AGING PARENTS

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.

I spend most of this period visiting at weekends, and other times - and in that rather mad space where you seem cut off from the concerns of normal life, unable to relax for a minute, and living a kind of nightmare existence that no-one else around you realises. (Nothing like the horrific life of a full-time career - but bad enough).

The only thing you can say about it is that it passes, and you realise that what felt like an endless enduring period was in the end just another temporary era.

Pfff - i'll requote this again, mostly for my own personal benefit. Good to know that people have gone through this shit, since it often feels like you're living a nightmare that's completely oblivious to everybody else.

An Amazing Village Designed Just For People With Dementia

For example, one common symptom is the urge to roam, often without warning, which had led most "memory units" and dementia care centers to institute a strict lock-down policy. In one German town, an Alzheimer's care center event set up a fake bus stop to foil wandering residents. At Hogeweyk, the interior of the security perimeter is its own little village—which means that patients can move about as they wish without being in danger.

http://www.anglotopia.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/truman-show-lightning-travel-agent.png

The whole concept makes me very teary, I think that is a wonderful way to care for dementia patients.

And the fake bus stop made me lol, I bet that would work wonders with my father in law.

If I could live out my final days as a shambling Number Six perpetually harassing The Village in that annoying old-person way... I would be so fucking happy.

right? it makes total sense

What if you already are? WHAT IF YOU ALREADY ARE?

The floors are now able to tell The Village if you've wandered too far: http://www.future-shape.com/en/technologies/23/sensfloor-large-area-sensor-system

Was it on this page where I talked about my grandmother thinking her dog was being electrocuted through the carpet by her neighbors?

Because I'm so glad she never saw that link, Elvis.

TMI ahead.

So back in March my mother managed to sneak out of the memory care floor and make it outside by hiding next to the food cart in the elevator and then casually walking out the front door. Alert! The facility calls the cops and everything becomes comically ridiculous with all the procedures that have to be activated when a well-appointed assisted living facility in 2014 surveillance state Orange County goes on lockdown. I'm so fucking thankful I have a job however tenuous because I dodged being the one who had to take the call to persuade my mom to go back inside - my sister did. It all works out OK and she goes back in. The folks at the facility were trying to figure out how she managed to get off of the second floor, but I know the real reason: all the 60s/70s-era pulp espionage fiction she loves*! Alistair MacLean, Len Deighton, Robert Ludlum, Clive Cussler, etc. she read it all. One unexpected benefit of being the child of a super-conservative mom is that we saw every James Bond** movie, every nihilistic conspiracy movie, cold war/WWII/etc. movie on opening night at the Big Edwards in Fascist Island.

The situation over there though was worsening. My mother was just being obnoxious and belligerent, kept trying to get out, and just horrible to everyone. Two weeks ago the facility finally had enough... An Official 5150 (really! It's on the form) and she was moved to a psych hospital for a couple of weeks so her meds could be straightened-out. Success! My sister saw her today and the difference was incredible. She's still talks in cycles and thinks she fell down and hit her head while ice skating but at least she's friendly. One staffer described her as being "the mom you wished you had." Hoping so at least for her sake. I haven't been over there since she told me to shut up and shrieked like a pod person.

*I've been hauling all of these books out of the hoard and taking them to Goodwill by the van-full. My sister and I just started in on month four of this and by my rough calculations + actual vehicle weighing we've hauled out 8.5 tons of crap: most of it books, old clothes, leftover material from abandoned construction and bags upon bags upon bags of paper garbage. One set of civic trash cans have already been killed and replaced (for free!) with larger/stronger ones. Last weekend I let my inner troglodyte take over and took two van loads of disgusting desiccated furniture and leftover construction material to the San Juan Capistrano landfill. At least there's an ocean view out there. The master plan for that part of the county is that the landfill will close in 2067 and then a regional park and city built over the top. I haven't been to the county landfill in over twenty years and I had no idea just how oversized it is now. These days you just kick the trash out of the van onto the landfill moonscape while a bulldozer the size of a McDonalds stands by to grind your filth into the ground. I totally nerd out on infrastructure and things the CLUI does but holy shit there's an eye-croggling amount of Future Bullshit our followers are going to have to deal with. I hate hoarding. I fucking hate it. I hate the corporations who sell "collectables" to elderlies because it's only collectable to a dying generation. I hate the default "that will be worth something some day" and "one day I'm going to fix that up" attitudes. I'm even more annoyed when my hoarding gene is validated and something I hung onto becomes useful again. Prima Deshecha Landfill is now my #1 search term on my phone's Google Maps.

**Of course there will never be a movie about what happens when the older children of an 89-year-old Stage 4 Dementia Moneypenny have to deal with her craziness. I'm still waiting for that perfect existential moment to hit while driving the Aston Martin around but so far no success. Too many assholes that rev engines at stop lights and try to ruin your day.

whoa! I can't believe your mom sneaked out! That is scary but also totally amazing and I can't help but cheer for her.

