So, mom wants to stay home and between me and a caregiver (for 3 hours in morning - showers, exercises and getting lunch). Caregiver there 2x one week and 4x the other week. I'm getting resentful......she is capable of being home alone (with fall alert and cameras), needs assist showering, meals, can't drive. I have to check in on her to get dinner and make sure she takes her evening pills and has PJ's on (she has a hard time with buttons or getting shirt / pull over PJ top on). When she tries to wipe after a BM, she gets poo on her hand and then touches things in the meantime (like her walker, countertops) to get the to sink to wash hands - and does not wash them very well. I tell her she needs to use the antibacterial wipes by toilet but she insists she wipes just fine. I told her I am getting a bit tired of making sure everything is wiped down - after a BM there is poo on the toilet seat also (I refuse to use that bathroom due to this). Her response is "I had to change your shit## diapers - now it's your turn"............ no help from sisters Btw
I did not ask to be born. You and my father decided to take a chance and have reckless sex without contraception which then resulted in pregnancy. Yes, you changed my dirty diapers because the law really does insist on that otherwise they take the baby away. I'm under no such obligation.
The shi##y diaper comment is comparing apples to bicycles. Mother could've used birth control if she didn't want to care for a baby who did not ask to be born. You are choosing NOT to change shi##y diapers for a grown azz adult because you can admit your own limitations.
Good luck in no longer propping up mother's delusions.
2. Because her judgment is TERRIBLE and no telling what she might do next.
3. The way she's talking to you is unacceptable, sick or not.
4. Start looking at places where she'll have 24/7 care from professionals.
5. Your sisters will never help, I can understand why.
6. Memorize the phone number of a really good plumber who has a hazmat suit.
7. You don't have to do this. If you stopped enabling her, you'd all be better off.
Just yuck.
I understand about the poor hygiene. I had a client who was not diagnosed with any type of dementia. He was an alcoholic who used the aides to clean his apartment. He had a nasty habit of $%iting his underwear and pants and leaving them to dry without washing them out. He expected me to wash feces in the washers saying his doctor told him it was okay to do this. I told him that his doctor was incorrect, and I had to follow proper protocol set by the Board of Health for infection control. Also, I told him that I could lose my license doing something like this. Why this agency kept sending aides in there was questionable since they were dealing with biohazard materials. Aides are not equipped to handle this level of biohazard disposal. He was also putting used insulin needles in the regular trash instead of using needle containers for proper disposal. The wound care nurse had a nasty habit of changing dressings and leaving bloody barriers unbagged smelling up the apartment expecting me to take out this soiled mess. I called my agency and reported it. I told him what he was doing was a biohazard. The bathroom was just as bad. A total mess to be honest. He sat on his behind and was too lazy to get up and change his clothes. The tenants in the apartment knew him and complained about the smell. One day I got so sick and tired and told him to get out of those $%*tty clothes. He had been in those same clothes for two days!
I got sick from allergies last month. I have tree pollen allergies. There was black mold in his laundry room along with dust and spider webs. That place had the appearance and makings of a bad horror movie. I had to tote stinking clothes down two flights of stairs.
He got angry last month because I took a day off because I had doctor's appointment. He called the agency and requested a new aide. He told the agency that he was concerned for my health.
The attitude I'm noticing with the majority of these clients is a sense of entitlement with dementia or not. Even with some dementia, they can have days where they are more lucid than others. Dementia is not a one size fits all. It varies. These folks have the nerve to get angry when I tell them that we are not a cleaning service.
I'm a believer that when someone gets to a point that they are too lazy or to out of it to wipe their own behinds, it is time for a facility.
I hear that, sister. When I was still in the field if I went into a place where the filth and squalor was beyond what I was willing to handle I refused. You don't have to clean up hoards and biohazardous messes all over the place. You should call the supervisor of that nurse who's leaving the soiled and stinking medical supplies unbagged for you to dispose of. She isn't supposed to.
