AGING PARENTS

*takes notes on UTI-insanity connection*

having the 86 y.o. father in law is working out OK these days, really. no crises to report, thankfully.

Tonight I saw a doctor who told me that the UTI insanity can last 6 months.... :-(

My mom passed away on Monday afternoon, slowly and (one hopes) without too much pain or distress, at the age of 92. My last visit with her was six days earlier and even then she was nearly silent, eyes closed, spending her final reserves of energy. I held her hand for two hours, moistened her mouth a few times, sat and thought intensively about her, mostly silently, because I knew that if I spoke aloud it would only agitate and exhaust her because she could not hear well enough to understand my words.

It was difficult to see her in that state, knowing she was so very near death, but creeping toward it at a snail's pace, not yet released from the struggle. otoh, it felt wonderful to be there and share my love with her one more time, knowing it might be the last opportunity and pouring my heart into it.

Now she is released from her thoroughly worn out and used up body. It helps to know that the work of her spirit is still doing its good work in the world, through her many gifts of that spirit given to others, including me. Those gifts feel tremendously alive still.

Today my sister has assigned me to write her obituary. Since she outlived almost all her contemporaries, so that it will be possible to contact personally everyone who matters, we've agreed that I may keep it relatively brief.

<3

I'm sorry for your loss, Aimless. From the warm and eloquent way you write about her departure I can only conclude you'd be perfect to write a loving obituary. Sending good thoughts.

(the 'thoroughly worn out and used up body' part rings awfully familiar... I fear I will have to use those words sooner rather than later for my own mother..)

love to you Aimless. Your post is crushingly beautiful.

Best to you sir. A hard burden, but she is free of hers.

RIP aimless's mom -- she was clearly loved <3

sorry to hear that, Aimless

my wife's dad has become pretty paranoid these days. he's 87 and believes people are stealing from him. He thought the gardener stole his new trash bin, which we're not even sure existed in the first place. So he insisted my wife fire his gardener (she's handling all the details in his life as best she can, in between having a full-time job and being a mom), and the gardener (apparently a very decent man) was quite mystified.

in a more alarming way, my brother's wife's stepdad is similarly losing it. he's in assisted living now and they were visiting him recently bc they were going to take him somewhere, and he got into an argument with them and with the facility over which wheelchair he could take with. when they wouldn't allow him to take the one he wanted (not sure the reason, it may have been a good one) he called the police. they apparently showed up and were less than amused. he called the police a second time about it later, much to their increased annoyance.

he's dealing with some form of dementia and once he was diagnosed his wife filed for divorce, at the behest of her children. he's also *their* stepdad, he married three women that all had children by previous marriages but he has no children of his own. my brother's wife is the only stepchild willing to help and the other stepchildren keep asking her why she isn't doing more to help, when she's the only one helping.

<3 to Aimless. My parents had to write obituaries for their own fathers last year and while difficult, it also was a time for reflection

I'm sorry for your loss, Aimless. She was a fortunate woman to be loved so well.

So sorry, Aimless. Much love to your mom. I'm agnostic and the idea of 'energy' or 'spirit' manifest through work and influence is the only one that holds something like religious sway over me. Yr. words captured that idea eloquently. My thoughts are with you.

In other news, my dad's doctor FINALLY diagnosed him with Parkinson's. This is the doctor who told me he *didn't* suspect Parkinson's three years ago, when I sent my dad to be evaluated for tremors, left-side weakness, hallucinations, and motor issues. He also told me last September that my father was just 'soft-spoken' and 'a good guy' and didn't have Parkinson's. Today, he announced my father had pretty severe Parkinson's and would be in a wheelchair maybe pretty soon. My dad is at Stage 3 of the progression. FFS.

I've suspected almost to a certainty my dad has Parkinson's since at least 2016, but my mom/dad have been deep in denial about it, since they didn't have the diagnosis. Now they're both really sad, and I just can't help but think ... what if they had accepted help earlier? How many more family times and good things could we have done together?

