Caring For An Elderly Parent: Acclimating Mom

Mar7

Blog - Pic 56“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

Christmas Day!  We picked Mom up from the hotel and took her to her new home. We didn’t know what to expect – would she love it? Would she hate it? Of course she saw pictures, but this is the real deal. She’s going from her quiet country club setting to city life in Los Angeles – will she adapt?

Well her first impression was a good one. She thought the house was charming and loved the wood floors and nice new kitchen. She honestly didn’t seem to have a problems with her new living arrangement. Wait…. maybe this is the calm before the storm. Maybe she hasn’t realized her situation yet. Well let’s keep her mind focused on the present.

We spent a lot of time driving around with Mom so she could see the area she’ll be living in and hopefully find her barrings. We hit up a few restaurants – did I mention Mom loves to eat out? And we had some finishing touches to do at her house before the movers arrived, so that took up a lot of time.

We wanted Mom to spend as much time as possible at her new home so that she would get familiar with everything. We would give her little tasks to keep her busy so that my husband and I could have some time to ourselves – I can’t stress how important it is to have time for yourselves.

The next few days were long and tiring for Mom (us too) but that was a good thing – she basically got to her hotel room at the end of the day and slept. Each morning we would pick her up at the hotel, take her to the house, and figure things out. It was definitely starting to feel a little weird for my husband and me – we’ve never spent this much time with my Mom. We’ve always spent the time between Christmas and New Year’s just the two of us on a nice road trip to a nice hotel for a few days – not this year.

This is either going to be a great beginning for Mom or the end of life as we know it for us.

 

What I Learned: This is a huge undertaking – don’t take it lightly.

 

 

Caring For An Elderly Parent: The First Boundary

Mar3

Blog - Pic 55“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

We arrived in California Christmas Eve just like we planned. We were all so tired and fit to be tied and I just wanted to sleep in my own bed for a change. Mom’s movers were scheduled to arrive 4 or 5 days after the new year so she would be spending about a week or so in a hotel just down the street from our new house. She wanted to stay with us and sleep on our floor (remember, my husband and I have the small house with only 1 bedroom) but we were not going to start that situation – we knew if we did she’d want to be at our place all the time. Also, how uncomfortable would that be for Mom.

Mom certainly wasn’t happy about being alone in a hotel room but we have to have boundaries – the RV trip across the country taught us that! And really she’d only be sleeping there and spending the days with us getting her house prepared for the movers. I realized that if you don’t create boundaries immediately when a situation arises it can get ugly – and trying to back pedal just makes things more stressful. There is no easy way to say “No”, and although it may seem harsh at the time, boundaries absolutely need to be set right from the beginning.

So we got Mom settled in at the hotel and the three of us headed home for a much needed rest.

Tomorrow is Christmas Day – let’s relax and enjoy!

 

What I Learned: Boundaries – gotta have em!

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Moving Day!

Feb28

“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

The packers and movers are doing their thing while Mom sits in the living room watching her life change before her eyes. She is definitely aware of what’s going on but is still in the “I can always come back” mode. We all know she won’t be going back to her house but it’s better to  agree with her that she has that option – why upset her when she’s already out of sorts with tBlog - Pic 52he whole moving thing.

While the movers were loading the truck, my husband, son and I were getting the RV ready for the road trip. We were going to be on the road for about 4 days and we were travelling during the Christmas holidays. We’d be stopping along the way and spending the nights in hotels – no way were we going to sleep in the RV! We were hoping to be home Christmas Eve – as long as the traffic and weather were on our side.

My husband and I have driven the California/Florida route numerous times and, thank goodness, my husband loves driving. Of course, this drive was definitely going to be a whole lot different. We knew we’d have to stop more often with Mom mainly because of cabin fever, and we wouldn’t be able to go as fast being in an RV, but we all had a positive attitude and we were going to make the best of this trip.

The whole trip, Mom sat at the table seat belted in facing the front of the RV so she could see out the front window. She barely left her perch the whole time and would make a big fuss if one of us stepped in front of her view. She always had her two cents to say about my husband’s driving and all he could see in his rear view mirror was Mom. Bless his heart, he was so patient for such a stressful trip.

I have to admit it was a little nerve wracking driving all that way with Mom, but having the RV made things so much better – especially when we ran into the snow/ice storm in New Mexico! We were stopped on the highway for about 4 hours before the roads were cleared for us to continue – thank goodness for bathrooms in RV’s!!

My husband and I have a totally different routine when we road trip, but obviously we had to schedule most things around Mom’s routine. All in all we made it to California safely and, believe it or not, my husband and I are still married!

