Elder Care Diary

Warmer weather is so much better for my parents

Tuesday, June 3

Can’t believe that summer is practically here.  Thank goodness!  It sure is welcomed at our household!  My parents hate being shut in the house during the cold winter months.  Even some of the nice spring days that we had, my mom felt it was too cold to go outside.  She must have extremely poor blood circulation!

We built them a deck off of the back of their living room that has a beautiful view and is also in an extremely peaceful and serene area.  Their deck looks out over an open field that has 2 baseball fields that are used about once a week by the church during the spring and summer months.  They can watch the geese, humming birds and butterflies when there is no activity at the ball fields.  The church behind us plays their church chimes at noontime and at 6:00pm, which they enjoy a lot.  Anyhow, they do enjoy their deck during the warmer weather. 

My parents are getting more and more frail, but holding their own

I took my dad to the skin doctor last Friday to have his cancerous growth removed.  The doctor did it right in his office and Dad didn’t seem to mind it at all.  He’s on antibiotics now and we just have to make sure that he doesn’t get an infection.  He has a couple of routine doctor appointments coming up, but nothing major.

As for my mother, I took her to her general doctor for some problems she was having.  Mom has become extremely weak and has a very hard time getting around when she goes to any of her doctor appointments.  I am very seriously considering checking on a doctor in our area that makes house calls to patients that are homebound.  It’s really a major problem for someone like my mother to try to maneuver themselves around in a doctor’s office and it’s also very embarrassing for them.  I know my mom thinks everyone is looking at her and thinking how awful she looks.  I try to tell her otherwise, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

A return to therapy for my mother

My mother’s doctor felt it would be good for her to have more occupational & physical therapy.  It seems like the moment she stopped with her therapy this past winter, she started to get weaker and weaker.  She tried to do some of the exercises on her own, but didn’t seem to have the willpower to do them religiously. 

The occupational therapist came to the house to do a reevaluation of Mom this morning.  I’m hoping it will motivate her a little more and possibly help her get around a little bit better.  She grumbles when they make her do the exercises.  But, the minute that she no longer has the therapy, she misses them.  I want to do everything I can for her to keep her out of a nursing home, because she will be in total agony if she has to leave home.  She needs constant attention and she will not get that in a nursing home.

Ken’s mom, Genevieve, is making a miraculous recovery

Unfortunately, she still is not well enough to come home.  We know in her mind, she thinks she is ok and going to come home and do work around the house like she always did.  She even said to us that she’ll go up and down the stairs on her butt.

We are going to have a family conference with her social worker, nurse and therapists to see how realistic it is to bring her home.  Her apartment is upstairs at our house, which is a problem.  Ken and I have some very serious thinking to do on how to handle her coming back home.  We almost don’t want her initially to go back upstairs to her apartment, because she won’t have any way of getting around to visit with my parents or being able to have meals with us, etc. 

Ken and I are scared to death

We realize how desperately she wants to come home.  But, the reality of this is that Ken and I are scared to death to have her come back home.  It’s going to be a major burden on all of us and we just don’t know if we’re able to handle all of this.  Right now we are taking each day at a time with her.  She’s reading her books on a regular daily basis again, which is wonderful!  She is also now able to have her meals in the main dining room downstairs at the health center, which she thoroughly enjoys.

Our visits with Genevieve usually consist of being told about any major problem she’s had for the day.  Usually, whatever problem she’s having is totally magnified in her mind.  It had been quite consistently about her incontinence problem.  She had herself convinced no one else in the facility had this embarrassing problem that she had.  Then finally one day, she noticed that one of the other patients did have the same problem.  Since that has happened she hasn’t been quite as bad, but she still hates for it to happen to her. 

Her other problem she fixates on is her hearing aid.  She makes sure we take it out every night before we leave.  The other night, according to her, she had a problem with one of the aides about not having her hearing aid in her ear.  Again, since she can’t hear or grasp half of what is being said to her, she magnifies the problem in her mind.  So, when Ken visited her last night, most of the conversation was geared toward that problem.

I guess on a positive note, Genevieve doesn’t really understand or know how long she has been sick.  This is a very good thing, because by nature, she is a very impatient person and would have gone totally bonkers if she knew she had to be in a nursing facility so long for her recovery period.

The reality of getting old

Tuesday, June 24

Can’t believe it’s been so long since my last entry!  I was driving past our bank the other week and noticed there was an ambulance and police car next to a little house where we do our banking.  I felt so bad and started to tear up when I saw that.

There is an elderly couple that lives in this little house (cottage).  I only know this because I would watch them when I was sitting at the drive-up teller, which faces right into their house.  The couple would sometimes be taking groceries into their home, or tending their flowers or the elderly man would be cutting their grass.  They were a couple much like my parents.

Well, I just felt so bad for them because now their lives would never be the same again.  I don’t know these people and it should not have affected me the way it did.  I guess I’ve developed a real soft spot in my heart for seeing elderly people getting sick and having to give up life as they previously knew it.  It really is very sad to think what they have to give up.

