- Image via Wikipedia
I read an interesting story the other day on www.cnn.com about Gary Coleman who passed away a few weeks ago. The story talked about his living will and how he wanted to be kept alive unless he was in an irreversible coma for at least 15 days. The problem is that Coleman’s ex-wife, whom he designated as his agent to make medical decisions for him, ordered the doctors to remove him from life support after just one day. You can read the entire story here.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/06/16/living.wills.coleman/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn
It’s so important for you to decide now how you want to be treated when you’re unable to make medical decisions for yourself. You need to have an advanced medical directive that spells out every scenario and how you want to be treated. Do you want to be placed on life support if you’re in a coma? How long would you want to be placed on life support? Do you want a DNR (do not resuscitate) order if you have a stroke or heart attack? You need to think about it now and get it in writing.
We’re going through this now with my mother. She’s unable to make even simple decisions for herself. She can’t remember the simplest things these days which frustrates her to no end. Luckily my parents created a living will with an advanced directive many years ago when they were of sound mind and body. There is no way she could make medical decisions for herself today and she depends on us to make them for her. When the time comes that her health fails then we have the advanced directive to guide us.
Mail this postPopularity: 1% [?]
Filed under General by 
Mom’s been back home about a month after her 2 1/2 month hospital/rehab adventure from pneumonia. She started out so well, getting up every morning and getting to the 10 AM exercise class. She was feeling so well after rehab taught her how to walk properly and exercise daily. She was so strong and she stopped complaining about her aching knees and back. She was walking so well, barely using her walker and was getting around the facility with no help from anyone. The best part was Mom’s memory improved dramatically after she learned to take deep breaths and drink lots of fluid. Our mother was back and we could have intelligent conversations with her again. It was wonderful!!
We hired a caregiver to come in every morning from 8 until 10 to get Mom going, pick up her breakfast from the dining room and get her to exercise class. It was expensive, $75/day, but well worth it. After 3 weeks Mom said she didn’t need help so we discontinued the service. We decided it was best to let her try it on her own since she was doing so well. Of course the first day she was on her own, she didn’t make it to the 10 AM exercise class but she did make it to the 4 PM stretching class. Her apartment slowly became messier because the caregiver wasn’t there to clean up every morning. Soon Mom started misplacing things like the television remote, the telephone, her cell phone and bills. We thought we had all the bills transferred to my address but she called and changed her address at some point.
Now Mom is constantly dizzy and not feeling well. We constantly remind her that she needs to drink lots of water and exercise daily to feel better. She agrees but then forgets how well she felt just a few weeks ago. It’s so frustrating for us because we see how well she can do on her own with a little water and exercise but she just can’t function without some help. She’s frustrated too but doesn’t want a caregiver coming in every day. She says she want’s to do it by herself but reality is that she just can’t take care of herself anymore.
Are you having the same issues with you parents? Let me know how you’re coping with the anger/frustration/sadness in the comments.
[Caption]Technorati Tags: elder care, memory problems, parent care, taking care of parents
Mail this postPopularity: 1% [?]
Filed under Blog by
- Image via Wikipedia
I was going through my mother’s bank statements the other day and I noticed a recurring charge for $29.95 from an online mall website. I logged into her email account to see if they’d been communicating with her and I almost fell out of my chair. She had subscribed to so many email lists that she had over 10,000 unread emails in her account.
She was getting investment tips from at least a dozen investment “gurus”. She was also receiving email from The Perfect Abs as well as numerous health “experts”. She was even learning how to cook organically even though she doesn’t cook anymore.
It took me over 2 hours to clear out her email account and unsubscribe her from the newsletters. I also discovered she was signed up for 3 credit monitoring services in addition to the online mall. She also receives a lot of junk mail that is targeted to seniors and many of the offers look very suspicious.
While I was unsubscribing Mom from the newsletters, I checked out some of the websites of these “gurus”. Many of the websites are very confusing and encourage you to click on links that will sign you up for recurring services. If you ever signed up for an account at GoDaddy.com you know what I mean. Their website is very confusing and they’re constantly upselling additional services to you.
It’s really sad to see these vultures preying on seniors who are on a fixed income and are struggling to survive financially. Even when you try to explain to your parents not to sign up for these services they just don’t understand. The websites, direct mail and telemarketers are designed to sell them services they don’t need and most of the time they don’t know they’re signing up for a recurring charge.
Keep an eye on your parents bank accounts and email accounts to make sure they aren’t being scammed!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a152bc1f-acdd-4ec4-9faa-f458510d07bb)
Mail this postPopularity: 1% [?]
