I recently bought the house next door and moved my mother, who has dementia and other ailments in, to take care of her. I have part time caregivers and I do the rest. My mother is a big time chain smoker for 60 years. I have asked one thing of her since moving her in and that is not to smoke in the house. I hate the smell and don’t want to end up with second hand smoke problems for myself. She refuses to do this one thing because it’s cold outside. Every day we end up in a fight about it. I do everything for her. Meals, laundry, care, changing, finances. Literally everything. I feel like I should have the one decency of not having to breathe in cigarette smoke. She cares about cigarettes more than me or literally anything in earth. What would you do?
You had an unrealistic expectation of her. Why did you move her in? How did you become the solution to her caregiving needs?
Why are you giving up your life for her?
I wouldn't expect an elder with dementia to be going outside in freezing temperatures to smoke, to be honest with you. So stop arguing with her and allow her to live as she sees fit in the house you bought for her.
If you don't want to breathe in second hand smoke, hire caregivers (on her dime) to care for her exclusively now. Let her know why you're doing so, but don't expect her to be compassionate about your position....dementia makes an elder extremely self centered and lacking awareness of other's needs and desires.
She may start fires with her cigarettes too, since dementia is at play now. We had a poster here who's mother burned down her house due to smoking with dementia. In reality, a demented elder needs 24/7 care either at home or in managed care where smoking indoors is prohibited.
To parrot what CTNN55 said to you, how did you become the solution to your mother's caregiving needs?? Most people have no idea what dementia is all about, how it progresses, what the care requirements will be, or how truly dangerous it is for an elder to be alone for even a brief amount of time. While your intentions were good, you may not have realized what a kettle of fish you were getting into here!
I suggest you read a 33 page booklet which is a free download online, it's called Understanding the Dementia Experience by Jennifer Ghent Fuller. She also has a book under the same name you can purchase on Amazon. She'll give you a good idea of what dementia is all about and what life is like from mom's perspective. It's a very informative read.
Good luck to you.
She found the gas stove on and MIL sitting smoking at the kitchen table.
MIL moved to appropriate facility.
Have you considered a vaping product? I used ones that looked like real cigarettes to help me quit. I wanted to quit and it took many tries and lots of different approaches to find what worked but, if your mom isn't ready, nothing is going to work and I believe, you will create a monster by forcing her. Especially with dementia, which causes fixation and that is a real consideration. However, it could be a good solution for her nicotine addiction. Which, I can say was the hardest thing I have ever quit in my life, and I drank and did illegal drugs when I was young and cigarettes were by far the hardest thing physically to stop.
Time to look at real solutions to the issue.
Get a couple of good air purification units for the areas she smokes in. Get her smokeless ashtrays, they really do help keep the smoke out of the air. Change the furnace filter monthly. You can even buy sheets that lay on your filter and blow fragrance through the vents. I put essential oils on 9x9 squares of cotton to freshen the entire house. Because it is a layered effort to keep the smell away, you have to try different things.
I found pet odor candles and oil candles to really eliminate the odor, to the point people thought I didn't smoke in my home.
When you enter the house, ask her to put her cigarette out and move them away so she doesn't light up while you are there.
Give her hard candies, this serves a couple of purposes, it gives her something to do with her mouth and using peppermint, cinnamon and lemon candies gets rid of tobacco breath. My cousin used cinnamon sticks so he hand both his hands and mouth busy.
Regular cleaning and odor removal products (i liked fabreze) help keep the home from getting stale. Opening the windows for a few minutes everyday will help too. I would do this midday during cold months.
I would set up a place for her to smoke that has the least amount of flammable items as possible. Think tile. You can put tile on top of coffee tables, you can have a handyman build a tile square to put over the carpet, those kinds of solutions.
I would put up smoke detectors in every room of the house, just in case she starts a fire. You can put up monitored ones that notify you and 911 or just you.
Yes, it is some effort and work to implement solutions but, you sound very determined to do this. Oh, when you hire caregivers, make sure you make it clear it is a smoking household, you will be surprised at how many of them smoke or vape.
Most importantly, please get educated on dementia. Unless you have 1st hand experience, you are in for a rollercoaster ride of frustration, anger, upset and total chaos. Because your mom, as you have always known her is slipping away, you are now the responsible adult in the relationship and need to find ways that accomplish your goals without harming her.
Best of luck. Dementia is awful and just when you have found a solution, bam, she declines and you start over. Being prepared by understanding the disease will save you much heartache. Hugs!
If she’s been smoking for 60 years, this is now one of those “accept what you can’t change” type of situations. Or in other words, harm reduction.
My sister the surgeon says they’re very preferable to inhaling the organic matter in cigarettes. Plus there is no fire risk.
She is not going to change, is there really a reason that you need to sit with her all day? If not, don't, protect your health, cut down on the time you spend with her explain to her why, set your boundaries and stick to them.
The ball is in your court.
I don't smoke
We had to do that with my granny so I used my connections to seek out experts in the field and nothing worked. She just had withdrawals in full blown nicotine fits and didn't understand why we were torturing her even with the entire medical team explaining that it was because she would literally die if she smoked while having chemotherapy. The MAT helped a little bit so maybe try that with patches or something, but even that won't have permanent effects without some kind of evidence based psychotherapy like CBT because it won't break the habit.
