AGING PARENTS

My sister and I went on a whirlwind tour of four different assisted living places yesterday. The outpatient place where my mom is put us in touch with a woman who works as a real estate agent for (what the preferred term is) assisted living facilities. Whatever stereotypes you're imagining after reading that describes the day. If I was a douchey indie film screenwriter, a repeating theme would be:

ASSISTED LIVING FACILITY AGENT has programmed the addresses of dozens 
of facilities in the satellite navigation system of her Mercedes SUV and scrolls 
through them with the expertise of a veteran video gamer.

Oddly enough the one we went with is the one that felt most like a well appointed desert Indian casino. Guess that's what the Greatest Generation goes for now. The facilities were all new and the staff simply seemed like they gave a shit about the residents. Blurted out "it looks just like The Village from The Prisoner" several times during the day.

I know what you mean - we went through a similar search three years ago, right before the holidays, for Mr. Jaq's mom. If there had been a more casino themed one available, it would have been a perfect fit. As it is now, he takes her out every other Sunday to one. She was just moved into the "memory care" unit though, and has trouble remembering how the slot machines work. It's a challenging time, and my thoughts are with you.

I'm so sorry man, that's so rough. It's such a hard decision to make. I foresee that we'll be facing similar tough decisions in the coming year/s with my father in law as his dementia worsens. There's a small, quiet part of me that hopes that he shuffles off before such a decision has to be made.

It's so hard to bear witness to that level of helplessness...I really sympathize.

So last weekend, my mother unplugged the monitor and tried to use the bathroom by herself (this is still at the first outpatient place). She fell and hurt her back pretty badly, so assisted living is now completely out of the question. Go directly to Memory Care, do not pass Go, etc. The doctor's report gets directly to the point... "dementia, memory loss, wandering & fall risk." I drove her to the new facility on Monday in her own car, but she couldn't recognize it and kept forgetting after I reminded her. Since then she has been just horrible to the staff who have been nothing but patient. I got a message this morning that she had been screaming so loudly at everyone that she developed chest pains and had to be readmitted back to the hospital.

I had been thinking to myself "ok, maybe after 90 days (a totally arbitrary number) things will become predicable again." Now I'm not sure at all.

Thanks for all the kind words. Need to unload somewhere and it might as well be here.

In the meantime, I'm dealing with two floors of this.

http://quartzcity.net/ilx/momshouse.jpg

The front door to the house is back there somewhere. I bought a giant 150 count box of 13 gallon trash bags at Home Depot and have filled half of them (75 - I counted) with unopened mail, magazines, and newspapers. That's just from the living room.

I think I'm now an expert in dealing with aging parent hoarders - feel free to ask questions!

Oh, ET, I am so sorry it's going down this way. Just wishing you strength to cope with it!

(feeling kinda guilty tho coz that room is really only a year or so away from my living room. Eep!)

oh jesus. sorry elvis and best to u

Damn. Sending best.

et, you will get through, i'm so sorry to hear of the circumstances. stay strong. don't forget to take care of yourself.

Oh Elvis. I'm so sorry.

This is the tough stuff of life, sorry you are going through it.

I recently learned that hoarding disorder is now classified as a distinct disorder (as opposed to a form of obsessive compulsive disorder) in the new DSM-V. One of my profs at BU does hoarding research--apparently it is very difficult to treat. I'm so sorry that you have a massive cleanup on your hands on top of your mom's move. What a good child you are, you should be proud and take all due credit for what you are doing on your mom's behalf. Best wishes during this difficult time, to you and all of the other ilxors dealing with aging parent issues.

And to ENBB and everyone else trying to engage their family in end-of-life planning, you might find this helpful? This is how I'm pushing my spouse to structure a convo with his parents:

http://www.engagewithgrace.org/

Click on "download the one slide"

quincie, thanks for that link - knowing it's too late to have this conversation with my MIL makes it seem possible to approach it with my mother, and to think about what I would want for myself.

Elvis, oh man - take care of yourself as you deal with all this, take full advantage of any and all resources you can. It can feel invasive to contract out a cleanup, but remember the possibility is there if it becomes just too much.

It can feel invasive to contract out a cleanup, but remember the possibility is there if it becomes just too much

My sister and I have considered this, but there's some treasure mixed in with the trash so everything needs to be looked at. An example...