Filed under General by
Mom was released from the hospital yesterday after 11 days. What a roller coaster ride it’s been! The doctors were stuck on the fact that one of her brain scans showed signs of a stroke and they were convinced that was the reason she could not swallow properly. They didn’t feed her for 10 days while they waited to see if she would get strong enough to eat. If she couldn’t eat she couldn’t get stronger so round and round we went. The strange thing is that she made a dramatic recovery in just 24 hours after barely hanging on a few days earlier.
We knew they were getting ready to release her because Medicare was about to stop paying for the pneumonia illness which was almost gone. Even though she was weak and hadn’t eaten in over a week, they were going to release her.
Finally they gave her some pudding to test her ability to swallow and she did fine except she sneezed 4 times in a row as soon as she swallowed it. We all looked at each other and said “Mom’s back!” because she’s been sneezing after every meal forever. Her Mother also sneezed after every meal so we assumed it was a family trait.
The doctor said it wasn’t good that she sneezed after she swallowed because that’s a sign she was aspirating. She’s been aspirating most of her life and it was never a problem until now. They stopped feeding her and said we may have to think about hospice since she didn’t want a feeding tube.
We were perplexed. Mom looked better than she’s looked in years despite being on just IV’s for more than a week but they were talking about putting her out to pasture. When she was at her weakest point she said she just wanted to die and didn’t ever want a feeding tube so they took that literally and gave up on her.
On Sunday morning we received a call from the hospital and they wanted permission to put in a feeding tube because she needed nutrition. Mom agreed it was okay so they were ready to put in the tube. Before they put in the tube they decided to try some soft food to see what would happen. Mom ate the food and wanted more. No sneezing, no coughing, no problem!
Finally we were heading in the right direction and Mom was on the road to recovery!!
Mail this postPopularity: 1% [?]
Filed under General by
Mom has been in the hospital for 8 days now and her pneumonia is almost gone. She’s still having trouble swallowing so she hasn’t eaten since last Thursday, over 9 days ago. It looks like she had a minor stroke at some point which could have caused the swallowing problem, hence the pneumonia.
We have a meeting this afternoon with the hospital case worker and I know what it’s about. We went through a similar meeting with the hospital when Dad became ill. The hospital will say the initial illness has been cured so they have to discharge the patient even though there are other issues. In Mom’s case, she can’t eat anything but since the pneumonia is gone the hospital can’t bill Medicare any more. Of course they discharge the patient ASAP so they’re not on the hook for the bills. When the patient enters a new facility for rehab, Medicare kicks in again. You wonder why the hospital doesn’t keep the patient until all problems are resolved? I do see their point that the patient needs more attention then they get in the hospital and special care so a rehab facility is a better place for her.
In my Dad’s case, they just discharged him and said they were sending him to a rehab facility. We didn’t know anything about the procedures and the reasoning so went along with them. It turns out they put him in a horrible facility where they yelled at him when he tried to get out of bed. He was weak and disoriented and they treated him like a piece of meat. It was horrible.
After about 10 days they told us they were discharging him. In other terms, Medicare stopped paying for his care. We had to find another place for him in less than 48 hours and we didn’t know what to do. Here’s a man with stage 4 stomach cancer without a place to go to be cared for.
Later we discovered that a hospital or rehab facility can not discharge a patient without providing us 3 options. If we don’t like any of the options they have to keep the patient until they provide us an acceptable alternative. I’m sure they’re going to tell us today that Mom will soon be discharged and will be moving to a rehab facility before returning home.
Wish me luck!
Mail this postPopularity: 1% [?]
Filed under General by
Mom usually calls us a few times a day if we don’t call her first. I usually call her every morning on my way to work but I didn’t call today because Friday morning is her “hair” day. She’s usually up and out the door by 9:30 to get her hair done and I don’t want to make her late.
On Friday none of us heard from her and she didn’t answer her home phone or cell phone. Since she didn’t answer we assumed she was just out on a field trip with her friends.
Finally her caretaker reached her at 4:30. Mom said she got her hair done and went to lunch. She’s had a cold and she said she was tired and didn’t feel well but we didn’t think there was any reason to worry. She’d be heading down for dinner at 5 followed by Bingo or poker after dinner.
We tried to call her at 8 for our nightly check in but she didn’t answer either phone. Finally my sister called the front desk to have them check on her. The night clerk went upstairs and said he thought he woke her and she was tired but fine.
I decided to go check on her in person because she’s never hard to reach. I had the night clerk open her door because she wasn’t answering the door. We went in and she was passed out on the bed partially clothed. We tried to revive her but she was very weak and dehydrated. There was a trail of clothes and jewelry on the floor and we couldn’t find her cell phone. I called 911 to get her to the hospital.
I was worried because she was wearing the top to the sweatsuit she wore on Thursday and never wears the same clothes two days in a row. Also the Friday morning paper was still outside her door so it looked like she never left her apartment.
