It’s been a rough couple of weeks for M0m and our family. She’s been struggling with a urinary tract infection for the past few months which is zapping her energy and making her confused. We’ve become pretty good at recognizing her UTI’s because she doesn’t get a fever or show any signs of infection. We notice a certain “stare” or “look” about her. She also gets very absent minded and confused.
Mom was finally admitted to the hospital last week to rehydrate her and to give her an IV antibiotic treatment. We try to get the doctor to admit her to the hospital when she reaches this stage so she can get the attention she needs but it’s a hard sell if she doesn’t have a fever or show obvious signs of distress.
They only kept her overnight and released her suddenly late in the day after telling me she would be staying for a few days. It was like they suddenly needed a bed so they released her. When I arrived to pick her up she was in the hallway in a wheelchair with her nightgown on. She had an IV in her, a catheter and a plug up her nose to stop a bloody nose. She didn’t look ready to be released!!
I took Mom back to her apartment at the senior home and helped her get settled. She was totally confused and kept getting out of bed. I asked where she was going and she kept saying “I don’t know”. I finally got her to stay in bed and sat with her until she fell asleep. It was like putting my kids to bed when they were infants. In fact Mom’s acting more and more like an infant every day.
Many times over the past few days I’ve had to dress and undress my mother. There’s nothing more humiliating than a 53 year old son changing his mother’s diaper and dressing her. I guess it would be more humiliating for her if she realized what was happening to her but that part of her mind doesn’t function anymore. It’s so, so hard to watch her fade away mentally.
The next day Mom went to the dining room for lunch and took a hard fall. She hit her head requiring 3 stitches and hurt her back. They took her to the ER in an ambulance and checked her out but sent her home despite our pleas to keep her in for evaluation. She’s now in severe pain and requires 24 care. The caretakers tell us every morning that she’s not sleeping at all at night and keeps getting up and wandering around her apartment.
Over the weekend she called me and my sister over and over. It seemed like she was confused and was searching for a familiar voice. She’s struggling so much right now and there’s nothing we can do to help her except comforting her. Watching your parents grow old sucks!
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When is it time to move your parents into assisted living? Mom is currently in “independent living” at her facility where she lives alone and cares for herself. Lately she’s been declining and we’re getting concerned for her well being. Her mental abilities are declining rapidly and she’s completely disorganized.
We have a caretaker coming in every day for a few hours to clean up her daily mess and keep her company. On weekends we visit her and take her to movies and dinner. It’s been working so far but as she declines more, we’re going to have to move her into assisted living. She’s going to need more care very soon so we’re starting the search for assisted living.
We’re exploring different facilities in the area and we’re considering hiring a consultant or a service to help us find the right assisted living facility. We’re considering using a company called A Place for Mom. It’s a free service and looks like they have a good reputation.
Have you used A Place for Mom or a similar service? If you’ve used a service please comment on this post and let me know the name of the company and your experience with using a service. We’re going to need to make a decision in the next month or two so your input is much appreciated.
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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!
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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.
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