I’ve been on the forum for awhile. What I have learned here was a great help getting me through this. Quick rundow:
I’m 63 yr old guy, last living kid
Been managing money, medical, the whole sinking ship for 5 years from 3 states away.
Mom with health/mobility issues
Dad with dementia which started increasing rapidly in the last few weeks.
Been dealing with all the nightmares, worries and problems so familiar to us all
Last week the big crisis, mom fell, head injury, Em room, then to hosp for testing and observation.
She was found by my cousin, a nurse, who just happen to stop by from out of state. There was blood all over the floor and her bed. Mom and dad were just going to tough it out. I JUST NEED TO REST A LITTLE. I had just been on the phone with mom an hour before she fell.
Jumped in car, 10 hour drive, had to get friends and neighbors to watch Dad till I got here.
Been running my ass off since, begging and paying people to watch Dad,
got mom in wonderful facility Tuesday
Took Dad to have lunch with mom today. Put another bed and his stuff in the room while they were eating.
When I left she was dozing in bed and dad asleep in his chair.
We are playing the JUST TILL MOM GETS BETTER game for now. I know I’ve still got some rough stuff ahead but this is huge! The staff in this place is amazing.
I cannot describe my relief.
Thanks to all you folks for listening to my tales of woe the last couple years.
For my simple country folks it’s like they’re on a cruise ship. Bingo, DJs, ornament decorating, music groups, exercise class, you’ve all seen this stuff.
But this is the topper. My folks had a sip of bubbly once about 1968. I get to the “Fancy Dining Room” tonight and join them for dinner. Mom says “We we’re all having cocktail hour earlier”.
Like double WTH!! She goes on about having two kinds of wine, the second was not bad it was kinda pink. I ask Dad if he had wine. He couldn’t remember but mom said he did.
Wow! Wild Friday not on the elder cruise ship.
And they have somehow transformed from hillbilly’s to the duke and duchess of Windsor. These are folks who ate out at captain d’s or maybe once a year at Pizza Hut. Now.......Here’s mom: “I think they just opened a can for this soup. These French fries are clearly just the frozen junk. What is this desert supposed to be”.
As I watch them eat every thing but the legs off the table. Wonderful stuff.
And thanks again for the nice comments. Y’all are the best.
Like many of us had said in the past, including you, we usually have to wait for a medical emergency before we can get our love ones into continuing care.
I remember my Dad enjoying the meals at Assisted Living, he would never want to move out :) And being around people of his own age group. All these new "ears" to hear his stories. I kept wondering if he and his apartment neighbor [also with memory issues] would be introducing themselves on a daily basis :P
Thanks for sharing your success. It's always so good to read something positive here.
They are eating like starving lumberjacks! I see mom on a diet pretty soon. But they haven’t had real food in years and were living on cereal and little Debbie’s. The micro was getting too hard for them.
And the staff has them sitting with 2 sweet little demented ladies. The conversations between these gals and my dad are something to behold.
Thank you all for the kind words. I’m back in the house now with a nice beverage and the heat turned down from 80 to 68. Heaven.
Good for you. I'm so glad you got your mom and dad settled into a good place. It is a relief. I hope you can start to take some time for yourself now.
Big relief!
Sorry about Mom's fall, but safer now.
I like it when the couple get to stay together.