I see my parents going down hill right in front of my eyes and I can’t do a thing about it.  I try, but the reality of it is that nature has to take its course.  My mother is constantly saying to me of late that she should just kick the bucket.  I hate it when she talks like that. 

She has been getting weaker and weaker and I think she is just plain tired of her whole situation.  I can’t blame her, but she still has to make the best of her life.  She’s now getting up about 4 times a night to go to the bathroom, which she cannot do by herself.  So not only is she not getting any sleep during the night, but neither is my father.  I know they both think they don’t sleep during the day, but they do.  They have to get their sleep sometime!

My dad is also now complaining about his back bothering him again, which I know is from him pulling my mother up all the time.  This is getting to be a real problem and don’t know how we are going to address this problem.  If Dad continues to pull my mother up out of bed and chairs, he will be in bad shape, as well, again. 

So fortunate to have each other

The occupational therapist is still coming to the house two times a week and that is a very good thing.  She observes the two of them interacting as a couple.  She continually tells my dad not to be pulling my mom up.  For some reason she can’t seem to get herself up anymore.  There for a while she was doing a great job.  I think that since Dad has gotten better, she went back to her old ways and is relying on him a lot again.  She doesn’t realize she’s doing it.  Plus, Dad totally babies her and will do absolutely anything for her.  My mother and father are so lucky and fortunate to still have each other.

I went to Pennsylvania last week to pick up my grandmother and bring her back to our home to stay with us for a few days.  She’s also been having a rough time.  Thankfully, she’s very healthy for a 96 year old woman.  She has her 97 year old sister’s home to get ready to be sold.  The whole process has been extremely hard for her.  She goes in to see her sister every day at the nursing home, plus still tries to do all her normal daily activities that she always did.  Anyhow, it was a nice change for her, as well as for the rest of us to have her visiting with us a few days. 

As for Genevieve, Ken and I go to visit with her every day.  She wants to desperately come home.  We did have our family conference and were basically told that she will always need 24/7 care.  To look at her sitting in her wheelchair, you’d think that she could handle herself without any problem.  But the reality of it is that she needs verbal prompting for so many things.  Even with her eating she has to be reminded to double swallow so that she doesn’t choke on her food.  She needs help with virtually anything that she does.

The other day I saw her walk with her walker for the first time.  She took off at a real fast pace with the nurse running after her and trying to tell her to slow down.  She was always real fast in everything that she ever did.  But, with that fast motion, she is not thinking and not in control.  The only time that she uses the walker is in a group exercise class.  The instructor walks with each of the residents a couple of times around the room.  Other than that time, she is confined to her wheel chair.

She still has incontinence issues and will always have that problem as long as she’s on the diuretic medication to get rid of the fluid in her legs.  Her memory is much better, but she still has a lot of problems.  The other day she called Ken by his formal name, Kenneth.  After his name came out of her mouth, she asked him if that was his real name.  There is a lot that she cannot remember.

We still plan to bring Ken’s mom home

But, despite all her problems, we are definitely going to bring her home to see if we can handle her.  Ken has started preparing her for coming home by telling her certain issues she’ll have to face and also the possibility she might not be able to handle staying at home.  Of course, this now is getting her very anxious.  She’s not able to handle anything too stressful, which is totally understandable.  My parents can’t handle anything other than their normal day-to-day routine.  I don’t think this is an uncommon emotion among a lot of the elderly people.

The other day when I was visiting with her she had a major problem to tell me about, at least it was in her mind.  She started out by saying, “I have something to tell you, but don’t know how to tell you.”  Well, every time she starts out a conversation like that, I brace myself for the absolutely worse scenario.  I’m thinking, how bad can this be…she’s in a nursing home.

Her problem was that she had a toothache and didn’t know what to do about it.  She was suffering with it several days (which is something she always did when she had a problem) and finally it got so bad she had to tell me.  The unfortunate thing about all of this is the dentist for the nursing home comes once a month and he was just there!

Well, her dentist was more than willing to come to the nursing home to check her mouth, but he doesn’t have privileges at the nursing home.  So, now we’ll probably have to take her to her dentist and he’ll have to check her in the car, because there is absolutely no way for her to get into his office.  I think this is ridiculous that a dentist can’t come into a nursing facility when a patient has a major tooth ache.  It just doesn’t seem fair to the residents!  Ken and I are constantly learning new problems that have to be dealt with every day.

Putting in an insurance claim

Ken just contacted her long term care insurance company to start filling out all the paperwork for her nursing home care.  Her Medicare coverage will be exhausted as of tomorrow.  We have to say they did cover her for a long period of time.  Between her secondary insurance and Medicare coverage, it was extremely helpful.  I just started to fill out her paperwork for her long term care insurance yesterday, when I received a phone call from the nursing home informing us that all of her benefits were expiring in a couple of days and to expect a bill shortly.  Boy, they sure don’t waste any time.  We realize that they need to do this, but it’s just kind of like a reality check as to Genevieve’s status going forward.