Update to my mom's bedsores.
I purchased a hospital bed for my mom and we put it in the living room- we planned a day for her to be placed in it (one week) my brothers got her in the bed and she likes it! I was pleased to find out that I chose a good bed that has the extra gel mattress that helps prevent bed sores. Also we purchased the pure wick system so the bed sheets etc can stay clean and dry! Baby steps is all we can do with my mom as she hates change.
I am in contact with department on aging in the community and they are wonderful! Next week a nurse will come out and we can set up a schedule with her.
My mom chooses to be bed ridden - she did fall off the couch end of January - no one could get her up, she called 911 she went to the hospital and they sent her to rehab and after one month they said she was “uncooperative patient” and insurance sent her home - when she was in the rehab facility the doctors, nurses etc tried to help her but she would cry and scream that she’s in pain and to stop and leave her alone and not touch her.
I don’t think it was the right rehab facility for her - my brothers and my moms friends etc were happy that she was getting help just to find out they can’t help her - very disappointing!
Her legs, especially her knees hurt and after falling down the stairs 3 times in late 2020 & early 2021 she has not walked since.
This is why my mom is bed ridden.
My mom is also a shopaholic and hoarder so besides taking care of her day to day I’ve been cleaning her house. It’s disgusting especially in the basement as she has let so many nice, new, sometimes expensive items go to waste because they become rotten or get moldy. Since she’s a hoarder my brothers and I have had to throw out expired food and rotten items without her knowing it. It’s sad, very sad.
I just don’t understand that type of thinking. I really don’t.
All I can do now is help take care of her and declutter a house full of stuff that’s accumulated for 50 years now.
Thank you everyone for your advice and help - I really need it!
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I'm 'sort of' involved in helping a dear friend help her niece who has a severe hoarding issue. It's juts incredible to me that we can pull 7-10 huge blacl garbage bags out of a smallish bedroom/bath. The DUST is 2" thick (I kid you not, I actually measured!!) INSIDE the drawers--how that happened, IDK. But I have masked up and worked for 6-8 hrs non stop to clean. She trusts me to go through her paperwork (she does not open her mail, ever) so I am going through literaly thousands of envelopes and then hauling the junk mail out to be shredded. She has THOUSANDS of pieces of mail. Many of them are dunning notices and she ignores those.
I had covid for 3 weeks and didn't go back, but next week I will.
Fully aware this is a lost cause, but the dust and dog hair and just--crap--being tossed should help for a little while. She needs deep, long term therapy and won't get it b/c she is afraid her therapist will judge her.
I'm sorry for your mom and her connection to the brother who has drained her dry. We had one of those. He had the folks 2nd mortgage the home and he didn't pay it back, so the largest amount of income they had was wiped out. OB died 10 years ago, leaving mom practicallt destitute. It's really, so very sad.
Mom does need psych help, but in my experience, very little will change with an elder who does not want to change. We've had zero success with mother. She feels she is a 'tidy little person' and in her own way, I guess she is. I recently moved to a bigger home and am already purging stuff I do not and will not need. To have 'stuff' simply because you want it is sad. I like open, blank space. She wants every inch of her walls and horizontal spaces covered with something.
There’s so many issues here; her husband who was 74 just passed away a few weeks ago; he smoked cigarettes heavily and was a big drinker, he was good to my mom and did not smoke and drink in front of her, so of course she’s mourning him they were married 25 years.
My mom has been paying drug dealers to keep my one brother alive for the past 20 years; people are too afraid to tell the police as the dealers come from Detroit or Chicago, so that doesn’t help. And I just learned that the 90k inheritance she received from her sisters’ passing 3 years ago all went to drug dealers. All my mom says is “well what would you do if they threatened to kill your son?” I know my brother is good at coming up with stories to support his on again off again habits but I didn’t realize it was thousands and thousands of dollars!! Wow ! I’m just in shock !
I just moved back to my home state last summer after living in Texas for 37 years to walk into such dysfunction- I swear I can’t make this stuff up!!
all I can do is help each day, pray, and try and take breaks to keep my sanity as nothing shocks me anymore!
thank you for your advice and tomorrow I will contact the dept on aging again to find out about psychological help for my mom too!
Bless you!