. Has anyone seen the investment company commercial about "I'm 85 and I want to go home" It's all of these seniors still working at 85 because they don't have retirement savings. I worry about the whole system. One of my friends says she'll drop dead one day at her desk because she will never afford to retire. U employees have TIAA retirement. The TIAA representative recommended that everyone up their payroll contributions to the maximum that is matched or more if they could afford. Also recommended that you plan to retire later - 72 - 75 yrs old. There is a math professor who is 80. He's sharp and in excellent health. He says he's not ready to retire.

Ahh, Golden! Closing on lot next Friday, then the fun starts, I hope. Need to put together plot plan and landscape plan, that should speed up my contractor, something he does not have to do. Hmmmm, what shall I plant? Fescue sod, Autumn Blaze Maples, Fat Albert Spruce, and of course a sprinkler system. A cutting garden, blubs, echinacea, spirea, agastache, so many options, wish I could go scatter my wildflower seed now, but turning dirt, may never work. Blue flax....

Dori, it makes no sense.

Oh, that makes sense, "breaking ground" for the new place. :-)

glad - construction for you new home.

Glad ~ I wonder if Golden was trying to say -- "Putting in a garden this year...?" lol

And now I want to know: who's doing a garden this year?? Not me, I'm a city dweller now, and I'll be lucky to get a few plants outside... but it is one of my near-future goals, to get both indoor and outdoor plants put in. I have none right now. Zero!! I need some hard-to-kill ones for indoor and outdoor.  

I might take this thought on over to the Garden thread lol. 

Sharyn - I agree it's scary how our safety net is disintegrating. Add to that how medicine is keeping us alive so much longer. We stay alive while our minds and bodies deteriorate. We become long term invalids.

For the average income person there is no way to put aside enough resources to cover the cost of such long term care. Families can rally to provide for a while but not years and years. For most that is not sustainable. Medical and personal care costs are escalating at an alarming rate.

This is a social disaster in the making and politicians know it. It would take a massive shift in policy to create a long term, viable solution. The cost would be astronomical, taxes would have to rise... a lot. That alone would be political suicide. So they ignore it or give lip service or rail on about the evils of "socialism". Meanwhile the juggernaut heads our way....

I'm not being pessimistic, this is simply reality. I have no answers except to be vocal about it. Maybe we should all become activists, like Dori!!

Golden, I am lost. Sod turning soon? I must be missing something. AHHHH, first thunderstorm of the year, we need it so badly, winter was so unusually dry!

Sharyn - I do get that part. But this is a private agency that is contracted to the gov't solely to provide home support services. That means the funds have been allocated and the cheques to the agency cut. They will have received the monies from the gov't already. I used to work for a non-profit in receipt of provincial funding. These funds are always paid to agencies in advance, quarterly. So what this agency is doing is cutting services they've already been paid to provide.

Golden, so sad about your cousin. It would be very scary to have this happen. My heart goes out to her. You are so right, I’ll be 70 in 10 years. 10 years is nothing as time passes so quickly.

Unfortunately, cuts from one area are used in another. This is why our social security is disappearing and we can’t count on it for retirement. What I was going to get for SS retirement at 62 is less than what I was told a year ago with the new SS reductions the White House passed into law this January. I may work until I drop, haha!

I agree cwillie - every time I hear a politician talk about how great it is that more people can stay at home, I think, who the h*** do they think has to do the work? It's the families....and a lot of the time, it's the women, doing yet more unpaid labour! Like women don't have enough unpaid labour to get through in a day!  Plus....my mom worked outside the home and paid into the tax system almost all her adult life - surely to god she is entitled to reap some of the benefits now. 

Edit:  at least some of the money must be there, though.  Because if the problem is short-staffing (plus I hear from the workers that quite a few are quitting because of management problems), and they're just cutting services, where IS that money from the service cuts going? 

I imagine it is the same all across the country Dorianne, politicians make feel good statements about how they are starting new programs to "allow" people to remain in their homes, but in reality it is just a back handed way to dump their care back on to the family because there is never enough money in the home care pot.

golden - I'm so sorry about your cousin's husband. That exact thing happened to my step-grandmother with her first husband, when they were in Hawaii, and I believe only in their 50s.  One of her sons did wind up going over there to help his mom and get (gulp) his dad's body back to Canada. How awful it must be, to be somewhere else - especially outside the country - and find yourself suddenly having to deal with something like that on your own! I hope your cousin has some other family with her very soon.....

Well, I just talked to the community nurse. She said what the home support agency is doing is "on their radar" and they're trying to gather more information. So I told her a few of the things the workers have been telling me - the big one being that some of them would be glad to work overtime to make sure all the home visits happen, but the agency won't PAY overtime....so where is that money going if they're just cutting services and not sending workers out? I could hear the nurse's gears working, oh boy!

Anyway, she said any permanent changes to the care plans have to go through the home nursing office, and she's been trying to get through to the agency all day but they're not answering their phone! Surprise.

