Archive | April 2013

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Creative Caring (and maybe a lie or 2)

Apr28

Blog - Pic 85“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

So Mom has been living with us for about 3 months now and I have to admit that it has been a little stressful. My husband and I are having a tough time adjusting to our new living arrangement and we’ve had more “discussions” about Mom than anything else. One good thing is that my husband and I have always been open and honest with each other and always tell each other what is on our minds. Maybe some of what was on our minds should have stayed there.

When I look back, I realize we truly didn’t understand what we were getting into. Everyone we talked to said “Don’t do it!”, and now I understand that those are the people that DID do it. They know how much of a strain it can have on a relationship and how much stress can come from caring for an elderly parent.

This is all so new to us and I can’t stress enough how important it is to talk with your significant other about how you feel, but most importantly about how they feel. When it all comes down to it, who is going to be there for you – not your ageing parent. So my theory – find the needs of my ageing parent without losing the needs of my spouse.

One of the hardest things I find to deal with is the fact that if I tell my mom the truth she turns it against me and makes me feel guilty. For example, one evening I told her my husband and I were going to go for a drive and have dinner. Well… wasn’t I a selfish person for not wanting to include her and why wouldn’t I think about taking her with us. That made me feel bad even though I really didn’t want to include her – I just wanted a nice outing with my husband – that made me feel guilty.  How do you explain to your mom that you don’t want to be with her without hurting her feelings?

So from here on in, my husband and I decided to handle situations so they worked for us. Yes, sometimes it involved not quite telling the truth, and some of the things we do may seem juvenile to some, but it works for us. I don’t feel guilty about doing it either because I am taking control of my life and this is the only way it will work having Mom live with us.

What I Learned: Get creative in the way you handle situations with an ageing, elderly parent.

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Setting Up Doctors

Apr25

Blog - Pic 82“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

Today is the start of setting up Mom’s new doctors. I thought it best to have someone who specializes in Gerontology, and after hours of reading bios online and going over them with Mom, we chose a doctor we thought would be best for mom’s situation. I set up an appointment and we met with the doctor a few days later.

The first meeting went well and Mom thought the doctor was quite nice…. for a male! Mom would have preferred a female doctor but there are few of them in our area that specialize in Gerontology and traveling any distance in Los Angeles is quite a challenge, so I thought I would make it more convenient for my husband since he is the one doing the driving. I chose a doctor a few miles from where we live who is also associated with the nearest hospital – his office is right across the street from the hospital which I thought may come in handy at Mom’s age.

I was with Mom through the whole visit and helped her answer questions the doctor asked. Mom had a hard time remembering things but I was able to fill in the gaps. The doctor examined Mom, did height, weight, blood pressure, and did a complete blood work up. He was impressed with how well she looked but was concerned with her Osteoporosis so he ordered a bone density test. The one good thing about being associated with, and close to a hospital is that everything Mom needs is right close by. So we left the office feeling very good about our choice in doctors – now we just needed to wait for Mom’s test results.

We decided to take Mom for lunch after her appointment, which somehow becomes a ritual after all her appointments. Although my husband and I don’t mind going for lunch, Mom uses lunch to prolong her time out. I totally understand that she wants as much time with us as possible, but after hours of taking her to the doctor and then another couple of hours at lunch, my husband and I have had enough. It’s just a little overwhelming – mainly because we are not used to this routine but also because everything we do with Mom is just – so – slow. Like I’ve said before, I’m not ready to slow down, so it’s a little stressful.

But hey…. it has to be done so we will persevere.

What I Learned: A lot of energy is spent going slowly – I’m not ready for that yet.

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Grocery Shopping Blues

Apr21

“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

Today we did some running around – grocery shopping first. My husband dropped us off thinking we’d be 30 minutes or so – Mom can’t usually last much longer than that. Well I guess that B12 she is taking is really kicking in because she had more energy today than I’ve seen in a long time. She wanted to do every isle and then the deli…. oh no, not the deli! She likes the deli because she can sample things – and usually not like any of Blog - Pic 79it.

Finally she bought some tofu (protein – yay!) and then it was off to the salad bar. Really Mom? It’s not Marie Callender’s.  Then she spots something that looked familiar but she wasn’t quite sure what it was. It kinda looked like a kidney bean only white…. and bigger…. and flatter. So she stands there staring at it for what seemed to be forever, and then she grabbed the serving spoon. I knew exactly what was going to happen next, but before she had the chance I said “I don’t THINK so – that’s just wrong on every level.” I definitely got the evil eye, but she put the spoon down. That would have been embarrassing! Time to go…. next stop, the drug store.

As usual, I was just going to run in, grab her drugs, and run out. But, of course, Mom wanted to run in with me. Well, at 88 years of age there is no “running” in and there is definitely no “quickly” about it. But I complied (reluctantly) and off we went.

