AGING PARENTS

just random stand-up around the house today

Mom: Ugh, this toilet paper I bought yesterday is for SHIT

Me: Yes, mom, it quite literally is.

less comedic...dad fell backwards into the bathtub in the bathroom today.

fortunately my bro was already coming over to give me relief tonight, dad seems to be sore but ok. and he answered all of our questions (what's your name, what's my name) just fine.

if he looks wonky they will take him to the hospital later while I'm taking time for myself.

one happened mere minutes after the one. this household is fast lol

that's a lot to handle! ... I am driving down Sunday to see my aging parents (76) ... mom recently got diagnosed with high blood pressure and congestive heart failure and whenever she has a medical problem, she wants to have "the talk" about "how things will be when she is gone" and how to set things up so that my dad doesn't have to struggle with having to do the numerous adult things that he doesn't know how to do because my mom always did them for him (and before that, his mom did for him).

ugh - always an uncomfortable topic for more reasons than one. I'm sorry to hear about your mom's diagnosis - do they have her on beta blockers?

yeah, mom is on meds ... not sure what kind. They had to reassure her that they wouldn't impair her cognitive function. Like, she has arthritis in her knees/legs but will only take the minimum dose of ibuprofen because she doesn't want to be impaired or become a victim of the opiate epidemic.

I am officially reminding myself to check to see if they have enabled the GPS on dad's car so that he is less likely to get lost when driving places. ... As far as we know, he doesn't have alzheimer's, he has always had a horrible sense of direction, but apparently it has gotten worse in the past year or so?

It's always hard to tell when memory lapses in our elderly loved ones are actually something to worry about or just a natural part of aging. I know there's cognitive tests that can be done. my friend begged his dad to take one a few years ago.

so, dad became estranged from his family back in the mid-2000s. a real shame, because his side of the family was a HOOT. grandpa was from Palermo I think, grandma from Sicily, my dad, his two sisters, and half brother all grew up in New York (Smithtown I think). eventually almost everybody on dad's side of the family moved to Ft Myers Florida, and of course my mother. dad's family stayed in Ft Myers, my folks eventually moved to the Central Florida area, outside Orlando.

so we used to visit them frequently, my brother and I loved listening to our aunts yammer on and bust my dad's balls. sometimes they'd visit. but for whatever reason, dad had a fight with them and we pretty much never saw them again after 2005. one of my aunts died from heart failure due to chronic smoking (I think that was 2010), and dad did go to the funeral. this lead him to re-open communication with his other sister, but because my folks were living in North Carolina until 2015, and dad's health issues started the next year, never visited her again.

Until tonight. She's in town and we are going to see her. She is probably going to be a bit shocked by dad, because the last time she saw him, he still had all of his faculties and now she's fast-forwarding past a lot of degradation and getting hit by it all at once. but I'm excited as I think this is good for dad, I think it will brighten him up, and hell, I wanna see her too, it's been forever.

(so I muddled the timeline a bit there, but it goes - folks moved from NY to Ft Myers, FL in the early 70s, by the 80s had moved to Central Florida, stayed here until 2009, when they moved to Raleigh, NC (trying to start over after bankruptcy...ha), then came back here in 2015 (whereas my bro and I have been rooted to the spot since we were born here). The hospital I was born at is 5 minutes away from my apt lol.

Mom for whatever reason, known only to her, frequently throws away plungers. today she plugged the toilet up and as I got ready to get the plunger, she told me "oh I don't think I have one anymore", and when I asked why the fuck she threw it away, she kept saying "it was in the wastebasket!" after the last time I unplugged the toilet (because...I had put it in there temporarily while I was cleaning the floor last time? and you have no autonomy to take it out of the wastebasket?)

so anyway she gets another one, but I'm in meetings, and she is terrible at using it, and instead of her waiting for me to do it (even though we have another working toilet), she tries to unplug it, overflows the toilet, doesn't know how to shut the water off, so I had to interrupt my meeting and run in and show her while she's wailing and moaning.

the folks also didn't have a plunger during Hurricane Maria in 2017 when dad plugged it up and I came over to keep them company.

wtf.

tomorrow is D-day, mom's lung surgery. dad is still here because he's failed a swallow study. I am off of work for the next week, my brother is off the next two days and most evenings. we're all in.

anxious but stoic at the moment. stress gave me a migraine yesterday but today I'm more in take action and conquer mode.

going to be a wreck until I hear mom's out of surgery tomorrow but thankful my bro will be with her (I'll be with dad).

