AGING PARENTS

And companionship. My mother in law has a sort of boyfriend at the assisted living facility. My feeling is, she's nearing the end of her life, she should enjoy herself.

Aside from the occasional married couple, my mom's memory care ward has been pretty consistently 90+% female since she moved in four years ago.

Is that mostly because of women living longer, or is there another reason for women being more likely to be in memory care?

It's because women live longer.

Dad's memorial is going to be in November. I think my brother and I are going to emcee a lot of it.

Already had one 'friend' last out at me for picking a date they specifically couldn't attend. Idk why people enjoy kicking me when I'm down but I'm not letting this bullshit stop me.

I've taken an outsized amount of space itt so I want to let everyone else have the space going forward. I'm glad to offer lessons learned for anybody going through similar things in the future. Just email me (ILX email works)

*lash out

Good news: my mother and I are about to make an offer on the condo that seemed to be a reasonable compromise. In theory purchasing this place should be reasonably straightforward; but buying real estate has got to top the list of "positive strssors."

it sure does, good luck and take deep breaths as needed

glad to hear that j.lu! hoping for a bump-less process for you all, and that you can finally have that weight off of your shoulders

I own my current condo, but I bought it nearly 30 years ago. I do not doubt the changes this time around are intended to minimize fraud and do things remotely when possible. But I have to keep telling myself to not hyperventilate.

My mom has ended up in the hospital with low sodium. Anyone have any experience with that? It has likely been a contributing factor in her cognitive issues, but not necessarily the underlying cause. They won't be able to tell until they get her sodium back up. This has been a bit of a known problem for a while, she had a really bad sodium depletion incident after a hip surgery last year and her levels have periodically dipped since. But it really crashed over the last few weeks, apparently. The last blood test she took, her doctor called my parents at home at 11:30 at night this past weekend and told my dad he had to take her to the ER. She was very disoriented by the time she got there. She sounded much better on the phone today, but she still isn't allowed any actual food until the sodium gets back to a good level.

Well so the prior post turned out to be a bit more involved. My mom had a rough week and I ended up flying up to help out. She's out now, sodium levels seem stable but wow she was completely confused and out of it at the hospital. She woke up from a nap by herself, because Dad had come to get me at the airport, and she had no idea where she was or why she was there. She thought she was at the gym and packed up her stuff to go home. The nurses at the station stopped her and asked where she was going and when she said she needed to drive home one of them said, "Really? Well, where are your car keys?" That kind of snapped her out of it (well done, nurse) but she was still only kind of tenuous when they discharged her. (Her mental state being not so much their concern once the sodium levels were addressed.) Since then she's been up and down, definitely fades into some cloudiness in the evenings. So we still have the cognitive issues to wrestle with, once she's rested up a bit.

One thing that came out, she's barely been eating. She's always been super skinny but I noticed that she seemed even smaller, and at the Dr's office for the follow-up she weighed in at 96 pounds fully clothed. One of the doctor's big recommendation was EAT MORE! Especially protein. So anyway, quite a time. I'm also the family liaison with my brother and sister and assorted other relatives. Everybody's really concerned of course so they're all calling and texting, which is really sweet, but a lot of times they have more questions than we have answers.

Tipsy, I don't know anything about sodium depletion, but another thing that can cause sudden disorientation is a urinary tract infection; assume they checked for that at some point.

My mom also < 100 pounds, got as low as 85 just before we moved her to the care facility ('dinner' at home was a few crackers and a couple spoonfuls of yogurt). They've gotten her stabilized around 95 now. . .

My mom has also been losing weigh but it’s because she has a permanent ileostomy and can literally house pounds and pounds of food and it just comes out a few hours later. No weigh gain. Once saw her eat an entire party plate of nachos to herself. It’s kind of shocking.

Tipsy, I don't know anything about sodium depletion, but another thing that can cause sudden disorientation is a urinary tract infection; assume they checked for that at some point.