Did she really get her hair done and have lunch in the dining room? Her hair was a mess and she was completely out of it. I asked the night clerk if she really did go down for lunch and dinner and he wasn’t sure. It looked like she’d been in bed since Thursday night and couldn’t get out of bed to call for help. Our worst nightmare was happening.
It turns out Mom has pneumonia and possibly congestive heart failure. She’s in the hospital now struggling to breathe and is very disoriented. She’s not responding to 2 1/2 days of treatment and we’re very concerned. This doesn’t look good.
Mail this postPopularity: 1% [?]
Filed under General by
I ask this because of the saying Your parents take care of you then you take care of them but I see most people putting their parents in an old folks home/seniors home when its their turn
Kansieo.com
Mail this postPopularity: 59% [?]
Filed under Polls & Surveys by
I keep hearing the Robert Palmer song, Doctor Doctor (Bad Case of Loving You) when my mother tells me how many doctor’s appointments she has every week.
This week she had seven doctor/alternative healing/massage/reflexology appointments. Every day she has a busy schedule running all over Marin county looking for the “magic pill” that’s going to make her feel better.
Mom has arthritis. She wakes up every day stiff and has trouble moving until she gets out of bed and starts moving around. I’m stiff in the morning and need to stretch when I wake up to get the kinks out. But Mom thinks she should wake up pain free every morning so she’s on a quest to beat father time.
Mom complains that she’s tired all the time. I’d be tired too if I was constantly running around to doctor’s appointments. She’s almost 79 years old so of course you don’t have the energy you had when you were 29. But Mom still thinks theres a magic pill or a doctor that can restore her energy.
The biggest problem is that Mom is one of those people tha thinks out loud so she’s constantly talking about every ache and pain. It’s a constant monolog of complaining and I’m really tired of hearing it. I keep telling her to focus on positive thoughts and what’s going well for her but she constantly sees the glass as half empty. She’ll never change this late in life because she doesn’t want to change. She prefers to focus on the “poor me” attitude which she’s had all of her life. It’s going be a long road so I have to keep taking deep breaths and counting to 5 before I respond to her negativity.
Mail this postPopularity: 90% [?]
Filed under Blog by
Happy Father’s Day to all fathers. Today is my first fathers’ day without my father and it’s a tough one. I think about Dad every day and how much he did for us.
Dad’s job in life was to make our lives better. He dedicated every minute of his life to his wife, his children and his friends. He was always doing something to make our lives easier.
Dad never asked for anything from us in return. Our love was enough for him. He was never into fancy cars and fancy houses. He preferred to live a simple life so he could focus on taking care of us.
With the passing of Tim Russert this week, the importance of a strong family is being repeated over and over. Tim Russert was all about family and nothing was more important to him. Russert worked harder than anyone because his father taught him to always give 100% and always do the very best you can. The result of Tim’s hard work was quality, integrity and respect. I know Tim Russert was a popular person but the outpouring of condolances is amazing. Everyone respected him for his hard work and love for his family and hometown of Buffalo.
My father comes from similar roots. He always taught us to give 100% and do the very best we can. Never give up no matter how difficult things get.
Dad also taught us to take time every day to do something for someone else. Do them a favor or just make them laugh. Dad was a firm believer that it’s always better to give than receive. He always hated Father’s Day, his birthday and Christmas because he didn’t like receiving gifts from others. He loved to give.
Thank you Dad for everything you did for us and everything you taught us. Happy Father’s Day!
Mail this postPopularity: 88% [?]
Filed under Blog by
I just returned from a fantastic weekend in Cleveland where my nephew Tommy graduated from high school. Tommy was so happy and so proud of himself and it was an event that I’ll remember the rest of my life.
Here’s a picture of Tommy
My sister Connie and I flew with my mother from Oakland to Cleveland and it was an adventure. Remember travelling with an infant? Well that’s a breeze compared to traveling with an elderly parent.
With an infant you have to do everything including carrying all of the luggage, the car seat, the diapers, the food, as well as the baby. Traveling with my mother is no different except we had to wheel her around the airport in a wheel chair. She was too tired to use her walker she jumped into the first wheelchair she saw.
She sat there like a queen, making no effort to help and barking orders. “Get me some coffee and a muffin right now” she barked just as the plane startedto board. I had to run back to Starbucks and stand in line to get her coffee and a muffin so she wouldn’t “pass out” as she declared.
I’ll share some more of the trip over the next few days because its so funny and so sad at the same time. Things like her walking through the metal detector with all of her jewelry still on, setting off the metal detector and wondering why they’re searching her. It is so funny and so sad at the same time because she’s used to be an intelligent, organized person. Today she’s just a shell of what she used to be mentally and it’s really wearing us out while making us cry.
Mail this postPopularity: 87% [?]
Filed under Blog by
Recent Comments