I am so sick of only hearing about elderly topics! Anyone else feel this way?

My mother's topic is old western movies that I don't like and care nothing about, but she stays up all night watching them just so she can tell me all about the movie and actors. ugh:( Worst part is we have Video-on-demand so she has a lot of western movies to watch and she will watch a few of them over and over and tell me the same thing over and over! 😕

I feel your pain!

tacy,

Did he see your earbuds? That's funny.

My mother thinks she is a brilliant and incisive political commentator.
The horror--
The horror--

Same here. It’s either I can’t do a poo or I just did a poo. Men are worse All our married life he though it was super serious if he had not opened his bowels at least three times a day
i find as I get older that all people want to talk about. Their aches and pains. Stomach and bowels
i just cut them off and say “if this is going to be about your bowels I don’t want to know”

Well with my mom its either her pain, the dang news or the cooking channel.. so I guess that beats poop...

Sorry, but I kind of wish my mom was still around to talk about pee and how she poo-ed so much it “filled the toilet bowl” or how her room in a Cleveland.nursing home was really an apartment in Chicago. Sometimes I miss her so much I feel like I have cinder blocks on my chest...

My mom used to say "You're going to miss me when I'm gone." She was right.

Years ago driving truck 230AM eating spaghetti in a 24 hour cafe:
Old geezer talking loud, like they do, about having 12 feet of his colon removed:
I finally put my half finished plate on his table and said,” I give up, you eat it!”

I totally feel your pain. I don't get many poop discussions, THANKFULLY. Ewwww. Who wants to hear that? Not me.

So many boring boring conversations. I am at my wits end. Plus it seems like she's getting more frustrated and angry and practically delusional. She thinks she can do things physically that there's just no way. I'm thinking - WHAT??? Are you joking?

The repetition of conversation is so very mind numbing. I can barely stand it.

How, how, how do you keep your sanity? I have to force myself to chat lately. And she is with it enough to pick up on my frustration which is sad but I'm just failing right now.

Annoying when they seem to complain and/or object to seemingly everything. My mom seems to always take the other side of every issue. If I say X is annoying, she says it's not, etc.

OK, I'm hoping that at least part of this is that we were traveling together for the last 7 weeks and that was WAY too much togetherness. She likes to escape to warmer climes, but I think I'm going to have be done, for my sanity. Sure, nice to be in FL in Feb/Mar but at what price.

Needhelpwithmom - how do you deal with it??

Take a break, you need a break Needhelpwithmom.

Try threads such as:

What's for dinner?"
"Caregiver Cats behaving Badly"
"My favorite things".
"General Topics"
"Jokes Needed"

I have found fabulous support in this forum. Waters I could not navigate on my own. But quite honestly, I periodically have to take a break. I try to help where I can. Hush where I should ( need to work on); and listen and read. I lurked here for Quite awhile prior to, posting. This is an amazing resource and I am so thankful for it. But it gets to me. All of the topics. All of the heartbreak shared here. I am in great admiration of all of you. And very thankful I found this forum.

LOL!

I don’t get the poop conversations but I’ve sure heard a 2-year long tale of woe, suffering and how I just gotta understand how hard it all is.

I don’t have the patience any more. My body sent up another red-flag in the form of PVC’s (benign extra heartbeats that are a lot like hiccups) that I’m too stressed. Meanwhile, if I don’t call him on the way home from work my phone rings at 5:15 so we can have the same conversation we’ve had 126 times before. I’ve counted!

I’d do just about anything to get him to go out with some different people but he doesn’t want to be around old people.

I’m really not in a place where I can take a long vacation, due to work, but I need to.

I keep giggling about this, Need, seeing your thread in the topics column:

"I'm so sick of hearing about elderly topics!" Anyone who didn't know what you meant might wonder if AgingCare was perhaps not your best choice of forum.

But yes of course I do know and remember exactly how you feel. Continence care, skin integrity, curling your lip at the daily headlines promising ALZHEIMERS BREAKTHROUGH, waiting rooms, ugly adaptive furniture, grab rails along your lovely hallways, the 'oh God what the heck is she up to now?' new dementia symptoms ... It gets just as wearing and just as claustrophobic as the worst of the baby years.