Yep, UTIs themselves are a prime cause of sodium depletion apparently. There was no particular sign of that with my mom, but they put her on antibiotics anyway just in case she had an underlying infection.

Oh! That’s why I commented previously— my mom gets UTIs all the time, has often made me worry about memory loss with her. The ileostomy means that she has a hard time getting proper electrolytes.

Yeah with my mom it's tricky because there are definitely underlying cognitive issues going on, but then the sodium crash sent it totally off a cliff. So now she's more or less returning to the more mild fog that was there before.

The sodium drop — not to get all wonky, but of course I've read a lot about it in the last week — is generally because of retaining too much water in the blood, which dilutes your sodium levels. So kidney or urinary problems that lead to reduced processing of water and reduced urination can cause sodium levels to drop. And I can definitely attest to just how much that messes with cognition, whoo boy.

It's funny, if there's a problem with salt and water you'd tend to think it would be too much of the former and too little of the latter, but the reverse is also bad it turns out.

tipsy this all feels very familiar - dad had similar issues due to UTI/urine retention.

Glad they have her on an antibiotic, hope if there is an underlying infection it zaps it out and the sodium returns to normal and cognition stabilizes.

Hoping for the best for your mom!

Many thanks!

Yes, for sure. I'm glad you can be there for your folks, I just hope you're getting support and care also.

Decided to extend my stay for another week because my mom woke up last night super disoriented and anxious and unable to form coherent sentences. She was trying to tell me something but she was using the wrong words, it was like a total brain malfunction. She was awake, it wasn't sleepwalking or anything like that — she remembered the episode when she woke up this morning and remembered that she was very confused but wasn't sure why. Alarming. But today has been probably her best day of the week. So my hope is that I'll see some kind of real stabilization over the next week. Just wasn't quite ready to go off and leave them alone here. (They live in a somewhat remote place, which has been a point of some contention over the years because we've all known it would eventually pose challenges.)

Did manage to get out today for a drink with an old friend, the first person I've seen in a week who wasn't my parents or a medical professional. I talked about my parents, she talked about her struggles with her teenage son, good times good times. :) Probably I don't really need to be here for another whole week, but they were glad when I said I was staying and I'm more conscious than ever of how little actual time I have left to spend with them. Fortunately I can work remotely.

Well this has been quite the cold-water plunge into the aging parents experience. I've been here for two weeks and have to fly home tomorrow, but basically my mom was in the hospital when I arrived, I was able to help bring her home and get her stabilized and see things improve for about 4-5 days, only to have them turn south over the last three days and now she's being readmitted to the hospital for the exact same thing she was in for when I first got here (low sodium) — with still no known or identified underlying cause. Been quite the rollercoaster. My dad is handling it all OK, but he's of course super stressed and exhausted and sort of overwhelmed by the circumstances. My brother showed up yesterday and can stay into next week, so at least I'm not leaving them alone. But it's not really sustainable for any of us kids to be here full time, we all have homes and jobs in other cities. Ai yi.

They have friends here who will check on them, but you can only ask so much. As I said to my brother last night when we were cleaning up her vomit at 2 a.m., it's not like anyone else is gonna come do that.

Ahh geez tipsy, I'm so sorry. :(

Do doctors have any working theories yet, even if they still haven't settled on one?

Thx. I guess the next step will be to call in an endocrinologist, once they get her more stable. My mom keeps saying, "Whatever it is, it's because I'm old" — obviously true.

always the fun, finding the right specialists to be consulted and then hoping they all talk to each other.

hoping some progress can be made on that front very soon for your mother!

tipsy my nurse wife says:

"Low sodium is a strange thing and involves fluid and electrolyte imbalances and intercellular fluid m. If the balance of fluids and sodium is upset, you can experience hypernatremia – having too much sodium and not enough fluid. Or you can experience hyponatremia – having too much fluid and not enough sodium. Both of these conditions can be the result of dehydration. It usually is related to diuretics but can also be problems with kidneys and sometimes when it has one of these causes it is not a simple fix ie, more water or more salt dies not necessarily fix it.

she adds "I am not a doctor"

Thanks! It definitely seems complicated.