I’ll be honest, one of the hardest things having Mom with us is how our life has slowed down when we’re with Mom. My husband and I have so much energy and we love just whipping around places and getting things done. We never spend an hour or two grocery shopping, and  I’m just not ready to slow down. I think most of my stress comes from the waiting – it takes Mom 5 minutes just to slide her butt out of the car!

Later that night, Mom realized that her drugs came with the wrong lids – she needs the lids which are easier to get off. So she decided to call the drug store and let them know. Well, Mom is not the best with technology and the cell phone seems to confuse her more than anything, but she gave it a shot anyway. She dialed the number, but instead of pushing the “talk” button she pushed the “4” button which is right under the talk button and is also the speed dial for our son. Yup! You guessed it….  the phone rang right to CM. He answers and says, “Hi Grandmommy.” Well of course my mom is taken aback and asked, “Is this CVS?” Our son replied, “It’s CM, Grandmommy.”  After a few times back and forth of that, my mom finally said, “CM, what are you doing at CVS?”

Well you can imagine the conversation that came next…. you gotta love it!

What I Learned: I’m not ready to slow down but realize that one day,  I too will. Live it up while you can!

 

 

 

 

Caring For An Elderly Parent: The 5 Pound Purse Revisited

Apr18

Blog - Pic 66“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

I just had another conversation with my mom about her heavy/cumbersome purse and how it is not only too heavy but it gets in the way of other people. She swings it over her shoulder not giving any thought to who is around – I told her she needs to be careful or she’ll hurt someone.

Sure enough, the very next day while we were leaving Denny’s, Mom walks out the door and attempts to swing her 5 lb weight over her shoulder and…. WHAM! She nails a woman who was walking out behind her right in the gut. The poor woman curls over in pain – she couldn’t have weighed 100 lbs. I’m pretty sure my mom didn’t realize what happened until my husband and I reacted – Mom looked pretty confused. And get this, after we got through our apologies, Mom blamed it on ME! She said I jinxed it. Somehow I knew it would be my fault.

But I do think Mom is re-thinking the 5 lb purse… we’ll see.

What I Learned: It may take an incident to make something understood…. and keep your distance from a woman with a 5 lb purse!  

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Family Ties

Apr14

“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

A very cool day for Mom today – our son (Mom calls him CM) took her to “work” with him. You see, our son is an acBlog - Pic 75tor and had an audition and because he knows the casting director  so well he knew she wouldn’t mind Mom tagging along. It was pretty awesome for Mom to see a little bit of the process he’d been telling her about for the last 8 years. Although Mom couldn’t go in the actual room where he met with the casting director, Mom got to wait in the waiting area and met the CD when she came out with our son. They had a little chat and Mom even told her she did some acting when she was younger – I’m sure Mom will get a call for her next acting gig pretty soon… LOL.

After our son’s audition, Mom wanted to go to a little french organic restaurant just down the street from us. I let her know it would be pricey but she wanted to go anyway. It was pricey alright! One small cheese blintz, two small pieces of quiche, one small personal pan pizza and four coffees…. $32.00! Well you know Mom, she complained the whole way home and said…. “It must be California!”

While I’m talking about our son….  the other day I was at Mom’s and she said she felt like having an egg sandwich but didn’t have any eggs. I knew our son had some because he just made that awesome birthday cake for her, so I told her that he had eggs. Well, Mom looked at me funny and said she didn’t really understand what I was saying – it just sounded all garbled. So I told her again that our son has eggs. Then she looked at me with wide eyes and said, “CM has AIDS?!”  I’m not sure why I fell to the floor laughing but you should have seen her face… hahaha! I told her not to start that rumor.

One thing that is good about having Mom live here with us is that she’s getting to know her grandson – and he’s getting to know her.

What I Learned: Family ties are important… and our son is awesome!

 

 

 

 

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Healthy Practices… And Cake!

Apr11

Blog - Pic 74“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

Let’s see – this was somewhat of an uneventful week with Mom. Oh wait… the vitamin issue! Ok, we all know that vitamin supplements are good for us, especially as we age and particularly if we don’t eat properly. So I’m having this conversation with Mom about how she’d feel better if she made proper dietary choices and took vitamins – at least a multi vitamin. She’s really fighting me on this issue for some reason – not sure why.

I talked with my sister-in-law who is a doctor and works with geriatric patients and she gave me a list of vitamins Mom should be taking to help her situation. Nothing major, just a multivitamin (like I told her), B-12 and D. Sounds about right to me – that’s what I even take. So I talked to Mom about taking them, she agreed, so I first bought her a multi vitamin. I thought everything was OK until she hit me with the “sodium” ingredient on the box, which happens to be in the area that has no amount listed because it is so insignificant that it means absolutely nothing. WOW! It’s just a vitamin – I can’t believe we are having this discussion about vitamins – geeze! Sodium? Really? This coming from someone who consumes soup – have you checked the sodium levels there? Oh well, I just acquired another bottle of multi vitamins! I’ll keep working on it.