I think this might just be a losing battle, but I can't stand to see my granny think that we're torturing her. And I can't find anything that works with dementia as a confounding variable. But I'm one person. I don't have all the research in the world. And I got so frustrated and tired that after about 3 years of trying I was just like, "f***k it."
$70 grand of student debt and that was my solution.
Edit: I'm sorry if this was aggressive or anything it's just a nerve I guess. I love my career but we're not magic. Dementia isn't reversible, and the neurodegenerative effects make most therapeutic techniques just not work because of how it affects the amygdalal hypocampal region. The hypocampus is the first to go, and the hypocampus connects to the basil ganglia, which is what causes habit formation in the first place. So if that straight up doesn't function we can't magically make it start functioning so we can do addiction rehabilitation. Neurologists and brain surgeons can't either. I asked. A lot. You can take certain medications to slow the degredation, but because the hypocampus is the first to go and you can't resurrect dead neurons I just kind of don't know what you'd do in terms of addiction. Like we need the hypocampus to work for any addiction rehab to work. And right now once it's gone it's gone. And it's really frustrating to me because this is my job. And she's my granny. I should be able to fix this. I spent so much money and I worked so hard and I should be able to fix this. But I can't. What's the point of all that money and all that work if I can't even save my own family?
It's a really easy thing to break down over.
Edit 2: Like I said though, I'm one person. I might just be really bad at my job. It never feels like it at work but it always feels like it when I get home around her.
If mother won’t compromise at all, point out to her that if she has to move to a facility, she is not going to be able to smoke inside – perhaps not smoke at all.
It makes good sense though, out of the washer, out to the clothesline.
I know that sounds depressing, but you have to pick your battles and that won't kill you instantly the way some things they do will, so you have to just kind of get used to the idea that your own safety is secondary to some of their whims and realistically that's just how it is or you'll stay miserable.
If you're fighting a losing battle, be prepared to either fight it forever or let it go. Some things can't be changed.
I too would be concerned in her being alone and smoking. My Dad was with it and would fall asleep with a cigarette in his hand. I would, too, suggest that you wear a mask when in her house. As said, your fighting a losing battle.
Stress is the number one killer that can lead to strokes, heart attacks, and other physical or mental health issues. Many times the caregiver dies before the demented elder.
Eventually as your mom's needs increase something will have to give. Even with part time caregivers you are still doing the lions share of the work.
I really hope you don't have minor children in the home for this disgusting person to give cancer to. You have to have a special kind of sick mind to harm kids by insisting on smoking, especially your own grandchildren.
You're also killing the value of your house by allowing her to smoke inside.
Kick her out, like tomorrow.
1) Is it possible that mother feels ‘dis-empowered’ by you ‘taking over her life’ (with the best intentions, of course). Is this a deliberate way to pit her independence against something that you want her to do? If that’s possible, is there any way to give her more choices? Ask her for her own ideas about how to solve the problem? Keep warm with a woolen 'smoking jacket' like Sherlock Holmes, plus a woolie cap?
2) Lay it on the line: ‘M, when we made this arrangement, you had always smoked outside, not in the house. I expected that would continue. If I had known that caring for you would mean I was breathing cigarette smoke all day, I would never have suggested this, or bought the house next door to mine for you to live in. It’s not just that it’s not good for me, I simply hate the smell. I also hate that it causes so many arguments between us. If there is no alternative, we will have to find a different living arrangement, one that works for both of us’.
in the mother’s house, the mother smoked only outdoors. So OP hoped her mother would continue doing that in OP’s house: it was OP’s only wish: please smoke outdoors.
But OP’s mother now smokes indoors and outdoors, in OP’s house.
The fact that your mother is 99 years old is remarkable. If she can still light one up and sit at the kitchen table and smoke, I say her buys her as many cigarettes as she wants.
In fact, I hope that in good conscience you but her name-brand cigarettes. Please don't be slipping her any generic crap. No vapes either at 99. Come on.
Also, smoking never killed my appetite for one second and I was a smoker since childhood. Almost 40 years.
She moved in her mother who has been a smoker for 60 years. The OP grew up in a house where her mother smoked. She was around her mother and probably father or relatives smoking before she moved her mom in.
No one should be expected to quit smoking after 60 years. That would be a terrible thing to do to someone.
If the smoking bothers the OP so much, she does not have to live with it. She can move. So can her mother.
People do not get pneumonia, colds, or any other disease because they went outside in the cold.
Cold weather and being cold does not cause disease. Bacteria or viruses do. You won't catch a bacteria or virus from going outside to smoke on a cold day.
If a person is already sick or coming down with something being out in the cold will make it worse. It does not cause the sickness.
My son took me to a vape store and I found a flavor I liked and that was the only way I was able to finally quit. I hate the smell of smoke and the vapes leave no odor at all & you can adjust the amt of nicotine over time.
I hear that. I smoked since I was a child. I tried every method over the years and I'd be smoke-free for a few months at a time. Then I tried the one way I'd never thought of. I quit and stayed away from them now for two years. I do the AA program. It works for addiction if someone wants it to. Booze, drugs, sex, food, gambling, you name it. I stuggle with wanting it. Some days more than others. One day at a time though. Some days it's one hour at a time. This has been working for me for two years.
It's true about the smell of smoke though. I'm like that now too. I can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke.
However, you have a right to live in a smoke-free home. This is not unreasonable. You and your mother cannot live in the same house. Either you will have to move or she will because she is not going to quit smoking unless she is forced to and at her time of life, that would cruel and wrong to force her to.