Best of luck, Neanderthal.

thanks!

Good luck to you and your mother.

good luck with everything, Neanderthal!

Keeping you and your folks in mind - hoping for best possible outcomes all around.

Echoing all that indeed.

luv 2 ur momz, and i totally probably don't mean that in a lewd way

good luck

Mama Neanderthal: 1
Tumor: 0

Game
Set
Match.

SUCK IT TUMOR

:)

(everything went well)

Yay!

Great!

excellent news!!

Dad passed his swallow test. He's eating his first meal since Friday.

Next up physical therapy (inpatient)

Mom will be home Thursday

Also dad's butthole is working again

Congrats, man... stressful stuff to deal with

Watch this space. ARGH.

Xpost honestly the surgery being over is a huge weight off. Dad being in the hospital is a more "business as usual" thing heh.

NEANDO CLANDO BACK ON TOP, WOOT WOOT

& good luck suzy, with whatever aging parents chicanery life is winding up to pitch at you

Roxor!

thumbs up to the working butthole (among other things)

that was what we actually brought him in for, and yet not what's keeping him there, lol. as usual.

spent 10 hours with him today, my mom STILL doesnt have an actual room so I couldn't see her (my brother did). we're going to call in a few minutes.

Mom is home but in a lot of pain, as expected, and temporarily on oxygen (for about 2 weeks). dad had a rehab facility lined up and then they claimed they were out of network (even though it appeared to the coordinator that they were), so now we're lining up a second place.

my brother and I have tag-teamed, but he's at work again - however, and you know I don't say this lightly, he really stepped up this week. until dad's in rehab facility, I'm alternating between being around to help mom and being with dad in the hospital (mostly to make sure he eats). will be much easier when the transition is complete. there's more contact with other people in a rehab facility.

she should improve in a week or so. my anxiety will go down significantly when dad gets to rehab facility.

dad's at rehab. of course, the moment I give my brother a compliment, he dips right back into the stuff that frustrates me.

yesterday was exhausting, bro couldn't come by, so I had to take care of mom, visit dad in the hospital and make sure he ate lunch and dinner, and was driving back and forth between the two. dad didn't get transferred to his rehab facility until 9:30 and it's 25 minutes away, and I had to follow and sign some paperwork and give all the info needed. (even called back when I remembered a few extra things).

he shows up today after work as he promises, to get dad's bag of clothes, and it had rained, so he insisted he needed to not only change clothes, but throw his wet clothes in the washer AND wait for them to dry. we weren't sure of visiting hours and couldn't find it online, so mom called (since my bro kept refusing to, saying 'i'll find out when I get there'), and it closes at 5 (it's 3 pm when he arrived). I told him "dude just leave your wet clothes and get them tomorrow, go now", and he just wouldn't (cos he also wanted to spend time w/ mom - ok, fair, but our house doesn't close at 5 pm).

I had to go out and do an errand for mom, picking up groceries, and I got back at 4 and my bro was STILL HERE. so he only got there a half hour before close, and he's literally pinging me question after question and panicking about every random thing ("oh dad's not talking, I think he's mad - he had a stroke, bro, he often does this). "oh the nurse was rude", well then TELL HER THAT, jfc, you're there, not me!

this was supposed to be MY break today, and instead, he's getting me more worked up than if I had gone by myself. I can't even so much as turn a television show on.

it's not the biggest thing in the world but I'm tired of him doing pointless stuff like demanding his clothes be dried before he goes, like WHY do you have to wait for your clothes to dry when you brought a change of clothes and you're going to be here tomorrow?

and half the time his concerns turn out to be overstated, and that's saying a lot coming from me, but it's doing nothing to alleviate my worry about sending him here. but we need him to get the physical therapy and if he comes home now....I frankly have no idea how the fuck I could take care of both him and my mother at the same time.

the surgery my mom had was NOT the one we were told she was getting (she was supposed to have video-assisted thoracic surgery, but she had a thoracotomy), so the recovery is longer and a little more severe than what we were told it would be.

taking care of mom isn't that difficult really, I just have to do things for her and make sure to help get her into bed, but she is capable of most other things. but I'm just very tired and didn't expect I'd have to have another "c'mon bro" convo with my brother this weekend, after all the great stuff he did during the week.