A great uncle had a career straight out of a Biggles adventure story. When World War One started, he left Canada for England, learned how to fly, and joined up with the pre-RAF Royal Flying Corps in 1915. He was a reconnaissance pilot, was pals with King Albert I of Belgium, took part in the first aerial survey of Africa, and somehow survived it all. Would have loved to have met him, but he passed before I was born.

One long-standing mystery was whatever happened to his war medals (a Distinguished Flying Cross, a cigarette case presented to him by King Albert, etc.) My mother eventually convinced herself that one of her sisters took them when the old family house was cleaned out but she was always questioning herself about it.

Well I found them. Stuffed in a plastic supermarket grocery bag, Underneath a pile of squalid newspapers with a chair over them. The only thing missing was a "Beware Of The Leopard" sign.

wow

Seriously wow

I recently learned that hoarding disorder is now classified as a distinct disorder (as opposed to a form of obsessive compulsive disorder) in the new DSM-V. One of my profs at BU does hoarding research--apparently it is very difficult to treat.

Does your prof have any articles or books out? Would love to read anything on hoarding that's not at a reality show level. I'm especially curious about neuropsych/genetic connections. My mother's father was a big hoarder, my brother is a hoarder, while an aunt is an obsessive neat freak.

BTW, while I'm not a physical hoarder - I do have 8TB of hard drives full of mp3s, scanned comics, etc.

Finding some amazingly Really Weird Shit too. My favorite so far is a fake pewter (but probably aluminum) peacock free-standing flower vase. Apparently you're supposed to put the flowers in its butt. It's aggressively hideous.

Black humor helps immeasurably through all this.

By the way, if anyone here is facing these kinds of issues with your parents. PLEASE do everything you can to have power of attorney, bank accounts, etc. squared away. I don't know what we would be doing now if that wasn't taken care of.

On the lighter side, I found this. Yes, I'm a member of the Wacky Packages generation.

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BdFq8W8CAAA4B0a.jpg

I wish you the best ET, I empathize with your situation, and I recommend a book called Stuff by Steketee/Frost. It was very compassionately written and totally not stupid. It changed my relationship with my mom after she read it.

The Steketee/Frost book is great. Recommend it to anyone dealing with this.

One more crazy treasure-in-the-trash story, but I'm doing this at risk of class warfare.

My mother's interests can be summarized like this: cars, football, skiing, ice skating, and the British Royal Family, but cars are definitely #1 on the list. She was pretty active in vintage car clubs, and 2013 was the first time she missed going to the vintage races and concours up in Monterey. The Little Old Lady from Pasadena? That's her.

About two years ago she voluntarily chose to stop driving. This was a HUGE decision and one I never ever expected her to make on her own. She was just way too independent to admit that her eyesight and hearing was failing on her.

The Little Old Lady From Pasadena might have driven a shiny red Super Stock Dodge, but my mom drove these:

http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1108/1372811681_7a0fca804c.jpg

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4078/4741094340_6637e8fa83.jpg

When she stopped driving, the key to the A-M vanished in the house somewhere. I offered to help look for the key, but she completely refused (with increasing levels of fury and anger as her health worsened). Getting a new key from the dealer was out of the question ("I'm not paying for a new goddamn key - it's in the house somewhere!") so there it sat for a year.

I eventually found the key at the bottom of a box filled with letters (date range 1968 - 2009) and thousands of those pre-printed return address labels that you sometimes get unsolicited in the mail.

P.S. to the story... When I took her to the nursing home on Monday night, I took her in the A-M - patiently explaining "don't worry, I'm taking care of the cars. I found the key. etc. etc." She didn't recognize the car at all. Sure, she might have occasionally called me by my brother's name and she's been repeating her words for awhile, but this was my first hand "she's not coming back" moment. A couple hours later, I found out that Benjamin Curtis passed. Fucking hell.

P.P.S. What's getting me through this is cooking (the meals at Casa Drone are spectacular and my baking skills are now off the charts), binge watching X-Files on Netflix, and good old-fashioned California Medical Weed. One day at a time as they say.

Indeed. And yeah...not coming up for the Concours must have seemed so strange.