Glad she is doing better. What meds is she taking? <<< that is a totally personal question so feel free to ignore, of course, but I do have a professional interest in such things or I wouldn't ask!

Your cleanup is amazing. So is your writing. TY for these posts!

I wish I could be around in 2067 for a 20th Century bureaucrat to explain to the new mayor what to do with the landfill.

"Well, our thinking back then was that you could build a park on top of it."

Porcelain Air Bud doll, commemorative plate remembering the 5/23 attacks, wicker bean bag roll by...

"Yeah, that's what you were thinking, eh?"

medication adjustments can really make a huge difference

my father in law (dementia) was aggressive, argumentative, downright misogynistic to my sister in law and his female carer and over a period of 6 months had turned into this horrible man that they didn't want to be around, and did not at ALL resemble the man he had been before things ramped up.

a month ago they took him off a few medications, put him on some new ones (I couldn't tell you what exactly the changes were)...he's back to his old self. He can follow a logical flow of conversation, doesn't get aggressive or agitated with ideas that are new to him, and is much friendlier to be around especially for my sister in law and his carer

I think it's difficult when they are on so many medications for physical ailments AND mental ailments, and in some cases they may have more than one doctor and none of them know what the other is prescribing, or aren't made aware by guardians or whatever. having someone knowledgeable to act as a *medical* advocate for aging patients where mental health is an issue can really make a difference

Glad she is doing better. What meds is she taking? <<< that is a totally personal question so feel free to ignore, of course, but I do have a professional interest in such things or I wouldn't ask!

I haven't seen the full report back from the hospital so I don't have the full details. The text from my sister simply said "Better living through chemistry"

I wish I could be around in 2067 for a 20th Century bureaucrat to explain to the new mayor what to do with the landfill.

You don't have to wait, you can read about the toxic mess at the former Coyote Canyon Landfill site

From all outward appearances, Newport Coast—the prized real-estate development project of Orange County's wealthiest, most powerful man, Irvine Co. billionaire Don Bren—looks to be a slice of heaven on Earth. Elaborate gates and private guards protect hillside neighborhoods with sweeping, Pacific Ocean views. Mediterranean-style houses, some accurately called "palatial estates" in real-estate guides, can fetch $20 million or more. Even the palm tree-, succulent- and flower-lined, litter-free public roads suggest paradise.

It's the perfect setting for a crime or, at least, a bizarre mystery.

Just as Bren hails himself as the perfect, proud capitalist even though his private, cash-cow project is (cleverly) publicly subsidized, Newport Coast is built on a contradiction. Next to all those gorgeous estates is one of OC's largest toxic dumps: Beside Newport Coast Road, the 395-acre Coyote Canyon Landfill contains 60 million cubic yards of municipal solid waste generated from household, commercial, industrial, recreational and agricultural trash sources during a 30-year period.

But the waste—so extensive it goes 200 feet deep—hasn't just been sitting there. County officials and Bren have allowed a gas-recovery company to burn the trash to generate power. Incinerating trash can have negative consequences for nearby humans through the release of dioxins and arsenic into the atmosphere. In January 2010, a decision to burn Coyote Canyon trash around the clock seven days a week doubled the cancer-risk threshold, requiring government air-quality officials to alert 200 Newport Coast households to the danger.

This is where our crime mystery begins.

After the decision to keep Coyote Canyon incinerators burning nonstop, Anna D. Steiner—a practicing medical doctor, single mother of three children and well-to-do Newport Coast resident—noticed that her children (ages 14, 12 and 11) began suffering unusual symptoms, including bloody noses and chronic abdominal pain. Concerned, Steiner took them for urinalysis testing. Arsenic—a lethal poison in large doses—was detected, but in levels considered normal. The kids continued to exhibit signs of sickness, and Steiner continued to test. In May 2010, her youngest child twice tested positive for above-normal levels of arsenic in her system.

The findings were understandably alarming. Steiner wondered if Coyote Canyon landfill activities caused the poisoning, or if a sneaky, would-be killer was loose. On the advice of a social worker and with the hope of solving the mystery, she went to the local police in Bren's home city for help.

If there are any Boston-area ilxors who read this thread, I need your help.