Old habits (never having insurance, don't go to a doctor unless absolutely necessary) die hard (even after Medicare) - my mom waited until her appendix perforated to go to the doctor, who immediately sent her to a CAT scan who immediately sent her to the ER.

Jeez, sorry. I hope she's OK.

best wishes for your mother milo

Thanks, she's currently mostly concerned about making sure her dogs get their proper diet of leftover turkey and fancy kibble.

that's an a+ mom

so hey, nothing like finding out the church (that my mother was a member of btw) that we're holding dad's memorial at tomorrow wants $750 for the entire ceremony...the day before.

we never would have used them.

we expected they'd just ask for a donation to the church based on prior conversations, something in the low hundreds.

I hate my life right now.

can't move it or postpone it because family coming from out of town

death is an absolute racket

so fucked

It is our most modestly priced receptacle.

plz don't lump ilxor Jaq in with the death racketeers. some of the people drawn into that field see it as a calling and are truly wonderful. in sum, death is a land of contrasts.

Would never, Jaq is amazing!

Aww y'all are very sweet. That's a terrible spot the church has put you in Neando - I really hope the celebration of your Dad's life is memorable for good reasons.

Mom had an ER visit this weekend, though fortunately relatively minor - turned out to be a minor bout of colitis and she got sent home after an IV drip with antibiotics.

we chose a different one than the one dad usually stayed at because didn't wanna dredge up those memories.

she also has a cough that she's seemed to have for a month and a half that I'm concerned about, esp given lung cancer history (though she never had a cough when she DID have the lung cancer before it was removed). asking her to get that looked at next. hospital didn't really do anything w/ that since it wasn't her primary reason for visit.

Mom borrowed $150 from me a week and a half ago and is extremely vague about when she can pay back. I really wasn't in any place to do it. But I can survive that once.

So she hasn't paid that back and asks for $350 today and I (unintentionally) reacted exasperated "no way - I don't have that to spare right now".

Like if I do that, nobody's getting a Christmas gift this year.

Why don't I say no more often?

Half the time she goes to my brother who immediately msgs me to complain.

Or she goes and gets a predatory loan from somewhere without telling me.

20+ years of this shit, going back to age 18.

At least this time I finally reacted the right way. But she knows I can't afford to do this and saw the distraught way I looked on Friday before I broke down crying in my car and my best friend called me trying to comfort me.

Why would you ask when you know I can't and when you know it's going to get me worked up? It's the feeling of being asked to solve everyone's problems that stresses me out more than anything.

On the plus side, I think I staved off the lawsuit by settling with my bank. If you can call it that.

Like at what point do I just leave the country and go into hiding so I can start over anew under a new identity and everyone else cash my life insurance cos that's all I am apparently anyway atm, a bank

It’s ok if no one gets a Xmas gift. Felt like I needed to say that.
I feel like saying no and maintaining your boundaries is a muscle that needs to be flexed in order to grow strong enough to work.

it is for sure. I appreciate the response.

It was a wee bit easier for me to enforce my boundaries when my mother wasn't my roommate. then, I actually told them a few times I would not help but actually told them how these actions were hurting me. they would always find a solution when I said "no" (usually someone else that wouldn't tell them "no"), even filed bankruptcy twice in the shortest window of time allowable by law.