My mom died in 2003 of cancer. For the next 10 years my father insisted he had every form of cancer imaginable. We would go to lunch and he would literally bring up the cancer topic within 45 seconds of sitting down. If he burped...it must be cancer! If he farted...it must be cancer!!! Drive me nuts.

Now all he talks about is his bowel movements. I so wish we were back on the cancer subject. I no longer take him to restaurants because he would loudly announce his bowel movements or even worse....check his catheter bag in public to see how much pee was in it. At Christmas he needed my help to empty the bag and didn't understand why I insisted we do this in the bathroom. He wanted me to empty it right in front of everyone in the family room. It took two of us to assist him in the bathroom when he wanted to poop. That is more than I am willing to do or ask someone to help with. I will not be able to take him out of assisted living anymore for visits. Don't even get me started on his obsession with laxatives. If we aren't talking bodily functions he has nothing to say. Isn't interested is other people or their lives, just his own.

I think my husband probably feels this way about my conversations about his mother. His mom pretends nothing is wrong, and she doesn't need any care, can take care of herself (as she sits in a puddle of her own feces). So, seeing your flipside problem gives me perspective. Maybe you'll feel likewise.

I wonder if you turned the tables on her and started initiating the talkie she would eventually get bored. As soon as she starts to talk about her poop problems you start telling her about yours (made up of course) the more outrageous the better. If you can keep it up for awhile she just might see what's going on and back off. She might not but it might just offer a bit of comic relief for you. I don't have that problem with my mom but her problem is her finances. She freaks out over the slightest expenditure and thinks she is going to be "in the poorhouse" - she's not. She is not wealthy per se but she is very comfortable. When she starts that droning on I just tell her about my bills or start talking about third world countries. She finally admits that she is not THAT bad off. I feel for you because sometimes you want to scream that there is more to life than this, and there is. Take care of yourself and try to get as much outside stimulation as you can to help your sanity.

CM,

Can’t edit title, sorry. Keep in mind we are stressed caregivers when writing these things. LOL. It’s not that bad of a title.

Question: Why do you need to announce that you went to the bathroom and had a 'good bowel movement' when the bathroom stinks so BAD that everyone can smell it? And no "Good morning" here - the minute she's out of bed, it's 'this hurts and that hurts'....
Had a friend in college whose mother in law would take her teeth out at the table as soon as she finished eating
( I don't think her marriage lasted very long, if I remember....)

CM,

New title just for you, 🤣 haha It is now going to be called, Poop Talk! Or Bowel and Bladder! Pee and poo! Day and night from my mom!

I have to tell you that an older lady that I would occasionally give rides to actually announced to me before getting into my car, “I didn’t feel like changing my diaper. It is as heavy as lead filled with pee. I wear black pants so the pee doesn’t show. Do you have a plastic bag for me to sit on?” I had leather seats in that car so I said it was okay. Now I have a new car with cloth seats and refuse to give her rides anymore. Others who have given her rides said it took them forever to get rid of the urine smell in their car. Sad!

You have to laugh and cry simultaneously.,last summer, I took my mom to various assisted living places. And i quickly came to conclusion we needed a MUCH HIGHER LEVEL IF CARE. Here we are at swanky place, with. CHEF. ( we have all been there. CHEF comes to table. All chef assistants. Marketing peeps and under peeps. Selfies!!)

So here we are with marketing director post selfie infusion ( read up selling) and my mom served lovely dinner. Which of course She bypassed mostly just diving for dessert. She starts eating with her hands and discussing her bowel movements for last month. In great detail. I went home and called my sister. We need to activate plan b. Let me tell you about today.....

Let it be noted, I refrained from the selfie b.s.

Need help, I can laugh now. But man! I said.,mom, now is Not the time, we should discuss later. Oh no, The details got more graphic. And the selfie Brigade quickly dispersed. But God Almighty.