To an earlier point:

By the way, if anyone here is facing these kinds of issues with your parents. PLEASE do everything you can to have power of attorney, bank accounts, etc. squared away. I don't know what we would be doing now if that wasn't taken care of.

Thankfully -- very thankfully -- my parents have been extremely good about this, and I have all paperwork to hand if necessary. We just spent a little time as well during the holidays updating access to safe deposit boxes too. As time progresses we'll see what more needs to happen, but they've been very proactive, and if anything my sis and I wait on them. And so time continues, for now.

When my grandma died, my parents and my dad's brother and his wife spent months clearing out what was a fair amount of stuff from her house, and much like ET mentions, there were hidden treasures among...not trash per se (it never got that cluttered), but a lot of unnecessary things. They said the experience made them aware of how to keep things as simple as possible in terms of what was kept at the house -- it's almost been two decades since grandma's and the process has always been one of a careful paring down of possessions and necessities -- and seeing a story like ET's make me feel very fortunate.

ET, we're dealing with something not dissimilar. my wife's mom has alzheimer's (70 years old) and is getting progressively worse (yesterday she thought i was her father) and her eyesight is also terrible. in addition to that, my wife's dad (83 years old) is a mid-level hoarder (almost in a "sweep everything under the rug" way; the living room is deceptively clean but the bedrooms and his office are stacked with old newspapers, magazines, etc, the garage is worse than that, real earthquake hazard rooms.) he refuses to throw pretty much anything away and the kitchen and dining tables are stacked with papers that have to be shuffled aside so we can eat.

worse still is that he was never social and has really no friends, and she has one good friend. plus he leaves her alone for 90 min every day when he goes to temple. and he won't stop. we're just in the process of trying to get their finances in order as best we can AND getting someone into the house to help while working our jobs and raising a two year old.

my inlaws are caring for my father inlaw, who has severe dementia. my brother inlaw swore to his mom before she died that he would take care of his dad, and now he is saddled with the depth of that reality.

at first it was just him & my sisterinlaw doing the caring, but two months of that proved that the task was too big for just them to manage. my brother inlaw, a paramedic & firefighter, had come across Samoan women caring for dementia patients a few times when he ran calls, and he had noticed how good they were with their charges. years later he remembered them & made some calls, and hired two of them to take over his inhome care & housekeeping 7-4 every day except sunday.

this was a HUGE gamechanger. it allowed my inlaws to restore their relationship with him somewhat instead of being "in charge of him" which is a big distinction & a hard role to take on for family members. it also frees up their time so they could separate a little during the day & focus on caring for him at night. unfortunately sunset is the worst time for him - he gets anxious & belligerent, barricades himself in his room, and loses a lot of his cognition around this time of day, as quickly as if you flipped a switch.

the carers have bought them some time, but we are all well aware that it's all borrowed now. but unless/until he becomes violent or a threat to himself/family, my brother inlaw will keep him under his roof.

and while he still knows who we are, it seems to do him some good.

but i have every understanding for anyone not in the position to manage homecare. it's not black or white, and ultimately the best thing for these people we love is as changeable as weather.

i think the thing I have learned watching my father inlaw is the sad reality that most of the qualities i associate with him are now largely gone, just swept away like an eroding sand dune. the shape of him is still there, and it tricks you...but he is fragile inside, and more and more unable to live up to what we all want for him in this stage of his life. it's the hardest thing to watch

Tomorrow marks a milestone: my 89-year-old grandmother has sullenly consented to live-in care. Mind, this was a woman who up until two hours ago still drove her car to the supermarket, about three miles east to the beauty parlor and manicurist, and until three months ago balanced her own checkbook. To increasing scorn and now resignation from my grandmother, Mom has taken this away and restocks her pillbox every week. Except for short term memory lapses which clear as soon as she has a conversation, she's a woman of stunning mental and physical fortitude: no heart trouble to speak, no hereditary cancers, no longterm problems of any kind! When I visit Sunday mornings we watch the Food Channel and she tells me what horrors Guy Fieri concocted an hour before.