What I Learned: Bite Your Tongue! (and talk Mom into flying if there’s ever a next time)

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Managing Mom’s Management

Feb24

Blog - Pic 47“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

My husband and I arrived in Florida about a week before the movers were to arrive – we still had so much to do. We’ve got the movers and packers figured out but still have to work on suspending utilities and phone, letting her doctors know she is moving, redirecting her mail and making sure we have all important papers with us.

It was important to make sure I was an account manager on all my mom’s accounts that she held – credit cards, utility companies, phone companies, doctors – basically everyone that my mom dealt with, because my mom was just not able to handle any type of cognitive work any more. Her bank book was a mess, she was behind in credit card payments, utility payments, phone bills – you name it, she was behind. And the sad part about that was she was paying late fees and interest for no reason – the money was always there. Poor Mom, she just couldn’t keep up with it.

I literally spent days just calling everyone to try to get her out of that mess. I must admit, I did a pretty good job! I got her all caught up in her delinquent bills and got her set up on automatic withdrawal for most accounts. The hardest thing was getting the companies to put me on as account manager. They (obviously) needed my mom’s consent which meant mom had to talk to each of them – not too much of a problem, but my mom gets confused easily and it was a little stressful getting through it.

So we were all set for the big move; as you may recall, Mom won’t fly, so let’s go get the RV!  Yup, we are driving Mom across the country in an RV. You realize we’d be home in like 6 hours if we flew, right? But hey, ROAD TRIP!

Should be interesting….

What I Learned: I realized that Mom wasn’t super woman any more – someone really needs to step in at a certain point.

 

 

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Countdown To Moving!

Feb21

Blog - Pic 44“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

So glad my sister and her husband could stay with my mom for a while – they were able to give me some insight into how mom is really doing… which unfortunately wasn’t great. But on the upside, now Mom had “real” people to talk to. At least there were no phone calls to security over the next few weeks.

My sister and her husband got a lot of loose ends tied up while they were staying with Mom – things should definitely run a whole lot smoother when my husband and I get out there. There will still be all the last minute things to do, like contact all her doctors, her accountant, her attorney, her friends and neighbors, the utility companies – the list goes on. Those things will have to be taken care of  just before the big move.

Mom was still apprehensive about the move and was pretty sure she was just going to California for a visit. Although it may seem cruel or dishonest, some things need to be dealt with in a certain way if it is for someones well being. I knew in my heart that this was the best thing for Mom.

What I Learned: Stay focused – things will all work out!

 

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Much Needed Help

Feb17

“This is supposed to be the best time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”Blog - Pic 42

Moving Mom has been a lot of work, and trying to do everything from California has been difficult. We can tell from Mom’s actions that she is not doing well mentally – she is still seeing people in her house and truly believes they are living in her attic. Funny though, she doesn’t seem to be frightened by them. She is also hearing things – that is what seems to be frightening her the most because she thinks people are trying to break in. Mom is making more and more phone calls to her security department and they are spending a lot of time at her house. They have called me several times telling me that she needs to have some supervision and they can’t keep going to her house at all hours of the night for no reason. That was a little stressful!

Our plans to move her out here are still a month away and my husband and I just can’t get there any sooner. I talked with my sister and she and her husband agreed to go stay with her for a while to keep an eye on her before we move her – such a relief!  It’s difficult to imagine what my mom might be going through and it will certainly be interesting to see what my sister thinks when she arrives.

All I can think about is “what if Mom is in such bad shape she can’t move?”, “what if Mom doesn’t want to move?”, “what if everything falls apart?” And I thought planning the move was stressful – the next few weeks became my new stress.

What I Learned: Try not to do everything yourself – ask for help if you need it.

 

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Mentally Moving Mom

Feb14

Blog - Mentally Moving Mom4“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

OK, so we’ve figured out where we all will live; the next step was to figure out what Mom will need to bring with her for her new living arrangement. Her place is much smaller than what she’s used to so she definitely can’t bring everything. Maybe we should just rent what she needs until we figure out if this situation is going to work – for all of us.

Well looking into renting everything just didn’t make sense, so how much can she bring and how will we get it here. U-Haul? Long distance movers? POD? So much to think about while trying to work it out financially as well – any way we choose will be expensive since we are moving across the country.

After days of calling around we decided on using a long distance mover since they could handle all the packing, loading, moving, and unloading. Although expensive, this was the most convenient way for us to coordinate things from California. There were less expensive ways (like U-Haul, PODS) but that involved doing a lot of the packing, loading, moving and unloading ourselves, which was way too much work for us to handle.  