If there is a God please strike me down like immediately. I will spare you the detail. But marketing peep, well dressed and coifed was wretching.

OMG Yes, I am sick of elderly topics!

A good poo is just that. But come on, keep it to yourself. We don't need to know at the granular level. Sorry guys, showing myself out now. Bathroom humor, I mean it good heartedly.

Eveyone take care of yourselves. Humor helps. But the trenches are real. And I know it.

Some of the elders really do begin to obsess about bowel movements. I always say there is a reason poop comes out BEHIND you. Do it and forget it. Even my dog kicks grass over it with her hind legs and runs from it....

This saddens my Heart to read how you feel. One day every single Human will come to this stage of there life. As life moves on they lose so much contact with the world. Therefore what is the upper most important is what's happening to there bodies. This is so normal. Bowel movements are a bodies natural way of ridding waste. It is also one of the most important. If anyone does not go on a regular basis this becomes very problematic for them. So, yes it becomes part of the conversation everyday. Please find it in your heart to be patient and understanding.

I guess I am fortunate about this topic. My mom is very secretive about her personal topics. She is 95 on her own & afraid of going to a home. I do keep an eye on her because of this. I can tell when something is wrong. But give her the subject of politics and she will rant & rave for an hour. I got used of that, but also said someday I will wish I could hear that again. My mom can be very difficult and it takes on toll on me. Remember growing up as a child she heard the same thing from you about poo and peeing. Maybe its the karma.

Bowels can actually be very serious with the elderly and a grave source of anxiety for me. My mom will get impacted after two days not going -- it tends to accumulate like a hard ball and at that point where she can't pass it, the is agonizing for her and she will wander and fall being unable to relieve herself. This would require a trip to the Emergency Room to get her disimpacted (a nurse digs it out which is extremely painful).

I keep her on scheduled lactulose and it's the only thing that works for her. You have to be careful with doctors too. One doctor told me to give my mom Milk of Magnesia (MOM)..I told that idiot she has kidney disease -- you NEVER give MOM or any kind of phosphate laxative with kidney insufficiency. The label will tell you so. People with kidney disease cannot get rid of the magnesium well, which will lead to lethargy and death. I had to ask for lactulose, and he gave it. Lactulose is kidney friendly, and it's not really a laxative but an indigestible sugar which accumulates fluid in the bowel which makes evacuation much easier. She has been on it for several years now. Her bowels are much easier to manage.

Actually if it cannot come out one end, stool will come out the other, that is, they will start vomiting feces out which can lodge into the lungs and kill them. This is no lie. So do not underestimate the seriousness of constipation. I keep a bowel diary, that is, I write it on the calendar including the time she went and if it was a large or small movement--when she went to ensure she never get impacted.

If you are a caregiver, I highly suggest you put your loved one (LO) in a nursing home because it is only going to get worse. It sounds like your LO is still able to communicate. Mine is not. She cannot tell me she cannot go. In fact many times I put her on the toilet she forgets how to urinate or bear down to have a bowel movement. I found a Squatty Potty very helpful, and I bought that at Amazon. but, I really think your LO is better off in a nursing home.

I Have been in Healthcare for Years, Dear, My main reason Now Somehow for Being on Here...Is to talk about Poo-Poo and What Nots. Anyone with Getting Old who may be in this Sad Way, If you do Not like It...be on your Merry way. It just gets More Draining with More in Store.

I think NHWM is just looking for a little humor here. And seriously what she said happens is pretty common!

A comparison (humor me): you have a friend who has heavy menses due to fibroids and she insists on getting graphic about feminine hygiene....wouldn’t you just say to your friend “thank you but that was TMI (too much information) ? It’s not meant to be mean but some folks can’t take that kind of talk.

No difference here for NTWH. Plus...she is probably most aware of everyone’s bm schedule by now anyway & is well versed on the importance of monitoring to assure regular bowel movements.

And at breakfast too? Geez....I know it can’t be helped but it doesn’t mean NTWH needs to like it or isn’t allowed to complain.