Although I'm proud of her independence, it's not a good idea for a woman a year shy of ninety to drive anymore, and my mother understandably resents waiting by the phone anxiously when it's 6 p.m. and Grandma doesn't answer the phone -- she's at the supermarket and lost track of time. Pride keeps Grandma from admitting she wants Mom to do for her what Grandma did to her own mother: be a slave in the most abject manner as she deteriorates (my great grandmother's dementia was a searing experience; unlike Grandma she was a violent woman who bit, kicked, punched, and yelled bloodcurdling imprecations at anyone, young and old, male or female). She would like nothing more than my mother to simply move in with her, regardless of the fact that she's married, happily, to my father and has no intention of spending her autumnal years in bondage to quiet dementia...and for what exactly? To assuage a guilt that doesn't mean shit anyway once the person dies?

When my grandma died, my parents and my dad's brother and his wife spent months clearing out what was a fair amount of stuff from her house, and much like ET mentions, there were hidden treasures among...not trash per se (it never got that cluttered), but a lot of unnecessary things. They said the experience made them aware of how to keep things as simple as possible in terms of what was kept at the house

My mom learned the wisdom of this a few months ago as she threw away Grandma's tax returns from 1976. Fortunately she gave Mom power of attorney and do-not-resuscitate orders years ago, before the trouble.

The Steketee/Frost book is great. Recommend it to anyone dealing with this.

Gail Steketee is my prof! Super smart and passionate.

I filled an entire cargo van with paper garbage (newspapers, unopened/junk mail, and magazines) to the recycler yesterday. Total weight: 1.52 tons. This was mostly trash from the upstairs living room and side bedroom. There's still a long ways to go, but at least there's a little bit of maneuvering room.

Strong possibility that the nursing home might Section Eight my mother out to a mental hospital for a couple of weeks while they adjust her meds. My sister and I brought her some furniture on Friday night and she greeted us with the worst kind "my children are horrible. I'd rather die alone" hostility and violence (she's been punching the staff members and shrieking out loud for minutes at a time). The floor supervisor told us that this behavior is "moderate to average" for Level 4 dementia. Had to ask what the worst is and she said that they sometimes get residents who throw themselves against the wall, beat their heads on furniture, etc. Wondering what the hell level 5 and up is...

Sorry to hear it, ET. A psychiatric unit may be very helpful for your mom; clearly she is having a hard time of it (which of course means YOU are having a hard time of it, too!). Sounds like you making good progress with the house, kudos on that.

Sheesh, ET, my heart goes out to you, I can't imagine what it's like to go through something like this.

While I was out in Vermont last autumn, my Mum, while in the process of rearranging her own house, announced that she had no intention whatsoever to live past 80, even if it took measures to ensure this. And at the time I was kind of freaking out, like, how can you say this, it's not your choice to make, you live as long as you live, if I'm not allowed to end my life, you're not allowed to end your life. But then I realised, that she is a priest, and has an ageing congregation, and spends half her life going to hospitals and old age care facilities, and administering last rites, and she's seen a great deal of how people end their lives and under what conditions. I suppose I should commend her for making the decision while she still has the faculties to make it, but it scares the shit out of me.

Oh ET how hard this must be for you to go through. I'm so sorry you've been dealing with this. I have about 30 something unread bookmarks and only just now saw this. I can't even imagine.

My mom is beginning to forget things. A lot. She forgets words for this and instead describes them and stops mid-sentence. Last week she apparently had no idea who my dad was in a picture of the two of them taken back when they first met and admitted that her forgetfulness is beginning to scare her.

I never did get to talk to them about what will happen if he dies first and I'm literally the only person left to make decisions about her/with her etc. I think I really need to when I go visit next month though because her flat out refusal to talk about his not only ridiculous at this point, it's insanely selfish.

I have about 30 something unread bookmarks and only just now saw this. I can't even imagine.

You need to stop hoarding bookmarks.

._.

yeah I think I'm gonna delete some now tbh. I bookmark things I don't even care about which is weird.

I mean, someone's going to have to come along and delete those things one day.

I kid about a harsh subject because I'm on the internet and none of you can punch me, but I've been watching my parents go through all of this with their parents. My mother has been moving things back and forth between three houses since my grandmother died nine years ago. I just want to say STOP, THROW IT AWAY, TAKE IT TO CHARITY.

And my diabetic father who's losing feeling in his feet lives in this swanky 1981 A-frame with spiral staircases and a loft bedroom that has this imitation wrought-iron barrier separating him from the living room 25 feet below. Step-mom has MS. Right now, there are about 20 years worth of Fantasy Football trophies sitting on the floor at the pinnacle of one of those spiral staircases.

