Mom in rehab is depressed over dad who died in July.
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!
The death of a spouse or significant other is one of the highest stress factors.
Add to that that mom has has significant health matters of her own.
Is mom seeing a therapist or being treated for depression? Both might help her.
Is mom being encouraged to get involved with others in her rehab facility? If not is there a reason?
And..big question is mom going to return home after rehab or will she go to Assisted Living or possibly move in with you or a sibling? You can not care for mom if she is smoking you need to remove yourself from her care.
As POA YOU are the one that decides what is in mom's best interest. For her safety she must remain in Rehab until she can manage or she is discharged because her time is up or she has failed to progress. So it is also your responsibility to decide her next move. Assisted Living, Skilled Nursing or returning to home with caregivers in place. (if siblings insist they can help then the siblings can be scheduled for time slots to fill in along with hired caregivers.)
She will still be sad and lost at home. She may be happier in her own home than some strange facility, but at least let her complete rehab! When rehab is ready to discharge her, you will still have options. She can return home, or to some form of managed care. If she is a smoker, she will not like being somewhere she can not indulge in her habit!
If she does complete her rehab, and they determine she can go home to live on her own, don't your or your siblings upset your life to go and take care of her!
If she needs someone to take care of her, she can hire an aide, or she can consider managed care facility options. It is not your job to ensure she never faces any difficulties.
I bet within 24 hours it will be over.
Yep, I am not going to be a good patient. So far, no hospital stays (other than giving birth) and no rehab.
Are these the same siblings who didn’t want the fence built?
I would do whatever I could to ease mom’s smoking issues and see if this is at the root of the tears. Meanwhile hold firm on the rehab and your knowledge of who does what when it comes to helping out.
A little therapy can go a long way in maintaining a level of mobility that can keep her from remaining bedbound.
The average time in rehab is not that long so I would bring it up to her doctor that she needs help with the nicotine now before they say she isn’t participating and send her home.
And by the way, she will also need help when she goes home even after the therapy.
Tell them mom will take them up on their offers to help and that she will need it. As soon as she finishes therapy in rehab she will need them to come over and help her with all the things you and the one brother had to do alone for your dad.
Let us know how it goes.
Ignore the siblings and keep Mom where she is safe. She is in no shape to be moved and is an obvious fall risk. At this point, maybe you should consider asking her Dr. about Hospice? The poor woman needs to be kept comfortable and calm. She has many reasons to be crying and distraught. She is grieving and probably has Nicotine withdrawal included.
Funny how the ones who never help always have such big opinions and ideas. Where were they before? Stay strong!
I question how you can have a smoker in your home with lung issues?
Feeling sorry for her - or having empathy / compassion means you do what is in her best interest. For now, if she cannot manage walking/getting to toilet / needing disposable underwear in bed, etc., decide if you are willing to take this on. However, it sounds to me that the better course of action (now) is for her to get the rehab care she needs WHILE / AND:
1) more visitors at the rehab
2) Listen to Medical advice or strongly consider it and the reprecussions if you do not listen to it.
3) Have family visit her more often in rehab
4) Enlist volunteers to visit
5) She needs some one(s) to listen ... not give advice, just listen to her. Reflective listening. She is grieving.
6) Call a grief counselor (some are free) and have them visit with her.
Your mom has gone through such a huge loss - a loss that many of us haven't and /or won't experience - and have no idea how this may feel - esp to an older person who has their own health problems.
7) Be aware of depression and what MD says about that.
8) Engage her where she is ... listening to music, giving her a hand or neck massage. Whatever works. Her favorite foods.
While I understand that your family will volunteer to help when / if your mom returns home (to your home?) - are you confident you will get enough help / support? If she can't get to the bathroom on her own, she may need 24/7 care. Be realistic what you can and cannot handle ... do not let your feelings of 'feeling sorry' for her fog your thinking of what she needs now / what will benefit her.
Rehab won't be forever. And, if she needs it now, it will serve her later - to have gotten it. To not get this now when needed would be a major RED FLAG to me.
Gena / Touch Matters
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.
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.
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.
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.
Of course she is depressed, who wouldn't be. Can she be set up for "in home" therapy?
You are her POA and you get the final say, so stick to your guns.