This was one of the most stressful times for me and my husband – we realized someone had to be in Florida to see it all come together.  Time to call in some relief!

What I Learned: With being such a stressful time, try to manage things to relieve stress.

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Choices, Challenges, and California

Feb10

Blog - Pic29 Thinking about moving Mom to California has certainly been challenging. We knew once Mom was in Cali she wouldn’t be going back to her home [guilty]. Kinda sad really. So we had to prepare for her permanent stay and figure out how we were going to convince Mom that this was the way it had to be and the best move for her.

We looked into retirement living, assisted living (although we knew from Florida that this probably wasn’t an option), her own apartment, apartments next to each other (1 for her, 1 for us), even a house for all of us to share. We didn’t want her living too far from us because she doesn’t drive, and we didn’t want to spend all our time on the road back and forth, so it was difficult finding something that would work for all of us. My husband and I agreed that living in the same house with Mom was not going to work for us – we absolutely needed our own space.

After countless weeks of looking into our options, we finally found something we thought would work; but we went from our plan of buying a condo so we could have more “us time” to renting a triplex – I’m amazed that we actually found something that would work. The triplex is a 2 bedroom front house, 1 bedroom attached house and a studio apartment above the garage. The front house is the largest and has been recently updated – although old, it’s really quite charming and has all the conveniences one needs (like a refrigerator that beeps when the door is left open – which turns out to be a great feature for Mom).

This honestly works out well for Mom since she will live in the front house and will have the largest space for living. Although she is moving to a much smaller space, it definitely would not be as small as assisted living where you basically get a room.

Our son will live in the apartment above the garage so that will work out great for him. 

My husband and I will live in the 1 bedroom attached house, going from a 1200 square foot condo to 700 square feet of living space. It was going to be an adjustment but we are more used to smaller living quarters than Mom and this was our best (maybe only) option for our situation.

Hey, less cleaning, right? 

What I Learned: Only make sacrifices that you can live with – and don’t take them lightly.

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Deciding on Living Arrangements

Feb7

Blog - Pic7“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

So I talked with my siblings and my brother said he could arrange a senior living facility near him and his wife, but that would mean moving Mom to Canada. Mom is not opposed to that option, but again, she would be in a senior living situation and also a bit of a distance from where my brother lives. Part of me was thinking, great! – it would mean that my life would stay as it was [guilty], but the compassionate side of me was thinking that Mom would probably not adapt to the weather very well, and how often would she really be around family?

My sister was more than willing to have Mom close to her (which is in Canada as well) but also live in a senior living facility. Mom has plenty of family there to visit her on a regular basis but she just doesn’t want to live in that part of Canada.

Although having Mom live close to one of my siblings would have alleviated a lot of stress from my life [guilty], Mom doesn’t have the greatest history with either of them – I’m not so sure that would work out very well.

The next few months were certainly interesting. My husband and I focused all our attention on getting Mom to a safer environment where she’d have more interaction with people and be close to family. We decided that California was going to be the best option – now how do we convince Mom?

It was definitely going to be a challenge.

What I Learned: Don’t make rash decisions; think of all the options and keep Mom’s best interest in mind.

 

Caring For An Elderly Parent: What Next?

Feb3

Blog - Pic3“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

OK, where do we go from here? Mom clearly does not want to leave her home, but we have to do something – being alone was certainly playing a toll on Mom’s mind and I realized more and more that if we let her stay in that situation she would go down hill quickly – we can’t let that happen.

My husband and I were definitely more aware of Mom’s situation after talking with people and reading a lot about the elderly. I know now how important it is to not be alone – especially when you’ve lost or given up your driving privileges and are confined to your home. That’s when the mind starts being lost – that’s my interpretation from witnessing my Mom’s actions.

Our trip to help Mom was unsuccessful (although we did learn that she definitely needed help) and being back in California was only going to make things more difficult to figure out. I was keeping my siblings up to date on Mom’s situation – they both live in another country and are very busy people with a lot going on in their own lives as well, so trying to come to some sort of an arrangement for Mom was difficult. One thing we all agreed on was that Mom could not stay in her home alone any more, and a senior facility in Florida was not an option; not only because Mom was adamant about not living in one, but who would keep an eye on not only Mom but on the people who are caring for her? That’s a real concern for me.

Maybe my brother or sister would like to have Mom “visit” for a while?

What I Learned: For a healthy body and mind we need to stay active and socially involved.