Has anyone here ever had to exercise power of attorney over a parent? The good news is my mother granted me POA when she had her will drawn up several years ago. The bad news is I have no idea how to exercise it, or what to do once the process has begun.

hmm, we're juuuuust going through that w/ dad now. I found this, not sure if this helps: https://www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc/managing-someones-affairs-under-a-power-of-attorney

xp soon

You will likely need to assemble documentation that the individual does not have capacity for decision-making (two doctors’ letters usually does the trick) unless the POA does not require an incapacity. Then you need to go to each of the orgs (bank, Social Security, etc) with the documentation, your ID, and request whatever it is you need. It can still be a real pain in the ass. If there is some $ to throw at the problem, a meeting with an elder law atty can be worthwhile. Let me know if you need referrals.

I like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s “Managing Someone Else’s Money” guides.

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/consumer-tools/managing-someone-elses-money/

Qunicie OTM about having an attorney walk you through the process -- requirements for declaration of incapacity can differ state-to-state and even county-to-county. Unless there are some wrinkles here that I'm not aware of, you shouldn't need an elder law specialist per se; any atty who works with estates/trusts/wills will be fine.

My advice from personal experience: I know this process can be emotional/painful, but it is better to get started too early than too late. When we got into my mom's financial/medical statements, we found that she had given out her credit card number to pretty much anyone who called her on the phone and asked for it; we were on the phone for about a week cancelling recurring charges where she had signed up for one thing or another. We also found her Medicare number in the wild; insurers will cold-call the elderly and go into the 'we can save you money on your supplemental insurance, just give us your Medicare number, tell us that you have no preexisting conditions, and we'll do the rest!' spiel. And then there's the durable medical equipment (braces, etc.) fraudsters. And then the pitches for genetic testing for cancer, etc. We didn't incur any serious losses, but unfortunately there are a good number of predators out there.

definitely do this before a major election ... I have an elderly client (through a friend who has POA), and before he got the POA, the client had donated thousands of dollars to campaign fundraisers who called her on the phone.

I may have some Aging Parent stuff to share but might have to wait until light of day or afterwards.

Thank you to everyone who has responded. The good news is my mother seems to be still sharp enough to avoid scams (she gripes about wanting to get rid of her land line because she gets so many robocalls). The bad news is that a doctor probably would not find her incapable. (She probably COULD improve her living situation herself, but for whatever reason she DOESN'T do so.)

A neighbor contacted my sister because of a pest problem. I hope the neighbor will report this to the county, because this might light a fire under her.

I saw a reference to "geriatric social workers." Does this sound like the sort of person to help negotiate a solution between my mother, my sister, and myself? (I was already considering looking for a two-bedroom place in order to take in my mother, even though my sister has repeatedly said we'd drive each other crazy in no time.)

what type of pests? ... I don't know where your mother lives, but in general, I would not be eager for this to be reported to authorities, because it might lead to problems you really don't want to have.

Geriatric care managers. In MoCo, I like Suzy Murphy at the group formerly known as Deborah Levy Associates.

https://care-manager.com/

Also Amy Silver: http://eldercareopts.com/?page_id=15

I live in a neckbeard nest, and I was able to get my roach problem down to a normal level without having to do too much cleaning. Just bring the exterminators in.

those Harris Roach Pills always severely reduced the problem for me when I inherited an infested apartment (ugh), exterminators took care of the rest.

might not eradicate them, but will prevent massive, overwhelming infestation, the type that gets neighbors grousing.

Roach TABS, not pills, lawdie i'm tired