Very sorry to hear about your loss, Aimless.

all the best aimless and everyone else on the thread <3 <3

sorry for your loss, aimless. i’ve always liked the sound of your mom. <3 to you.

Best wishes to you Aimless. I really admire the bravery it takes to handle something so difficult with such clear-eyed love

Thoughts with you aimless

soda my dad has it too
idk what stage he is because my parents don't talk with me about this stuff. sometimes, every now and then, i am able to talk with him on the phone and he sounds like his old self again, i can hear the old him i remember.
sorry to hear about your dad :(

my experience of a dad with parkinsons -- recognised very early in his case (at 36) -- is that once it's properly medicated, it's very cyclic: there's good period and bad periods, physically and mentally

Dad was in hospital for a few days as he was quite weak. Now he is back home with carers coming twice a day however talking to my mother it seems like my father can't easily get him out of bed first thing in the morning and the effort to lift him is causing her back pains. It's distressing as both my brother & I are working (and in my case I haven't lived there for years) so can't help apart from weekends. I'll be there seeing if there is a way he can work to lift himself.

Doctors say he is strong enough and indeed once he's up he does walk with the accessories, its just getting up in the first place. He is eating more so hopefully he can get his strength back, otherwise I am afraid as to what this could to my mother's physical health.

*himself out of bed..

There is also tension in terms of my mother wanting him to eat/exercise more than he can and perhaps my father doing less because my mother is there to do it for him.

I really hope her (almost certainly) final memories of him don't 'break' something in her.

my parents have a similar dynamic -- it's tough but i figure that is their business and they are adults. (i am an only child and don't feel that my parents' relationship dynamic is really my business)
can't catastrophize too much either -- sorry to hear you are having rough times :(

Yes part of me wants to say 'they will figure it out' and my mother isn't crying for help right now but she's frustrated and venting. Just want to think on what I could do. Unfortunately I can't resign my job and help out...I probably need to look at the care, this is a field I am only getting acquainted with now.

there's various gadgetry -- railings and boosters and such -- that might help with the getting out of bed?

anyway, best to you and them

Will look at that thanks.

Condolences

Aimless that was a beautiful post. Love to you. <3

My father passed away on Tuesday. There was no real fight with this cancer, but he told me he was not scared of dying a week ago. Nevertheless I held his warm hand and placed my palms on his forehand for much of his last day. I kissed him goodnight once he breathed for the last time.

I have been with my mother for the past few days. My younger brother too. We all grieve at different rates - I started accepting the way this was going at xmas - but my brother didn't and is taking it a lot harder (I think my mother is being stronger for him). At the moment I am present, watching and listening and saying as little as possible. I promised my father I would look after them, but I wonder how that will work itself out as the months draw on.

The funeral is in five weeks (apparently too many people die at this time of year, if he had passed away in summer they would have been able to have the ceremony in a week).

I want to thank everyone on this thread for their kind words throughout this time.

my condolences to you

<3

Best indeed.

my love to you, j. it sounds like you have been strong and present in the best sense and I'm sure that's helped everyone. treat yourself gently x

xo, deepest sympathies to you

my mom's new thing is parking at a store, shopping, and returning to find that her car has rolled across the lot into a curb or another car because she left it (a manual) in neutral without applying the parking brake

i don't even know how this is possible -- did it not move when she got out of the car? -- but she's done it twice (that i'm aware of) in the last four months

yikes

Visiting my mother: more regularly, now decreasing it a bit. Call her everyday. Stayed over Sat; Sat eve-Sunday mornings seem the hardest time, and we've had the first batch of birthdays without my father. Thankfully I'd stopped giving a shit about birthdays but he always wrote me a nice card so there's an absence there, one which is felt in a diff way.

My aunt (on my dad's side) called and talked to me for nearly two hours on my birthday and I was bitter (not that I need an excuse) about becoming this go to person to my wider family they can load their fucking grief (her husband can provide, that's about it).