So I'm not as close to the situation as some of you are, but I can sure smell it from here. My dad's mom went a little demented late in life, thinking Mexicans were electrocuting her dog through the carpet. I ask him, what am I going to do when you start saying crazy things like that? His answer is along the lines of, "Well, first of all, Mexicans weren't really doing anything to your grandma," and I"m like I KNOW THAT.

thinking Mexicans were electrocuting her dog through the carpet

woah

Oh, they'd come in and steal checks that she had written to the phone company. Leave the TV and jewelry behind, even the checkbook itself.

So I'm not as close to the situation as some of you are, but I can sure smell it from here.

My sister and I knew that the status quo with my mother was going to change sometime - we just didn't know when and how it would play out. You just end up waiting around vaguely worried and on hold. I'm right in that age-range when people are dealing with elderly parents and answering the "hey ET, how's it going?" question has led to a lot of stories. I believe a lot of us are more worried about our parents than climate change.

*throws away more mp3s and bookmarks*

haha yeah - for the last 3 years my parents have been my main source of concerns (on a daily basis basically). My situation is pretty extreme, but it's true that once your touch the subject you realise how many people around you are dealing with all kinds of family shit.

as documented elsewhere here I'm helping my wife deal w/her parents (her mom has Alzheimer's and her dad has hoarding issues) and it's a terrible combo. I think this particular generation of people was a generation also that accumulated a lot of stuff, in general, maybe more than subsequent ones. I have no evidence to back this theory up but I also know a lot of people ourselves included who are almost terrified of having too much random crap around the house bc of how we've seen it pile up in the houses of older relatives. my wife's grandparents on the other hand (who are in their 90s, lucid, and sadly well aware of their daughter's state) on the other hand just have always thrown or given everything away (to almost comical degrees: they'll get a gift from someone and a week later quietly give it to someone else. Sometimes the same day!)

my wife lives in fear of the day she inherits the staggering hoard of antique car parts that fills the barn and house of her childhood home

Call those American Picker guys.

my wife lives in fear of the day she inherits the staggering hoard of antique car parts that fills the barn and house of her childhood home

FWIW, the antique/collector car underground is surprisingly helpful when it comes to these situations. Last year a friend of mine had to deal with her father's car/car parts hoard and after just a few well-placed ads got connected with a collector who paid $$$$ to take the whole works. That world is obsessed with "old cars in barns" stories.

my wife's grandparents on the other hand (who are in their 90s, lucid, and sadly well aware of their daughter's state)

This is heart-breaking

my hard left (but stock market baller dad): "wait for rick santelli's take, he knows what he's talking about"

Aging parents.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but one of the reasons I moved to Los Angeles was to spend the last few years of my guardian's life with her. She raised me and though she was not my biological mother, she was the closest thing I ever had to one.

Today marks two months since she passed away. There was a lot of reflecting going on in the last three months. Earlier in 2013, I remember having a conversation with a good friend and telling her, "I don't know if she can make it through another winter". But the next winter seemed so far away. And even a couple of days before her passing, death seemed so far away.

Now, I'm not judging anyone, obviously, and I think it totally depends on other circumstances, but we would have never put her in a home. Too many thoughts going through my head right now to write something coherent.

I remember about 8 of us slept in her hospital room for probably four days, because we didn't want her to be alone. Many of her family members visited and she seemed to be improving. As the black sheep in a Catholic family, I always looked at the science, and was sceptical ever since maybe April of 2013. And everyone kept...I don't know if deluding themselves is the right word, but they kept holding onto their faith and at the hint of any positive news, they'd forget about all the other ill-occurrences and symptoms she'd had and would continue to have. It was shocking to me, and I tried to say something, but pretty much got accused of so many bad things and being so negative, when I was only trying to help.

Too many thoughts.

She was probably the strongest person I have ever met in my entire life.

I remember when I first created this user, it was meant as an experiment. I really can't keep it up anymore, as it is too much work and seems quite infantile and frivolous. Still trying to understand if there was a deeper meaning for all of this than what it all appears on the face of it.

Created a new user.

god bless you. i mean that. and i don't believe in god. but i feel for you. i went through something similar w/ my grandmother, but it's too difficult to write about right now.