We live in nyc, but my wife is in Framingham right now trying to get her mother's situation sorted out. In a nutshell, her mom has had severe OCD for a long time and it has gotten to the point where it is seriously imperiling her health (she's barely eating or drinking because of her inner edicts). She lives on her own in a subsidized complex and gets social security. She still drives (is only in her early 70s) and goes out every day, but is highly, angrily, nastily, cunningly resistant to treatment for her problem. My wife is down there to basically force her into treatment by hook or by crook, preferably CBT and with a female practitioner, maybe inpatient if medicare/Tufts HMO will cover it. Wife is gonna stay down there for a week and half but there is def gonna need to be something like a caseworker popping in on Mom after that to make sure she is working whatever program is assigned her etc. I am hoping one of y'all might know a) a provider that fits the bill in the area around framingham/metro west and or b) some kind of MA state program that is especially geared toward this kind of instance with elderly patients? Or a state hotline that points one in the right direction? Wife does not have much internet access down there and only has her smartphone with her so I'm trying to come up with a game plan from my perch in nyc...

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.

Does anyone here have any advice on convincing a reluctant parent to cooperate in this sort of business? My mother is living in squalor reminiscent of the pictures upthread, and in the past has dodged the question when I try to bring up this subject. I dread the idea of something critical happening, and having to dig through feet of stuff to try and find her information.

(I am so cowardly in the face of this that I am considering getting back together with the guy I dumped years ago, just in hope of getting some emotional support.)

hey jon. to get the attention of the people you want, just keep posting here: Boston -- Classic or Dirty Water?

that's kind of our thread. (even if you didn't get a response last time)

it's been more inactive as of late than it has in the past, but it's possibly your best bet on ilx

Best wishes and positive thoughts to all on this thread -- this is hard, hard stuff.

Since his retirement, Pa C. has been living in a cabin in the north Georgia mountains. Over the last year or two it has become obvious that his ability to function on his own is waning. What finally prompted me to intervene was his inability to make the drive to or from our house, about 100 miles, without becoming confused and lost and arriving many hours late. After his last nerve-wracking attempt, I talked to him very directly about how much stress and fear his diminishing capacity was creating for me and for the rest of the family. His short-term memory is shot, but he's otherwise still fairly cogent, and he seemed to respond much better to my saying "you can't live this way any more because it's scaring me to death" than "you can't live this way any more because you're frail and demented."

Once I got him to acknowledge there was a problem, he gradually let me get more directly involved. That was about six months ago. Last week he moved into a place a few blocks from ours and so far seems to be adapting well to his new environment. How I am going to adapt to spending many hours a week helping him shop, clean, etc. remains to be seen.

I think a huge part of the challenge of these situations is breaking through the psychological conditioning of childhood in relating to a parent, whether that conditioning disposes one toward passivity, rebellion, deference, terror, or whatever. It's difficult to get past habitual emotional responses and find new ones that are based more on current events than on history. This opportunity for emotional reorientation is one faintly positive aspect of events that otherwise can feel overwhelming.

By calculation I'm up to around 13 tons of crap out of the house and into the Goodwill and Prima Deshecha: City Of The Future. Most of the heavyweight: mouse-pee infected furniture, 1200 pounds of rusted wrought-iron furniture, enough books to stock several Goodwill stores of the type of books Goodwills carry, and unending piles of accumulated bullshit that's hard to deal with. Every day I utter "Fuck, do I just put all that into a bag?" I feel like I'm paying some perverse type of psychic penalty for being really into Mad Men - having to dig out a mid-century modern house

I keep thinking in terms of restarting a derelict spaceship ("life-support is at 35% captain") but the reality is more ferally practical. I want to get the fucking toilet working so I don't auto-conclude "enh, it's just easier to pee in the trees on the hillside." On top of all that, I'M MOVING IN. It's hard not to think of it as squatting in a derelict place, but if those maniacs in Slab City can make it work out in apocalypse land I certainly can deal with this. Mad respect to those folks in Detroit who buy ten dollar houses and somehow Make It Work.

Meanwhile my mother is... well let me quote from an email my sister just sent me:

It seems that when mother is left alone, she walks around a bit and participates on the periphery of things going on, which is a big improvement. As soon as one of the staff is in the room or I'm there, she manipulates and moans and groans. There was an issue a week ago of two staff people having to make her get in the shower, and those people are now "evil."

There's another hoarder on the floor! She comes into other residents' rooms and takes stuff.

Potential problems!!

The CENSORED is having a hard time renting out the room next door because mother enjoys walking around in the nude. She doesn't go out in the hallway like that though--yet. Another big problem (brace yourself for this one) is that she is also very sexual and noisy about it. A number of dementia patients are like this--more men than women. I asked if there was some kind of med to tone it down, and there is one that they give to men sometimes. CENSORED STAFF will ask the doctor.

You cannot get enough praise and support for what you're dealing with, ET.

If I lived near you I would totally adopt your mom and hang out with her, because it is SO MUCH EASIER when it is not *your* parent!

i think you deserve a break
how heavy, on a scale of 1-10 is this for you? (feel free to not answer this if you don't want, i don't mean to pry)
i ask bc if it were me (and it will be eventually on some scale), i think i would be completely imploding. i hope you have someone you can talk to and hang with irl to decompress.