I am so overwhelmed.
My name is Donna. My husband and I are the caregivers to my Mom. Since the middle of November 2016 till present Mom has been in three nursing facilities for rehab. Mom is currently in one now for about 3 weeks. This upside down world started when she fell while alone. Thankfully she was able to reach me by phone. We stayed on the phone with 911While my husband dashed over to check on Mom. He met up with the paramedics. She was rushed to the E.R. where they found that Mom was septic and had a very rare form of sepsis in her spine. They say it was from a UTI Infection. She was delirious for several weeks. About this time she was about to lose her home as all SS has to go to her health in the nursing facility. My husband and I sold our place and moved in to help care for her. Once she was home again I felt like It was a nightmare!
Her moods were volatile. One minute she'd be the sweetest thing and the next moment a raving/ranting person I did not know! She would cuss my husband and me out with the foulest words and some days it lasted for several hours. Anything would spark her horrible mood..like if she thought her food was cold, or we didn't have the right outfit washed for her etc.. Things became so bad that we moved out. The emotional stress on us and our marriage was too much. After we left she started to decline quite fast! She would forget if she took her meds, so she took them again! She stopped eating, became very confused. Mom forgot how to use her stove, her microwave, and her memory was declining fast. It truly scared me! So my husband and I decided to move back in with her. Again we walked right into the battlefield of being talked to hateful, cussed out, bitterness in her voice and her face even looked different-evil. It hurts me to say that. Mom kept declining and we didn't know what to do. The last part of May she was rushed to the E.R. she had thrush with sores in her mouth and down her throat, she had pneumonia and a severe UTI. The scary part is she nor us knew she was sick! How does that happen? There were no signs, no complaining until she told us her throat was sore. This confuses me. How did she not know that she was sick or in pain? Mom stayed in the hospital for a week. They got her stable and sent her to the now third nursing facility. They found that the flap in her throat that makes the food go down as you eat had stopped working. She can now only eat and drink things with a thickening agent so that she does not aspirate. Her care now is more than I can help her with. And not knowing she was so sick scared me to pieces! What if it happens again? So now my husband and In are talking about Assisted Living for Memory care. All she ever wanted was to stay in her own home and have us take care of her. But as time passed the helping her made way to us feeling like her servants :( . Mean and mad if you didn't drop what you were doing and do her bidding. But I am reluctant to make a decision on putting her somewhere. It makes me feel guilty, sad and pressured to do what is right for her. We wanted so much to take care of her. I know now it's more care than we can give her. So we will have to make a decision soon. If anyone has gone through this I would appreciate any advice. I don't want to feel like I am a bad daughter and she think that I am abandoning her :( .
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I want you to know you are never alone here! My Mom fell, broke her pelvis in 2 different places and her back. She went a little nuts in the rest home for rehab too. Everyone was almost screaming Alzheimer's at me. They sent her to a Geriatric Phych. Hospital. There she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and they fixed her up. I was so ashamed of what my mom the 50 year old Sunday School teacher was saying! Whew! Like that man is fat! That girl is really black! Oh my! I have learned its not them just remember its their Brain that is haywire. Everyone on here is full of good advice and most of all love! Hang in there!
It's difficult to be objective. But try to simply (not so simple, I know) match the problem with the best solution.
Pretend the "shoulds" and guilt do not exist. Now imagine that someone handed you a piece of notebook paper with the title NAME WITHHELD and a list of Mom's current ailments. And that person asked you, "Where will Name Withheld get the best medical monitoring, treatments and transfer assistance?" Your answer would not be "my spare bedroom".....right??
No shame in that. And no judgment. If someone expected you to pilot the space shuttle or run a hydro-fracking drilling rig, you'd mostly likely say "no." And rightly so. Because the task is outside of your skill set, and you are not trained for the day-to-day responsibility or the emergency management.
Let's face it: we can't make it 1982 again --which is really what our rickety parents want.
Hang in there. NO guilt!! And big hugs. We're rooting for you.
There comes a point where many elderly parents need better, more and different care than they can recieve from loving children. They need for trained medical professionals around them 24/7.
Hopefully, with the addition of some meds for her agitation, she will be calmer and easier to visit.
You are not putting her somwhere; you are getting her the care she needs. Don't let anyone make you feel guilty about that!
Just keep visiting her and remind yourself that you did all you humanly could. Deep down inside, no matter how she acts or what she says, your Mom knows that too.
The Administrator of Moms facility called me up Thursday morning. I knew that was not a good sign. Cathy *The Administrator* said that Mom's behavior has been really bad and wanted to know if there was anything that we did to calm her down when she was like this. I explained to her that nothing we have tried seems to work. I told her most of the time my husband and I go to our room and just stay there.
Believe it or not, her language has gotten even worse and Cathy said she was using awful racial slurs! I was beyond mortified! My Mom is not like that! Yet here she is saying such horrible things to all that are caring for her. Cathy asked me why Alzheimer's was not in her medical records. Cathy said I see everything but that. I explained that we have been asking everyone to do an evaluation on her for this. But each time Mark and I shared our concerns we were told that her "altered state of mind" was because she was so sick. They told us that once she was better that it would subside. It did not! Cathy is the only one in 6 months that has even asked about her mental state. I feel relieved as I didn't know what else to do. So now she will be checked for Alzheimer's and finally get the care she needs. I am so thankful that someone finally noticed and spoke up about it. I feel there is hope for my Mom now and we will both be there every step of the way for her.
I commend you for realizing so quickly that living with your mother was very bad for you and your husband. It was bad then, and it will be bad now.
It sounds like your mother needs far more care than you will be able to provide for her. She needs to be in a facility.
You are not a bad daughter! You will be a good daughter and visit her. If you end up in a 24/7 caregiving role, you will not be a daughter. You will be a servant.