The end of the week was a bit more eventful. It was Mom’s birthday so we took her for a drive to the beach and then out for dinner – no, not Denny’s. When we got home our son surprised her with a cake he had baked all by himself – candle and all! The only candle on the cake was a number 8, but if you look at both sides it’s 88. What a nice surprise – Mom was so happy.

Way to go son!

What I Learned: It’s difficult trying to change someone who is set in her ways, but be persistent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Living With OCD

Apr7

“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

Today wasn’t too bad – although my husband may beg to differ. We took Mom to the grocery store to pick up a few things; the usual routine – help Mom down her steps, help her to the car, help her with her seat belt, run back to close and lock her doors, jump in the truck and off we go! In the short time that I was locking up her place, Mom had my husband seeing red – and I missed the whole thing. Of course, my husband filled me in later.

I knew Mom had an issue with seeing out the window (which is totally weird because she never opens her blinds in her hBlog - Pic 71ouse) because I learned that from our infamous RV trip across the country. What I didn’t know is how OCD she is. You see, my husband had his jacket hung on the hook behind the driver’s seat and Mom asked him to take it down so she could see out the window. Well…. this is my husband’s work truck and he likes things the way he likes things – some of you may relate . Hey, I have no problem with that – I understand “work space”, but Mom did not. He explained to her that he had a meeting and didn’t want to forget his jacket and needed it looking good, etc.

Well that wasn’t good enough for Mom. She decided to move  – or “try” to move – the jacket herself. After several attempts and much moaning and groaning she decided to give up on that idea. But my husband had a change of heart and moved the jacket while we were in shopping. He realized that it wasn’t worth being that stressed over a jacket.

I guess Mom had a change of heart too because when we were driving home she told my husband that he shouldn’t have had to move the jacket since it was his truck and he should have it his way. WOW! Where did that come from? Funny thing tho – on the drive home the sun was beating in the back window (where the jacket should have been hanging) right onto Mom – and we all know how Mom feels about the sun (as vampires say, “blah, blah blah, blah blah”) – and she was leaning over as far as possible to get away from it but didn’t dare say a thing.

Well Mom, I’m guessing right about now you wish you hadn’t had my husband move his jacket…. right?

What I Learned: We’ve got to try to get along and make adjustments – but we still need boundaries.

Note: OCD is an anxiety disorder and can be very serious for some people. As time goes on living with Mom, I realize it is a serious issue for her.

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Thank Goodness for Sports Cars

Apr4

Blog - Pic 70“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

This was a day I was going to spend with my husband – have some “us” time. I (unfortunately) mentioned to Mom that we were thinking of going to Denny’s knowing full well that she wouldn’t want to go because “that place that always makes me sick” couldn’t possibly be where she’d want to eat. WRONG!  Funny thing tho, every time she goes there she orders so much food and takes home all the leftovers.

When we got home I knew my husband was ready to spend some “alone” time with me, so I got Mom settle into her place, made sure the Denny’s leftovers were in sight, and then (unfortunately again) mentioned that I was going to ask my husband if he wanted to go for a drive in the Porsche. Earlier I was telling Mom how much he loves that car but doesn’t drive it much, so I figured she’d understand. Funny Mom…. she sit’s on the bench in her kitchen (still holding her 5 lb purse) and says, “OK, I’ll just wait here to see if he wants to go – I’m coming, right?” Sorry Mom, the Porsche is a 2-seater. Right about now I’m thanking my husband for buying that car!

So off we went for our nice drive, just the two of us. I told my mom we were going for a short drive – BIG mistake… Ring, Ring! “Where are you? You said you were going for a short drive and it’s been a while – I was worried. Maybe you can just call me every time you’re going to be late, that way I won’t worry.” Aarrgh! What am I…. 12?!! 

After that incident stressed me out, my husband told me that I shouldn’t be reporting to my mom every time we go out, or come home late, or basically anything. Just because she’s living next to us shouldn’t mean we have to start reporting to her. We never called her and told her our itinerary when she lived in Florida, why would we start now? That’s when I knew I had to have a talk with my mom – you know, “strike while the iron is hot” sort of thing.

So when we got home I stopped at my mom’s to have a little chat. I basically told her that I wasn’t comfortable having to report to her my whereabouts – I’ve never done that before and I was afraid that if I start doing that and then forget one time it would make things worse. I’ve never had to think about letting someone know what I’m up to and I just didn’t want to start. (Obviously if she were expecting us and we were going to be late or something, that would be different, but just normal day to day events is something that doesn’t need to be shared).  

Sure it was difficult having that talk with her- she wasn’t a happy camper – but it had to be done. And yes, it probably came across nasty, but boundaries have to be set right from the start. I know from past experience that it’s harder to change something if you’ve started it than to not start it at all.

What I Learned: For you own sanity, tell it like it is – even if they don’t like it.