Your loved ones have become your caregiver, what would they write on this forum about YOU?

Why oh why did we say we'd take Mom in when she got old? Tell me again!
Actually, all 5 of my kids have made plans to bring me to their homes when I get "that way". So sweet and NOT what I want. They see a pretty bouncy 59 yo who tends for free and cleans the house, to boot. I imagine I will be a holy terror in my old age and they will be glad I am living in a nice, locked in facility.
I also imagine they will say "where on earth did mom learn to talk that way??" Weirdly, as I am getting older and I can't find a word I want to use, I use the German word instead. I imagine I will be fluently speaking a language they don't understand.

Mamabug, sound likes you have very intelligent cats! Perhaps you can preprogram the Animal Channel for them so they watch other cat programs. Sounds as if they're discerning and know how to change channels to get good programs. Or maybe they just like stepping on the remote?

Mom still gets up and does her work out. She loves that Jillian Michaels has come out with workout DVD's for people over 80.

From my daughter's point of view: Mama refuses to take any medications that the doctor prescribes saying "doctors make me sick". She told me she did not want to end up on 15 different meds like my grandmother (dad's mom). Still, she appreciates all that my brother and I do and is willing to go into a nursing home. But she insists that she will not share a room unless she can room with Dad, and have internet in the room. She sits for hours playing on her kindle, which is about as big as she is due to her poor eyesight. She's on level 10,000 on Candy Crush saga by now. She's been playing that game for about fifty years now and shows no signs of stopping. Still posts on Facebook, and plays other games on her kindle. Dad has threatened to take it away from her and she hides the remote from him. The cats are finally allowed inside as Dad has forgotten about not letting them in. He just wishes they would quit stepping on the remote and changing the channels. I now have to clean the guinea pig cage since Mom fell while walking backwards down the back steps trying to take it outside to wash it. Now I know how she felt all those years when I had guinea pigs as a kid and she always cleaned it. Had to take the rifles away from Dad and stop him from hunting. Now he sits in front of the tv watching either football or Everybody Loves Raymond reruns. He reminds me of Frank Barone at times.

I hear that Jude's already had an offer to sing with Andre Rieu's famous orchestra and vocalists. She's negotiating on making arrangements to bring her mother to all the concerts, for free, of course. It's a new method of caregiving that our resourceful and very experienced Jude can pioneer.

In the future we may see Andre Rieu hosting a whole audience of caregivers and their loved ones, with special melodies adapted to those who grew up in the 20's, 30's, or 40's. Plans are already considered of copyrighting this concept as a new elder care therapy and marketing it to other orchestras.

In the meantime Dmanbro and Windy have teamed up to create the first nursing home that ....hold your breath....actually has real, working, effective humidification. No more dry air. No more gasping as you walk into the place and feel the air being sucked out of your lungs b/c it's so dry. No more rapid exhaustion b/c of the low humidity turning you into a parched caregiver. No more itching and scratching and applying bottles of lotion because your skin has dried out like shoe leather.

Lolololol you lot are all mad and I love it! Thank you for making a sleep deprived moron start her day/continue her night with a smile

As to me, the neighbors are delighted that I'll be cleaning their walks while they're sitting inside watching tv and keeping warm. They've even decided I can create gardens for them next year. Wait'll they realize I'll keep all the produce I grow.

There's a problem with my winter ghillie suit though. I wore it this morning b/c it was chilly after the frost, and the police came over after frightened neighbors called, having concluded that I was a Yeti that had moved south because of global warming.

Jude's going to take yodeling lessons and start a career providing music therapy to homebound persons with dementia.

Windy's going to start a horse riding therapy program for the little old ladies in the hospice home where he volunteers, inbetween rewiring all the nursing homes with defective wiring that's unsafe. He's already stressing out his caregivers because he's so active and won't sit still to rest up.

I hear Dmanbro decided to use his expertise in management to open his own home care agency, with plans to leverage that as well as his clientele into a rehab center which he's building.