I've been on the care "team" with more than a few lazy nurses in my time. I'd tell them plainly that no nurse is so busy in homecare that they can't dispose of their own messes. It's not an episode of ER.
Homecare agencies will send an aide into any situation so long as they bring the money in. Aides are not prostitutes who have to get that money for daddy no matter what and should not be treated like that. Yet, they are. The supervisors and owners of these agencies don't do their jobs like they're supposed to. An agency supervisor is supposed to go to the potential client's home and open the case. At this time the conditions of the home, the client and with me the area they live in get asessed. Then contracts are signed and the careplan gets made. After this the supervisor goes with the aide on their first day to introduce them to the client. This is how a professional homecare agency is supposed to operate.
If a client or their home is beyond what can be expected of a homecare aide, we don't take the case. If the area they live in looks sketchy and dangerous to me, I warn the aide ahead of time and they choose whether or not they want to take the case. They know I won't hold it against them if they don't.
When clients behave like your guy behaves, the aides are instructed to stop and call immediately. Either I deal with them personally or the aide supervisor does. Abusive client behavior will not be tolerated. If a client is so far gone with dementia or mental illness that they can't control themselves on any level, homecare is not the right choice for them. They belong in a secured facility with a full staff.
I'm having a bit of a laugh because I just chewed out a client a little while ago who called. She will call sometimes a dozen times a day. She was enraged again because her aide was late again. The scheduled times are approximate. The aide is coming from another client's home so if they arrive within 15 minutes of their scheduled time, I don't consider them late. She was mad the aide didn't get in trouble.
This client has already been dropped from three agencies and was reminded of it. I told her that I'd spoken to her daughter which I did, and if one more agency drops her from service she will be placed put in a LTC facility. I told her if she calls again I will drop her from our service and her daughter will place her. The daughter is very responsible. She calls ahead to cancel if they need to. She handles it. So we shall see.
We had my FIL stay with us when his wife died . I could not live with the poor hygiene in general . But he also made a feces mess in the bathroom from his hands everyday . I got tired of him trashing one bathroom . Turned out he had dementia .
The answer to your question is start looking for Assisted Living for Mom . At least it’s contained in a baby’s diaper most of the time and it doesn’t end up allover the bathroom . Your mom is comparing apples and oranges.
Of course she said something stupid in return. After all, her mother cleaned up her poop when she was a baby.
Please read up on how to cope with a family member with dementia.
Easy one:
"You chose to have children you we children were a happy or UNhappy accident.
Whichever is the case it was your DUTY, and your OBLIGATION morally and under the law to care for us.
It is my duty to care for any children I bring into this world, as well.
However, I have no duty to you. Not under the law and not morally.
What you have here is a mother who:
1) has forgotten how to effectively wipe herself.
2) has forgotten how to effectively wash her hands.
3) has lost any concern or embarrassment or disgust at getting her poo all over everything because of #1 and #2.
4) has lost any empathy for you having to clean up the poo.
5) has lost the understanding that poo smeared around the house is a real health hazard.
6) doesn’t care about #5
In addition, you have said your mom:
Falls
cant shower alone
needs help with her meds
needs someone to make sure she takes her meds
So you see? Your mom has dementia. It doesn’t matter that she isn’t diagnosed.
You need to start reading up on it and how to cope with and handle a dementia patient, how it’s never going to get better and how it’s only going to get much much worse.
She has already started to lose her toileting. Once she becomes bladder and bowel incontinent, then she is headed for a care home.
Good luck.
My aunt looked me in my eyes and told me straight up that she helped babysit me when my mom needed a break. Said she did it all. It was a lie. She didn't obviously know that my mom and I were tight, and my mom told me she never left me with my aunt, (her sister) because she had no patience.
I told my aunt to her face that my mom said she never left me with you because you worked. She laughed it off and said she was kidding. She was trying to manipulative me. Trying to guilt me into thinking I owed her.
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