I posted before about my mother who is paralyzed and in a wheelchair. She needs skilled care, but expects her children to care for her.
One sibling, Tom, does care for her the majority of the time and has for the last five years. He has DEMANDED that we do what he does. This includes transferring her from wheelchair to bed and vice versa using a slide board. (He has refused to get a Hoyer lift) She needs diapers changed, bed baths and wound care. She weighs over 200 lbs and can help a little bit with her transfer, but there is still a lot of bending and twisting happening on our part.- she cannot roll over or lift he legs etc. Nor does she help with bottom care.
Tom is 6’ 7” and weighs over 200 lbs. I am 5’6 inches and weigh 130.
Tom moved in with her before he ever discussed anything with my sibling and I. We were just expected to be on board. I have said from day one that I can’t handle her care, yet for five years he has insisted. I have tried and ended up unable to move due to back spasms after. I don’t care how good my technique is, I am almost 60 and she is big and dead weight.
. We have offered to help in any other way. Cooking, shopping, cleaning, maintenance etc. Tom says it is his way or the highway. He says he hates us. He refuses to communicate with us, except to demand us coming to take care of her. He has always been a narcissist and has trouble with people in general. The hate is not new or a surprise.
I have changed adult diapers. I don’t mind. It is the fact that she is heavy and paralyzed AND she has a massive bedsore on her back side that has not healed. She is also getting another bedsore next to the first one.
We talked to her a few weeks ago and explained that we do not feel comfortable doing physical care and will not do it, for our safety and hers. She said she understood.
Tom doesn’t want her to hire anyone, he want us to do it when he cant. Tom did contact a licensed nursing agency who said the only way they would come out is with two people, and one had to be a nurse, so he refuses to use them.He has found someone who will do private care for $15 an hour but will only hire her on a rare occasion. They won a lawsuit and she has plenty of money as well as long term
health insurance. So she can afford care, whether it be private care or nursing home.
Mom knows that Tom has made the family miserable by his unwillingness to communicate with us and his hateful attitude. But she is so afraid of going into a home, she lets him call the shots. She is totally capable of making decisions. She guilts us by saying if she goes to a nursing home, she will die. Tom loves the martyr roll.
My other brother and his wife went to visit her today. With the understanding that an aide would be there to care for Mom.
The aide was never scheduled. Instead, Mom insisted that they put her in bed and change her diaper, etc. She says that we have to, it is expected of us. My brother, who has serious heart issues did as she asked. It was hard on his back and he isn’t supposed to lift anything over 40 lbs because he has an enlarged aorta.. She has two bedsores on her perinium. One is very large and deep. It is packed. My brother was expected to change the packing and redress the wound. He is a janitor, not a nurse. The other is about the size of a half dollar and also deep. She had a BM so he had to try to get that out of the wound.
If brother had not put her in bed and changed her tonight, she would have sat in her chair for who knows how long after he left. Mom knew nobody was coming , it was her plan to have my brother do her care all along.
Apparently, our heart to heart with her did no good. What are we supposed to do in this situation? We can’t walk out and say, sorry, can’t do it,and leave her there. We want to visit with her but do not want to be put in this situation again. Tom leaves when we visit, he doesn’t want to see us Help!
Bedsores can be fatal. Wound care needs to be performed by trained professionals after an assessment is made. Medicare pays for Home Health to come in to do it, actually. To take on wound care yourselves and watch ANOTHER bedsore form is to be willfully negligent. Or for your brother to be willfully negligent. This truly constitutes elder abuse, not like the usual nonsense people write in about here on A.C. A call to APS is warranted with a report about untreated bed sores. A hospice evaluation is also in order, but I don't suppose Tom would allow such a humane effort to take place for his mother.
What a dysfunctional dynamic they have going on! I'd bow out of the situation entirely and just go visit mom once in awhile w/o performing care duties. You'll hurt your back so seriously thst you may wind up bedridden yourself, for NO good reason.
Best of luck to you.
No one is forcing the OP to do anything. Tom nor the mother can force her into caregiving.
If she chooses to let them intimidate her into risking her own health and safety to be a caregiver, that's on her not them.
Stubbornness can be life-threatening. If mom and Tom are so stubborn that they will not use the LTC policy and will not allow any proper, professional help it is not going to end well. The mother will die of stubbornness.
He does not decide for you or anyone else. Your mother doesn't either.
Let me tell you something. I was an in-home caregiver for 25 years. When the bedsores start showing up that's when there's going to be trouble. Your mother needs to be placed. Those sores will never heal and eventually will go septic and kill her if they are not being properly cared for.
Tom and mom both need to grow up and realize that she needs more help than can be provided by him, you, and the family.
I'm sorry to say that you may have to be the strong one here. Being the strong one who resists doing any care for your mother. She may like so many others be forced into care by a lack of care at home.
Your mother needs to be in at least a rehab facility for a while to receive wound care.
Get her admitted to the hospital and have the social workers call APS to report her lack of care.
Go and visit. You say Tom leaves when you're there because he doesn't want to see you. Call an ambulance while he is gone. I can't believe you haven't done it already. The Fear Of Mom must be deeply instilled for you to be so helpless and under her thumb even now, when she is deathly ill.
Good luck, but my guess is that mom isn't long for this world.
Plus the idea of a son changing his mother's diapers and doctoring her private parts gives me the absolute creeps.
Our parents didn’t allow us to make foolish choices when we were kids.
Well, it’s time to turn the tables on them should they decide to make unreasonable demands from their families.
One word could change everything in these situations. It’s a tiny little word with only two letters, ‘No!’ That’s all it would take because this woman cannot live without help.
I would be willing to bet that she would change her mind in a heartbeat.
My cousins were faced with a situation where their dad didn’t want to be in a nursing home.
Well, when my uncle got sepsis, my cousins said, “Dad, we are not quitting our jobs. We are not moving in with you. You are not moving in with us. We will find a nursing home for you to live.” That was that! There are times when an elderly person cannot be offered any choices.
My uncle was fully aware that if he remained in his home he would die. He was lucky to survive his sepsis. He lived in his nursing home for two years and received very good care. He died at age 96.
Perhaps you can use your phone in her hearing when you are there to call APS, then leave. Make sure you tell APS that it jeopardises your safety, and you have made that clear to mother as well as brother. You say “Mom knew nobody was coming, it was her plan to have my brother do her care all along”. She has to find out that it isn’t going to work. Things have to change for her, not just for your brother. She should be able to use her phone to call your brother, and tell him that things have gone pear shaped.
With luck, APS will have a look at brother's care as well as mother's needs.
She will go septic in short order and die. That's my take.
Which is why I suggest 911.
Lots of mental illness/denial/cognitive issues in play here.
I'm so sorry.
Please call APS--soon. This whole post was sickening to read. Your poor mom. She's been totally brainwashed by your brother. She needs to be as far away from him as possible.
I hope you can advocate for her--despite YB's 'control'.
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