Hi again all.
I’ve been managing pretty well since Mom’s Academy Award Winning performance over the decorations. I had a major breakthrough in therapy over it, and it is a thing of the past. It was worth the hard work to get through the issue - and all of your answers helped me get there 100 percent.
Today I have been cooking and planning and preparing to have her over to our place for dinner and 20 minutes before I’m to go get her. “Yeah, I don’t feel good, uh, you guys just go ahead and have a nice day.” I had been speaking to her all day and she was in a nice mood and looking forward to it. Now mind you, I had to take her to urgent care this week for the same not feeling well issue (Gastro issues, I won’t get into it) and I also think an anxiety attack. After a battery of tests, there was no stroke, no heart no nothing. I tried to tell her some days are good, some days are bad. “Nooo I really think something’s wrong.” So we didn’t leave the’ emergency department until every last stone was turned. Not even a UTI. The doctor took me aside and literally said, “I have nothing better to say than ‘aches and pains and aging issues, her heart lungs brain, all fine.”
My mom has a tendency to want to be kept in the hospital to be “looked after” and have meals brought and to have company during the night and me to run the business of her household while she’s gone. “Are they going to admit me?” She asked me excitedly.
”Nope mom, you’re fine, isn’t that great! You can go home. It’s been six hours but yep, you’re going home.” I had to throw it in there, I couldn’t help it. I myself just recently had a minor surgery and even I wasn’t feeling so good. The doctor asked if I’D like to be checked out. He could tell I wasn’t feeling so swift.
Are you all having issues where they want visit after visit and ER after ER - I mean obviously I am NOT going to deny her, if she needs to be assessed then yes, no question we’ll do it. But have you seen them, like, sad to find out they’re fine? Meanwhile I’ve sat there in mild pain, answering question after question of “has my blood work come back? has my X-ray come back?” Is she LOOKING for something to be wrong? Is it that impossible to enjoy an actual report of good or semi-good health?
Sorry for the rant. She always seems to want to be admitted and I told her the last time if they discharge you, THEY DISCHARGE YOU. That bed belongs to someone who truly truly needs it.
Ugh, the frustration.
If she wants to be fed, entertained and have someone present at night, she should consider an AL or a board and care home.
I know how to some that MIGHT make me sound but if I hadn’t been through this over and over again to know what’s going on, well.. you get the picture.
Look I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic, it must be very scary to be aged, with some pretty hefty illness that she does have, but when she can dress, shower, cook, mop the floor (slowly) and yes even today washed and changed her bedding all by herself, she needs this depression under control. If she would only see that her brain chemistry needs help. She knows it does yet won’t do anything about it. Flat out.
You're giving her an audience for her histrionics and a ride to the ER for every ache and pain she has. As long as you keep doing that, she'll keep playing you like a fiddle. Next time she's "so sick" and needs to go to the ER, tell her to call 911. Remind her the copay for the ambulance ride is $100 each way and the ER visit is $100 or whatever, so it's a minimum cost to HER of $300 to take this trip. You no longer feel comfortable driving such a sick old person to the ER so the ambulance is her only option from now on. Her decisions each have consequences. You also no longer have all day to spend sitting in the ER and since the hospitals are so full of Covid, the visitor policy is very strict so you won't be accompanying her.... it's too dangerous for you to expose yourself. Again, she can make these decisions for herself, but you'll be making your decisions for YOURSELF. Spending all day in a petrie dish of sickness is not something you're willing to do anymore, sorry. The doctor can call you if they plan to ADMIT her, otherwise, she can let you know when the ambulance drops her back off at home.
If your mother chooses to behave herself in this manner, then she will need to suffer the consequences of her behavior at the same time. I'm sure your therapist has talked to you about setting boundaries and separating your life from your mother's.
Good luck
Then I wised up. If he needed to go while I was at work I would pop out since he lived near my work and drop him off at the door. I would also tell him he needed to take a taxi to get home. He called 911 so often the local police all knew him by name. He averaged a trip every 10 days or so and nothing was ever serious. In fact, the one time he did actually have a serious issue I was the one who insisted on going to the ER.
If she is going for non-emergencies you need to let her get herself there and back on her own. If it is serious they will call you. Even after my father went to AL he loved his ER trips. The AL would call and let me know they sent him and I would make it clear that he was to hire medical transportation to get himself back to AL. That was usually $75 a trip. I would have never been able to keep my job for the number if times I would have had to run and get him.
My Auntie said that they really help my cousin who is a challenge to deal with.
I would do some research and ask her doctor, then I would find a way to get them in her. That's just me though.
Try to reassure her you or help are nearby, get a medic alert bracelet, maybe find a wonderful loving Assisted Living place. And in the end you can say I did everything I could to help. My heart still feels so sad that I am not taking care of her personally. But we can't all do that. I call her 3 times a day to remind her I'm am still here, still love them and will come soon..
God bless you on this very very difficult path
Don't take her to the ER, and don't take her home. Let her figure it out. After all, there will be even more people to pay attention to her, which is what she wants.
First of all thank you for all your responses. It’s clear that there are some common threads we all have out there with our aging elders/family. Since mom’s trip to urgent care however long ago it was, I’ve had a talk with her about her self-maintenance, and preventing, or doing what we can to prevent these types of visits. Now, we can’t necessarily control if (forbid forbid) something just goes south. That can happen at any age. But I told her flat out that the next time a trip to the ER or urgent care happens, it may be someone ELSE who decides that she is declining, and that someone else, not her family may make the recommendation that living alone can no longer be. And, that as family considering health and everything we have seen, we’re not going to necessarily fight that. In fact we won’t.
Overall her symptoms may once again have been because of anxiety attack and with her health conditions those are scary. I have them and I’m healthy and they’re scary. But I think while there, as many of you have said, our UCs and ERs are tending to super sick people and she was not the highest priority, although she wasn’t totally ignored. No fussing over her. Again, not going to ignore an urgent need, but my first question when she’s “feeling a little off,” is going to be “what have you tried to feel better.”
She’s kind of come around, so to speak. She’s telling me, “i know I need to eat better,” and she has been. And I warned her now with the new variant we are all at risk. Her sitting in a chair there or waiting in a bed there, and me right there, waiting along side the whole way. Again, don’t avoid if its an emergency, but don’t create one if it’s not.
I’m still not right with her doctor’s office waving her away and sending her to urgent care. They had the whole afternoon wide open, but yet, “no…because of her age..” You’re a GERIATRIC SPECIALIST!!! They called me to see “how she was doing,” and I very tersely responded, “Oh well, you know, like I told you on the phone that day. Nothing was life threateningly wrong, she was feeling unwell and needed some help. Surely you’ve seen the reports from the emergency department.”
“Oh, um…ok.”
Happy new year all, let’s make it a good one despite the rest.