I said I understood the position she might be in, but that I'm not afraid to go to the MLA (our elected provincial rep.) as an advocate, if that's what needs to happen. She said that's definitely the right action, since the funding ultimately comes from the province. She said she'd do some reading over the weekend and get back to me with any information she is able to share, which I might be able to take to the MLA.

I kinda thought my activist days were over! Lol. But this is just making me mad now, not just for mom (if worse came to worse, she still has me), but also for all the people - especially the elderly - who are living on their own, with no other help whatsoever. The entire health care system has this huge push now to encourage people to be in their own homes instead of hospitals or wherever. But then they've privatized half the public system by contracting out things like this, and they're obviously not monitoring it very well!

Ha ha....it's funny, because I was just thinking all this fighting and boundary-setting I've been doing with mom over since the fall (when I joined AC!!!) has made me a lot stronger in general. I find I've become much less willing to just act grateful for what I can get, and much more determined to stand up for myself and the things mom and I need!

sharyn -so happy to hear that the the boys are doing well. That is awesome!!!

duck - it would help you to accept that your mother and sis will not change and grieve the loss/lack of the family that you needed, but never had. It would help you to gain more peace in the situation.

east - good advice from cm

dori - earlier you asked about sig other.This job is in Sparwood, but only a 4 mo contract. He said he will take it if offered. I guess we could hire someone to water plants etc for 4 months and I would call it a holiday. He is not impressed with the company he is with. I could tell stories about it. We roll our eyes over dinner regularly as he recounts his day. He got an offer for a 2 month contract here yesterday with a decent company, but that's a bit too short. He is a safety manager, but will do straight safety advisor if the job is right. Glad to hear that you are getting daily help and getting breaks. Thrift shop are sources of many good things.

guest - awesome boundaries!

becky - hope you are OK

glad - sod will be turning soon!

More snow, even to blizzard level expected over the weekend. Thankfully it is R's weekend here, so he will not be travelling. Feeling weepy, not sure why, (perhaps the long winter, probably CFS/FM as well) went to facebook and saw I had a pm, thought it might cheer me up, opened it and read that my cousin's husband had a sudden heart attack and died while they were in Fla. They live in eastern Canada. She is well over 10 years younger than I am, and so was her husband. They have not had that many years of retirement. I hope one of her kids can go down there and help her return to Canada. Bummer! It has unravelled me a bit. A close very bright friend, younger than me, has some age related memory deficit. We all lose some stuff as we get older, but this has been enough that she went to her doc about it. I hope it doesn't develop into anything more. Oh, the joys of aging!

Take care all. Eighty comes sooner than you expect.

East.

Would you like to give your brother a break, please?

He DOES take care of your mother. He DOES visit her. He DOES get her phone sorted out. He is obeying HER wish to remain in her own home.

For you to assert that he is withholding services because he's trying to save her money for his own future - it couldn't be, could it, that he agrees that if she won't let helpers in it's a waste of money hiring them - or that his only reason for supporting her wishes is that he wants to inherit her property...

You not only criticise his efforts but also suspect him of ulterior motives no matter what he does. In your eyes he really can't do right for doing wrong, can he.

And, bear in mind, I haven't even heard his side of the story. Only yours. And it's still pretty obvious that the poor sod is pedalling as fast as he can.

Take just this part...

"She has not told him that I should have a key to her house, if anything happens when he goes away to Mexico every month, and when he goes to Florida on vacations. What he does want is for me to drive back and forth each week, to take up the slack. Or to go and stay with my Mother for an unspecified length of time to help her with all of her needs."

If your brother wanted you to cover for him in his absence, don't you think he would have a) given you a key; b) put you in touch with her care team; c) asked you?

He hasn't asked you. You conclude that he is sending you secret signals. Why do you not conclude what is obvious: that neither he nor your mother expects you to be involved?

From your earlier post, it seems that you feel frustrated that your brother does not support you in persuading, to the point of compelling, your mother to move to a facility where you can easily visit her. Other families do. Why won't he?

Because it isn't what your mother wants. That's why.

If it makes you feel better, then go ahead and assume he has his eyes on a fat inheritance. But isn't it just possible that he believes your mother has the right to decide where she lives? - in spite of the considerable inconvenience it causes him.

He gets bad tempered and resentful, he gets things wrong, he doesn't set up services the way you would, he doesn't - I don't suppose - devote hours directly or indirectly to his mother's care every single day, and he won't join in interminable discussions with you. Goodness! - he even indulges in regular breaks. But he is getting the job done. Let him.

Hi again, sorry, I made typing mistakes - again. I meant that - when my Mother got home she could NOT make any calls out on that phone. So when my Cousin called her on Tuesday morning, my Mother could not call her back. She couldn't get up out of the chair to answer the phone anyway. So, on Tuesday night, my Brother finally changed the phones back. He hooked up the new phone that my Mother had. We don't know what he was thinking. I think he was trying to save money by not getting the phone from rehab - not realizing that the phone would not work. Thanks All.

