Thanks again for all your support related to the recent posts about my mom, who still remains in the SNF for now. She FINALLY settled in, her mood did a 180, things are "not so bad," and "I'm doing ok," and the like. Far from the inhumane mood of the first few days. Doesn't matter, I won't forget it.
But with friends, therapy, and posting here, I tried a different tactic. She still wants to come home daily. She says she's getting stronger and "will recover better at home." How, I don't know without daily PT and what not. My nerves and my anxiety can't take anymore - my mother in law was just diagnosed with a terminal illness - so to my own mom I said:
"Whatever you want to do mom." Normally, it would be "Mother you can't come home if you can't a, b, c. Mom it isn't safe for you yet because x, y, z." Again, mom doesn't have dementia, she is 100 all the time.
It's finally sunk in that my mom is going to do what she wants, and I can't make her do what she doesn't want. Not even a fall a month ago where she full on hit her head is enough for her to realize that hey, things are a little difficult these days and maybe...
She also thinks that the caregiver is totally available for her to get everything ready at her house when she is discharged, which she is sure will be tomorrow. It won't but that's ok, she can find out from them later.
I asked her what Plan B is if the caregiver can't help her. Radio silence.This is the sixth time she has declined, done the hospital/SNF route and come home again. I'm off the hamster wheel.
The less I fight her, the more she figures things - or is starting to figure things out for herself. Does that mean I'll stop if things are unsafe, emergency, etc.? No, I'll do what I can. But I won't do it all, not anymore.Not interested in another scene where she's cussing me out for no reason while I'm changing out her commode pan. Didn't deserve that at all.
I also have two sisters. Guess why I never mention them.
On Mom's *bus* rather than fight her for the steering wheel, you got off the bus. Mom can steer where she will. You can call for help if there is a crash. Let the emergency folk respond.
It took me a long long time to get to that. But wow, what a relief!
And yes, I have some little inklings of why the sisters aren't mentioned... M.I.A busy living their own lives? Or wearing the rose-coloured glasses "Mom's fine" (therefore they don't need to DO anything). Either way, telfon-gals (nothing sticks - everything just slides right off 'em).
"I asked her what Plan B is if the caregiver can't help her. Radio silence."
Maddaughter - You got it!!
You ASK, you don't offer solutions or volunteer yourself, you make her think, you make her come up with her own solutions. If you come up with the solutions, she can fight you, but if the solutions come from her, then she can't fight herself.
If she doesn't come up with plan B and goes radio silent, don't fill the silence, she's thinking...
When my brother was diagnosed with probably early Lewy's dementia after a severe car accident he was in rehab and some of the staff was telling him he could go home "with support". Well, there's the rub as I live the entire state away in a whole other are, and in my late 70s wasn't going to be going back and forth. No support in his Palm Springs area. A Luddite, he didn't have a computer and could get groceries online without one or at least a smart phone (didn't even have a dumb one). He made the right move and moved into assisted living but then came the time he would consider "going home". He has near by residents in his area promising grocery trips and etc.
I could have fought him. Instead I told him he had the money to hire folks, he could do that and he could make his own decision; I would send him such things as I could by Amazon and would visit at least yearly, but to recognize that without a car life was changed (we are talking So Cal; you need a car). Because I was supportive, what with walking back and forth ALF to his place, supervising a tree cutting, a new roof, he came to know he could not do it all on his own.
This made him so much more comfortable with his decision.
So just see that you in no way enable a move, but don't fight it either. Let her realize on her own.