Sigh of relief
Ugh - I hate it when I get paragraphs into a post and then I hit the wrong button and it wipes everything out. Let me start again-
The last couple of months have been a whirlwind - only now is my blood pressure and my sleep pattern finally getting back to some normal rhythm…
My Mother is now in her new apartment within a Senior Living community, as they’re called. She appears to be settling in well and starting to branch out and meet new people. But, we didn’t get to this point w/out a lot of pain and frustration.
For many months, my Mother has basically been paralyzed by fear. She pretty much came to our house in August ’08 and stopped thinking for herself. She became quite reliant on us for her well-being and not w/out some resistance from me. Terry insisted that we needed to do these things for her because we might regret it later if he don’t. He didn’t see what I saw - in that in actuality, we’d be regretting it because we would do those things because the woman doesn’t know gratitude.
For months, she’d just sit in the same chair all day long - get up only to eat, pee (and pee a lot) and sleep - oh, and to take her dog out. It was getting aggravating. She’s only 68 yrs old. We know people who are 10 - 20 yrs older than her doing a hell of a lot more things with their lives than she ever did. To make matters worse, she was a bitch about it. Never saying thank you or please. She would just assume that we would do things for her - no asking…just telling. She paid very little attention to the kids. She could talk to Ivy but, if she gave Connor any type of attention it was just to bitch at him. He has always felt like she didn’t like him so the feeling became mutual. I had very loud words with her on one occasion and she, of course, denied all of it. If someone doesn’t think they’re acting wrong - they will not change. She has been nothing but self-centered and self-absorbed these many months and the negativity she emitted permeated our household and changed the overall environment of our home. I hated it.
About 2 months ago - she was having gastric problems so her Dr put her on a new drug for it. Unfortunately, it counteracted with the other meds she was taking and it was like something snapped in her head. She started hallucinating, didn’t know what time of day it was or what day it was - couldn’t remember people’s names and the stories she had about her life were like movies she had watched. We took her to the ER and the Dr there, in turn, admitted her to the Psychiatric hospital in Leavenworth for 2 weeks - took her off the gastric medicine and put her on a couple of other psycotropic meds. She was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and early onset (mild) dementia. We were trying to find a home for her to go to after that but she made too much to get Medicaid and go into a nursing home and didn’t make enough to go into the local retirement home. So, we started looking @ other senior housing in town.
We brought her back to our house for awhile longer while we continued to look for a place - of course, none of it being pushed from her end - all of it had to be initiated and taken care of by me or Terry. I wound up having to drop out of school because there was just too much to deal with. When I told my Mom that - all she could say is, “well, sometimes the older child has to do things like that”. I don’t know when I’ll get to go back. I have only about 30hrs left to graduate - it was already taking me forever to get through my classes and in the last year it was excruciating - I had only been able to take 1 class per semester, moving at a snails pace.
Things came to a head one day when Terry, for the umpteenth time, was cleaning up her dog’s crap & vomit and Mom was arguing w/him over whether or not it was her dog that actually did that when she told him, “fuck you”. Well, that did it. Terry laid into her and told her he was done. She had to move out. We called my brother to have him come take her to his place until we could get her apartment set up.
2 days later, my brother calls me to tell me that he came home from work and she was gone. She was no where to be found - her dog was in the apartment but she and her purse was gone. He called the police - I told him to check w/the neighbors after he went and checked out all the local shops in the area. I called my Mom’s best friend in Wichita. I had an inkling that Mom might have called her. To my surprise, when I called her - she told me that they had sorta heard from Mom - just 30 mins before I called. They had actually heard from a hospital up in the town where my brother lives. Mom couldn’t remember my number or my brother’s number but she could tell them to call her friend in Wichita. She had apparently been walking her dog when he got away from her and then she lost her balance, fell backwards and broke her wrist in 2 places. She was to have surgery.
Fast forward to the next day and the hospital discharges her - she broke her wrist so badly it couldn’t be fixed at that point. My brother had to take her back to his apartment (very reluctantly). I told him he had to keep her there because we were able to get her apartment but we had to move all her stuff into it.
So, last Saturday, she officially moved in. We gave her our TV, the bedroom set she was using while she was here and our toaster. We didn’t want make it seem, in any way, that she didn’t have all she needed there.
She’s with a new Dr that won’t take any of her crap and understands she has mental issues. She did go to see the Orthopedic surgeon yesterday who told her that they can’t do surgery - it just wouldn’t make it any better than how it’s healing now. She has major hardware in her arm - they’re just going to keep it in there until her wrist is healed and leave it. Now, to make sure she doesn’t fall again - we’re keeping her dog here @ our house. It’s beginning to look like the dog will be staying with us permanently. He behaves better here with us than he ever did with her - he is still a puppy and Mom just doesn’t have the energy or balance to be chasing his little ass around (and then falling again). We might wind up taking one of her cats to her apartment instead. She has one here that is older - laid back and easy going. He won’t be hyper and fussy.