The moment I agreed to move in with the folks to help with rent and take care of dad, that hurt that dynamic a little. I'm aware that this is still an excuse and not one that absolves me, but - my ability to stay detached and not get directly involved in my mother's financial issues became a lot more difficult when they could potentially threaten her ability to pay rent. I absolutely can't afford to pay the entire rent myself - and I'm stuck in this lease until October of 2024. (after which I am 100% moving out, it's already been discussed - mom needs to find a rental assistance property as she will likely qualify)

as far as the presents thing, it might sound silly and materialistic, but...I went to Sea World with friends a few weeks ago and they were playing nothing but old school Christmas music and I just got really down and sad. it reminded me of dad, but all I could think as well is how great our family Christmases were growing up and how lousy this year's is going to be, not just because of dad, but because of how much I'm struggling just to keep the lights on.

at least being able to treat my friends and family, even if on a diminished scale...would at least help me salvage the holiday, make it feel real. I'm not a religious person or even someone who was mega into Christmas, but our family Christmases brought a lot of wonderful memories - even recently, in 2021, dad got sprung from assisted living on Christmas Eve, returned home, and promptly began actually singing (sotto voce) Beatles songs along with my brother, which he'd not done in a long time.

in any case, so my brother apparently made a secret deal with mom that he's going to give her a little bit of money each week until her job starts (and she's already passed orientation and is ready to start ASAP). I'm not contributing anything. I'm going to let my brother do this because frankly, I've done way more of the financial lifting than him, and he isn't in danger of going ass-up at the moment, from what he told me.

also Social Security is fucking Mom over their seeming confusion of how Waivers of Overpayments work - their own form says not to use it if it's for a waiver of under $1,000, and every time she calls, they refer her to use the form, even when she points out the form says not for under $1,000. One of the times when I was with her, they told her they were taking care of it, only to send a letter showing us they actually did nothing whatsoever. so now we're sending in a form and going to snarkily circle the part that says not to use for under $1,000, but if anybody knows of any way to escalate a complaint to SS sooner, please let me know.

I was worried about how Christmas would go this year. we decided to celebrate at an affordable hotel that my brother and I paid for, because Mom just thinks of Dad all the time she is home and wanted a change of scenery, and we thought this was a great idea. Although we're all grieving, Mom is (understandably) having the hardest time with it. She was married to him for 50 years, and we never had a hospital bed for him - even in his last months living at home, they slept in the same bed.

Mom and I had not been getting along as well recently, which for us is unusual - for years we had gotten along wonderfully, one or two caregiver burnout squabbles excepted. Part of it due to her putting her energy 100% into me now, and me feeling suffocated at times, whereas me not having fully processed my grief also has lead me to act out in ways unlike me. I even apologized a few weeks ago for my mood...it just comes out of nowhere.

Well, this Christmas was nothing short of wonderful. We spent a lovely time together, me, my mother, my brother, and his fiancee. My brother's fiancee was with us as Dad died and is just as much family as any one of us three, and has been a huge help to my mother (she lost her own father in a tragic accident a few years ago). Mom did have a moment that broke my heart a little - we left dinner to go back to our hotel and I asked (foolishly) "Are you having a good Christmas?", and her demeanor changed and she said "as good as ...can be expected", and started crying, so I hugged her hard for a moment and told her I loved her.

My brother...for all the complaints upthread, did one of the most thoughtful things he's ever done, and as a gift got me custom guitar picks...with pictures of me and Dad on them (as well as one of the four of us on the back).

Over the few days, I had moments where I kept thinking of Dad. I finally had a moment alone after mom went to sleep, and I pulled up dad's FB profile (which now is a Memorial page), and thumbed through pics for the first time in some time, I finally let the grief wash over me instead of hiding from it, and just cried for about a solid half hour. there's still a lot of it left in me because my brain tries to shut down these crying fits but I didn't let it this time. I'm glad I did. it helped me understand how much I'd been holding back but also means I'm not just holding onto these feelings.

we're visiting my aunt this weekend for New Year's and going to finally spread some of his ashes around on his sister's property. that'll be a nice moment. we're healing, it's happening, but we've survived the first two holidays without him closer together, which was the end goal.

That's really good to hear. Glad you all were able to be together, and that you're able to let yourself feel your grief.