About Dmanbro, Anybody? Anybody at all...where are all those caregivers on AC when you need one???

About Pamstegma, you remember Bookluver, the caregiver who was a travel agent? Maybe she knows if there is a destination resort called Guantanamo, at least Pam wants to go there, and they have water boards.

Regarding me, I think they'd say something like "I keep telling him he's not supposed to mix those pills with alcohol".

About LucyCW, let's let her Bil decide when we should take a break. As long as she has AC, she doesn't want us anyway.

About oh Jude, Can you believe our Mom? She is worse than Grandma, they warned us ahead of time, you get there in beautiful Switzerland, enjoy it so much that 80% change their minds and go back home! She is going to spend our entire inheritance by going back next year! No way this is happening again. She's 98 and just not ready.

What would my daughter say....Mum doesn't want me to do this I don't want to do this my brother doesn't want to do this so lets do what she wants and take her to Dignitas in Switzerland that way we get a holiday too! At least I hope thats what she says

If the situation got reversed and my MIL was my caregiver, she would put me in a dress and heels, curl up my hair, add makeup and jewelry and perfume. I would not like this, I would rather be waterboarded at Guantanamo.

As I've sadly run out of loved ones apart from my BIL with dementia I hope that my professional caregivers will say: "Lucy is so sweet always trying to get us to take a break. She talks about her time as a carer and how hard it can be, she worries so about being a burden. Most of the time she lives in a world of her own waiting to be with her beloved who went a while ago. At times she keeps asking for a computer to write to people on AC even though she no longer knows night from day."

About GardenArtist, after a re-assessment about GA's shovel, it is generally agreed to give her only a snow shovel, and to allow her to do the neighbor's yard too, but just for this winter. The doctor approves this care plan, however, as her caregivers, we are to make sure she wears her ghillie suit and keeps warm.

And, about Cwillie, she is so crafty that she escapes Caregiver award ceremonies, escapes to the closest store for those late night snacks and won't share them with her caregivers, and, at 134 years old, IS STILL posting on AC. Definitely deserves an award.

About jazzyfox. , at least that's what we read in her memoirs, about riding the mountain bike. It was sold when she turned 112, cause we worried she wouldn't come back on it, and as her caregivers, we must keep our jobs.

She always reads and works on her computer. Has a mind of her own and one is never sure what she is thinking. Loves to ride her mountain bike when she can.

I hear Sendme is building a tiny house on wheels so she can go on vacation and never leave home, pretty crafty for someone who is 101!

About ff, she always has something valuable to say, and after all these years of wisdom, maybe bringing in an elder interpretive linguistics experts would help the CIA, or FBI somehow?

About Sendme, she keeps laughing, rolling on the floor laughing, she can no longer get up off the floor herself and we have to help her up. She asks for 'fregflyer' all the time, is that her drug dealer or something?

My caregiver would be saying "she keeps mumbling about garden artist, Tim Buck Two, something about send help two me, see willie, and other words, can't figure out what that is all about, were they characters in a Star War movie?"

About Sendme, as her caregivers, we are always hearing about the vacation she wants to take but never has! Then, she won't even leave the house anymore, how could she go on a vacay???

About Ladee, advice for cargiver: Just suck it up and take good care of our friend, Ladee. She deserves the best of care always.

About Pamz, we, the former caregivers for Pamz were fired because we were on to her. The notes just confused us and her. The cats would jump up the walls to play with the post-its all hours of the night, a note would be torn down and shredded by the youngest kitty, then poor Pamz would forget to take her meds!

Why does Pamz keep leaving these post a notes around that say "remind me where I left the pills?" "did you feed the cats? Do we have cats?" "Where the heck are we going" Oh to the casino.... ok then

She never could say no and always wanted to help others. How sad she didn't take care of herself...now she needs a caregiver...tsk tsk...But at least she found a place to live that has been adapted and is accepting of people coming in to lend a hand.