Things are much better now - I’m hoping they will continue to get better. The air has lifted here @ our house. It’s been such a relief.
The last couple of months have been a whirlwind - only now is my blood pressure and my sleep pattern finally getting back to some normal rhythm…
My Mother is now in her new apartment within a Senior Living community, as they’re called. She appears to be settling in well and starting to branch out and meet new people. But, we didn’t get to this point w/out a lot of pain and frustration.
For many months, my Mother has basically been paralyzed by fear. She pretty much came to our house in August ’08 and stopped thinking for herself. She became quite reliant on us for her well-being and not w/out some resistance from me. Terry insisted that we needed to do these things for her because we might regret it later if he don’t. He didn’t see what I saw - in that in actuality, we’d be regretting it because we would do those things because the woman doesn’t know gratitude.
For months, she’d just sit in the same chair all day long - get up only to eat, pee (and pee a lot) and sleep - oh, and to take her dog out. It was getting aggravating. She’s only 68 yrs old. We know people who are 10 - 20 yrs older than her doing a hell of a lot more things with their lives than she ever did. To make matters worse, she was a bitch about it. Never saying thank you or please. She would just assume that we would do things for her - no asking…just telling. She paid very little attention to the kids. She could talk to Ivy but, if she gave Connor any type of attention it was just to bitch at him. He has always felt like she didn’t like him so the feeling became mutual. I had very loud words with her on one occasion and she, of course, denied all of it. If someone doesn’t think they’re acting wrong - they will not change. She has been nothing but self-centered and self-absorbed these many months and the negativity she emitted permeated our household and changed the overall environment of our home. I hated it.
About 2 months ago - she was having gastric problems so her Dr put her on a new drug for it. Unfortunately, it counteracted with the other meds she was taking and it was like something snapped in her head. She started hallucinating, didn’t know what time of day it was or what day it was - couldn’t remember people’s names and the stories she had about her life were like movies she had watched. We took her to the ER and the Dr there, in turn, admitted her to the Psychiatric hospital in Leavenworth for 2 weeks - took her off the gastric medicine and put her on a couple of other psycotropic meds. She was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and early onset (mild) dementia. We were trying to find a home for her to go to after that but she made too much to get Medicaid and go into a nursing home and didn’t make enough to go into the local retirement home. So, we started looking @ other senior housing in town.
We brought her back to our house for awhile longer while we continued to look for a place - of course, none of it being pushed from her end - all of it had to be initiated and taken care of by me or Terry. I wound up having to drop out of school because there was just too much to deal with. When I told my Mom that - all she could say is, “well, sometimes the older child has to do things like that”. I don’t know when I’ll get to go back. I have only about 30hrs left to graduate - it was already taking me forever to get through my classes and in the last year it was excruciating - I had only been able to take 1 class per semester, moving at a snails pace.
Things came to a head one day when Terry, for the umpteenth time, was cleaning up her dog’s crap & vomit and Mom was arguing w/him over whether or not it was her dog that actually did that when she told him, “fuck you”. Well, that did it. Terry laid into her and told her he was done. She had to move out. We called my brother to have him come take her to his place until we could get her apartment set up.
2 days later, my brother calls me to tell me that he came home from work and she was gone. She was no where to be found - her dog was in the apartment but she and her purse was gone. He called the police - I told him to check w/the neighbors after he went and checked out all the local shops in the area. I called my Mom’s best friend in Wichita. I had an inkling that Mom might have called her. To my surprise, when I called her - she told me that they had sorta heard from Mom - just 30 mins before I called. They had actually heard from a hospital up in the town where my brother lives. Mom couldn’t remember my number or my brother’s number but she could tell them to call her friend in Wichita. She had apparently been walking her dog when he got away from her and then she lost her balance, fell backwards and broke her wrist in 2 places. She was to have surgery.
Fast forward to the next day and the hospital discharges her - she broke her wrist so badly it couldn’t be fixed at that point. My brother had to take her back to his apartment (very reluctantly). I told him he had to keep her there because we were able to get her apartment but we had to move all her stuff into it.
So, last Saturday, she officially moved in. We gave her our TV, the bedroom set she was using while she was here and our toaster. We didn’t want make it seem, in any way, that she didn’t have all she needed there.
She’s with a new Dr that won’t take any of her crap and understands she has mental issues. She did go to see the Orthopedic surgeon yesterday who told her that they can’t do surgery - it just wouldn’t make it any better than how it’s healing now. She has major hardware in her arm - they’re just going to keep it in there until her wrist is healed and leave it. Now, to make sure she doesn’t fall again - we’re keeping her dog here @ our house. It’s beginning to look like the dog will be staying with us permanently. He behaves better here with us than he ever did with her - he is still a puppy and Mom just doesn’t have the energy or balance to be chasing his little ass around (and then falling again). We might wind up taking one of her cats to her apartment instead. She has one here that is older - laid back and easy going. He won’t be hyper and fussy.
Things are much better now - I’m hoping they will continue to get better. The air has lifted here @ our house. It’s been such a relief.