Mom is in rehab after breaking her femur. Actually, she went from hospital to rehab, then back to hospital, now back in rehab. She is so so sad and very depressed. She cries everyday. Dad died in July. They were married 70 yrs! She feels lost.
I have siblings trying to take her out of rehab against medical advice. I am POA and know I can make her stay. But I feel so sorry for her being so miserable. My brain says she needs to get stronger. But my heart says she just wants to be home and maybe that would help.
Siblings think they can do it, but Mom can’t even go to the bathroom on her own. I have lung issues and Mom's a heavy smoker. I just know their plan will not work and it will be me and my brother caring for Mom all the time, the same way we did with Dad. Those same siblings were hardly around when Dad was in wheelchair and needed help. They all volunteered to come help Mom.
I’m just venting but any advice is welcome!
You are her POA and you get the final say, so stick to your guns.
Being home has about a half percent chance of helping her. She'll bring that sadness back home with her, and then it spreads to everyone else and you're all miserable. She is fortunate to be in rehab where she has a chance of getting the help she needs. She won't get that at home. If you take her home, dad is still dead. She is mourning not only his loss but the loss of the life she knew. Be compassionate, but be strong.
Your siblings are way out of line here, and you need to let them know in no uncertain terms that you're the one in charge. The cruelest thing you could do for mom is take her home where she doesn't have trained help to get her to the bathroom when she hasn't been trained enough to help herself. Or she tries to get up but because of lack of muscle strength, she falls. Mom would be way worse off when that happens, and it will.
Speak to her doctor about meds for her depression, take her flowers in rehab, and if you don't already, have someone join her there for her meals. I hope she gains in strength and that she gets the meds she needs in order to persevere in the tasks ahead of her.
Finally, no, her care is now such that she needs several shifts of several people each to deal with her end of life care. You should be considering hospice care. In facility. And discussing all this with her rehab. It will be a good deal easier finding good placement now with their discharge planners and especially if she is entering with Hospice on board.
I am so sorry. It is difficult to understand that many of us come to the point where we are done with life, no matter how good it has been. It becomes too difficult to go on. Speak honestly with your mother. People will ask if she is depressed. No. She has lost a spouse she spent a lifetime with. She is in mourning. And she is likely exhausted with life.
Find out now what mom wants. Do your best to do that. But your best isn't honestly to take a smoker in, make yourself sick, and take on care you cannot really sustain.
I am so very sorry.
One of the hardest moments in my life was telling my dad in skilled nursing rehab that he would not be able to come back home with us and that I had found a good care home for him. Bless him, he accepted it calmly and I visited him daily until he died a couple months later. I loved my dad but was not willing to give up my mental/physical health to care for him. My husband understood the same thing and thankfully he was able to stay at home until he died.
Her anxiety and tears could very well be a result of nicotine withdrawal. Her system is not producing the feel good hormones that nicotine trigger, being a smoker slows the natural production waaaaayyyyy down and it takes a long time to reset after quitting, so getting her the nicotine her system is use to might help.
Prayers that this works out, it is a tough place to be as the POA.
Of course she is depressed, who wouldn't be. Can she be set up for "in home" therapy?
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