Hi All, Thanks to Everyone who had great advice for me. I want to say that I happen to have some Relatives and also know Friends & Neighbors who have Elderly Parents and who have made changes so that the Parents can live in a Safe place with help. In some cases the older Parents made the decisions for themselves, and for others - it was the adult Children who wanted their Parents to move to AL. In fact, my Mother's middle Sister (& her Husband) decided to sell their Family home to their older Daughter who was married and had twin girls. They also have a younger married Daughter who lives right across the street. So, my Aunt & Uncle added on to that house, they built an In-Law Addition to the house. My Uncle had Parkinson's and eventually had to be cared for in a Nursing Home. The NH was right near my Aunt's house, so she was able to be with my Uncle every day. They were a very close couple, and had a wonderful Marriage, so my Aunt wanted to make sure that he was well taken care of. She made sure that she found a place nearby, so she could drive there herself. This Aunt had broken her hip and still had problems, and was no longer able to drive on the highways. My Mother's youngest Sister passed away almost 2 years ago, at age 74 from complications of Diabetes Type1 - which she had since she was in her 30's. Now her Husband has Dementia. They have one Daughter who is married, no children, and she has moved her Father into Memory Care in a place that is right in her Town. She sold her Parent's house which was in the City, and a long drive for her.
What I am saying is that I know people who have made decisions and changes for their Parents in order to make it much less stressful for them to care for their one Parent or both Parents. I am not sure if I mentioned this: My Mother is home from rehab, but when she was in rehab for 2 weeks - she had a phone that she could get calls on - but for some reason - she could not call out on it. I kept on calling the Rehab to have someone fix or replace the phone, and also my Mother kept begging them to please fix her phone. So we found out what really happened. My Brother was supposed to order a phone from the Rehab for my Mother to use. Instead of doing that, he had found an old phone in my Mother's house and he brought that in to the rehab. But, we didn't know that. All of that time, the rest of thought that the phone belonged to the rehab. So when a man from the rehab went to check on her phone, he told my Mother that it was not one of their phones, but she didn't understand what he meant. So, on the Monday when my Mother went home, my Brother took that phone back home again. But that is not the end of the story - he then disconnected the new phone that my Mother had in her house - and he connected the older phone that he just brought back with him. So, for the first 2 days that my Mother was back home - she could make calls out. My Cousin had planned to visit her on Tuesday, and bring some pastry, and pick up her meds. She called my Mother on Tuesday morning to say that she would be driving to her house. Now this is the Cousin who had lived close by to my Mother in the same City, but due to her rent going way up, she moved to a suburb and she has a longer drive to my Mother's house. My Mother had been sitting in a reclining chair, so when my Cousin had called her on the phone, my Mother got stuck in the chair and could not get up, After trying for about a half hour, she finally managed to get out of the chair. My Mother is not going to have any help 4 days a week. She will only have one Home Health Aide who will be there for 2 hours on Friday mornings. The rest of the week, she will be totally alone - except for the times when the PT and OT, and the Visiting Nurse comes in. My Mother has some neighbors, but they are all out working during the day. She doesn't know them anyway, and if she did know them, she would never ask them for any help or favors. So, my Mother is going to continue to struggle to take care of herself all day long. To make things clear, my Brother does not want to help her, but he really has no choice. He has his heart set on getting my Mother's house. That is what he really cares about. I know he doesn't care about our Mother. He does not want her to spend any more of her savings on getting more help from the Home Health Aides. But, it is also my Mother's attitude too. She goes along with whatever he wants to do. She has not told him to call me and give me the code to her lock box. Instead of installing a door bell, (my Mother does not have a door bell), he is using a lock box so that the V.Nurse and the Therapist can use the lock box to let themselves into her house. My Mother can't hear when someone is at her door. There is an old-fashioned door knocker on the outer door, but she can't hear that. She has not told my Brother that I should have the phone numbers to call her Visiting Nurse. She has not told him that I should have a key to her house, if anything happens when he goes away to Mexico every month, and when he goes to Florida on vacations. What he does want is for me to drive back and forth each week, to take up the slack. Or to go and stay with my Mother for an unspecified length of time to help her with all of her needs. If I am not good enough to have a key to my Mother's house, then I should not be the one to bail him out. I would love to be able to help my Mother, but since she insists on not selling her house and staying put in the City, then I really can't help her. Now I am going to have to break the news that we are staying home for Easter. We all plan (all my Kids and Grandkids) to visit my Mother around the middle of April and then on Mother's Day. Thanks everyone.

My Mom and I had a booth we rented at a Flea Market when Mom broke her neck and my caregiving journey began,so I had to keep it going by myself till she got better and then we went back to finding things together to fill it.We tried so hard to make some money,but it was a bunch of rigamarole for hardly any money and then one day the owner sold his shop and we had to move out.Mother was determined that we would get another booth in a different Flea Market and we did and after she died I had to pack it up by myself.It was ALOT of work and something she wanted to do,but I just did it for her and now I don't even visit Flea Markets or go garage saling anymore.All the fun is gone.