I'll have to dig in, which is unlike me. Confident I won't break but I'm feeling my way into this. There's no manual and I wouldn't read one anyway so..

Just reading this news, J. All the best to you. Think about doing something for yourself for a week or so. Have a late summer break somewhere, if you can. Or just do something that's not putting the family first for a short time.

Thanks. I had a break in early July (I booked it months ago and my mother insisted I'd go instead of cancelling and spending more time w/her). It was nice, but now its more digging in...I am doing a lot more yoga, and I think it is keeping me afloat (as much as ppl round these parts, my housemate's kindness and my reading)

Likewise have only just seen your post from a few months ago, xyzzz - belated condolences and good wishes for the here and now. Nothing is easy.

<3 to you and the family, j

mook, does yr mom have a friend nearby who can take her shopping if it's necessary?

My Mom’s 90th on Tuesday. About to head to Minnesota for it. I moan about a lot of things as you all know but constantly thank the local deities that her health issues are all second tier ones.

Congrats to yr mom, Jon

Father-in-law (who is 86) finally moved out of our house, where he has been living (unplanned) for the last two years (not the deal we agreed on). Everyone is happy and relieved. He has his own little apartment in HUD housing now, probably 10-15 minutes away from us on his scooter.

My dad (74, poorly managed Parkinson’s) and my mom (73, some kind of dementia) are staying in separate un—air-conditioned houses despite the 90+ degree heat. They have a main residence and seperate beach hut an hour away and they’re each in one, and they check in every night by phone. BUT my dad has missed two doctor’s appointments this week and my mom is unconcerned, and giggles about it. She does not want to go check on him because “he’s cranky” and she selfishly doesn’t want to reschedule her tennis group or get a sub when she paid for court time ($16). But she’s not lucid either, and I can’t be too hard on her for that.

Meanwhile, my aunt met her for dinner the other night and told me that my mom bought a $19 lobster roll and a $2 iced tea, plopped a $20 bill in the middle of the table during dessert and walked out mid-sentence to go strolling on the beach “because she doesn’t feel right without doing that once a day.”

In the spring I set them up with an attorney to do medical directive, HIPPA stuff, etc., but they ghosted the attorney and now they’ve forgotten about it. Now they can’t sign documents in sound mind, and they’re too avoidant to follow-through when provided with remindersz

My sister lives near my parents, but she’s trying to convince them to give her one of the houses and provide free babysitting, so even though she wants to help she’ll constantly minimize their behaviors so that she doesn’t feel guilty about exploiting them.

I don’t know what to do, and as much as I love them there are days in which I think of giving up and never taking to any of them again. I want help, but I don’t think there is such a thing... when the principles seem determined to messily screw up theirs remaining years.

They won’t talk to me about finances, doctors, plans, mobility issues, modifications to the house (they hand-shovel a 400 foot driveway on a steep grade, and they don’t have railings by their front door) and they both get mad at me if I bring such issues to to attention, saying “we’ll deal with them when we’re ready.”

If I try to deal with these things on my own (e.g. installing grab bars for bathroom), I’ll find them missing on the next trip.

can empathize, I had some of these same issues with my parents. don't give up, now that I'm older myself I think the only important thing is staying engaged

Thanks. I’m just venting, I guess. Every time the phone rings I’ve just got this crazy moment of anxiety before the number comes up, when I think it’s going to be That Call.

Been through a very similar situation - totally relate about phone anxiety. Things only got "better" when my mother's dementia got worse and I somehow managed to impose caretakers on her. Staying engaged seems indeed the right thing to do - there will come a time when you will get a chance to take some control.

My father died from Alzheimer's early this morning. He was 76. More sudden than we anticipated but not unexpected. My mother cared for him at home until very recently.

Back when he could reflect and speak, he'd respond to questions about his diagnosis with: "it doesn't hurt."

But it did, and it does. Fuck you, Alzheimer's.