I'm tired of cooking/preparing 3 meals a day. It's just the two of us but boy oh boy can that woman eat!! She stays slimish, I get fattish. It's bad enough I do everything here much less start making her one thing and me the other. At times I feel guilty when I buy her fast food cuz of the nutritional value....not to mention I eat it too.
Why oh why can't the NH inform me about basic things without my having to call? They never call me back. An email every month stating activities and when the podiatrist is coming... not specific to my mother's care, something that can go out to family members who are interested. The NH doesn't have a web portal or site where this stuff is listed... I really want to find another place for her, but she won't be happy anywhere. But I will have peace of mind knowing what's going on with her care...
My mother refuses the outside care (there's a service that provides hearing, vision, dental and podiatry, for which she pays an insurance premium. They come about once a quarter). The NH shouldn't ask her, just tell her. "The podiatrist is coming today, he'll be with you in an hour." The NH told me that if she continues to refuse service, they will take her off the client list permanently. Why she refuses I don't know, NH says she says she's busy. Of course I get a completely different story from her. Busy with WHAT is what I want to know?? Watching the TV that she can't hear because she doesn't "have the time" to see the audiologist? Yeesh!
Not asking for suggestions, just venting. Whew, that felt good, thanks. Now, back to work!!
On top of all that, he is bad-tempered, and it took me over 40 years to realize he is an abuser, not a beat-you-up abuser, but an abuser nonetheless. My daughter wants me to leave him, but we don't have the money to support 2 households, and he is made himself so helpless, that he would require assisted living. I haven't worked in almost 50 years, and any job I got wouldn't pay enough to keep him in assisted living and me somewhere else. Besides, I live in a cold, snowy climate and I would not be able to go out to a job on many days in the winter. I have no confidence in my abilities, anyway, and I have a lot of fears. I pray every day that God would take one of us, and at this point, I'm ready to go. Nothing matters to me any more except my children and grandchildren. I don't expect a solution, because I realize that I don't have the courage to step out and change, so here I am. I just needed to whine.
We just got a Critical Alert to reduce electricity use to essentIal. The Grid system is under stress due to overuse b/c of the cold weather and could go into rotating outages.
Thank goodness I bought extra flashlight batteries.
cwillie - this is square tires weather.
Thirty-some years later, I'm very much at home, hoping that our ancient furnace keeps chugging along and that the power STAYS ON. We have a portable generator, but it can be tricky to hook up and get going. That was my husband's thing, but he's 94 now, so I hope we don't need it--or that together we can get it started. (Our son lives 15 minutes away, but I won't call him unless it's absolutely necessary.)
Alva - sorry to hear about your furnace.. I was thinking about the homeless in the temps we are having now. I think there will be more deaths than usual due to this extreme cold.
I live in SF. At worst it will go down to 40 degrees or so.
I can't imagine this happening in the cold states right now.
Heard that cities are overwhelmed with finding ANYTHING to keep open as warning centers inundated as they are right now across the entire country with unhouse and immigrants.
I looked at N. and said "We are going to see some deathes.
We always do, but this time is really worrisome.
Fires, then freezing temperatures. You live in a challenging environment. Glad you are safe in your cozy new condo .
Ana - sundogs are lovely, and yes, it is dry but anything in the minus 40s is too cold in my view. I know Ontario has lots of snow and blizzards. I'm with you on the doggie diaper and treadmill. Recently my dd was given a very small dog. He is still a puppy and uses pee pads a lot. As they are moving to an apartment I think he will keep using them.
We’re in the midst of a blizzard and the dogs need walking. I’m thinking on the treadmill wearing diapers.
Our weather is crazy. Warm one day and cold the next. We are supposed to have a cold front moving through and we will be in the teens. Very unusual for us!
I can’t imagine living where you live. I would freeze to death!
My whine today is the cold weather at 40 below (C and F) and worse with wind chill this morning. Amazon deliveries yesterday were cancelled due to the cold and rescheduled for tomorrow.
It's now -34 C (-29F) which is an improvement. Supposed to be a few degrees warmer tomorrow and much better next week. I gurss we are making up for a mild December.
Never a dull moment, huh 🤔 ?
I have no words .
(((hugs))))
I have previously ranted about how, 2 years ago, my physically active mother (now 98, dementia) repeatedly ran off on hospital staff (while contagious), then became angry and refused to move a muscle ever again (even closed her eyes and mouth), and so was tested for everything under the sun, and then moved to “comfort care”, where she reanimated and blew a gasket that she was fine and shouldn’t be there, and so was released from the hospital to a care home (because I was done Done DONE), where she continued to refuse to move a muscle except that she kept talking and using her eyes. There was the occasional escape attempt when nobody was looking plus the times she was so mad she picked up her utensils and fed herself.
A few days ago staff sent me a short video. Sitting up in bed, feeding herself and drinking from a mug. Chatting. The staff was stunned. Her nickname is now Mrs Benjamin Buttons.
I’m so grateful that her caregivers have decided to find her entertaining. Her combative and self-defeating behaviour cause me so much stress. I’m sure one day I’ll laugh about it all but I’m not quite there yet.
I kinda love that story you just told us.
You and mom are driving yourselves nuts with this deep dive into an old picture meant to bring joy!
I think that I have an easy answer.
A) buy a lovely card (or a funny one; you know your bro).
B) Insert photo
C) In the card write "Hi Bro. Mom wanted you to have this snap of you. We had it put away to give you at Christmas, but somehow it got buried. Better IT, than YOU. Mom says she hopes you enjoy it. Says you were and remain one handsome son-of-a-gun. We were so happy to see you on the holiday."
Love from your Mom and your doting bro
Sound good?
I would just LOVE LOVE LOVE to get something like that from MY wonderful brother. But he's gone. Do it today. Both you and Mom will feel so much better.
I honestly got a bit lost in the scenario , but “ white lies “ to Mom when you can to calm her down . Ignore things when you can . Don’t always respond to her ridiculous worries. Change the subject.
Im sorry you haven’t found the wisdom to get out of this situation. You are wasting your own life . The fact that your mother does not see that, shows she is mentally ill , not just a worrier .
I would rather leave this earth than have my kids living like you are.
You don't provide much detail in your profile about your Mom (her age, whether she has cognitive/memory impairment). My Mom is 94, has been single most of her life and I'm her only child. She lives next door to me. She has always been a fearful, glass-half-empty, skeptical person (but not to the point of personality disorder). And mercifully, I have always been the opposite. She watches The Weather Channel a lot and "anger-tainment" news. In the past 2 days she called me to tell me how she called her sister in south FL about tornados that were on the complete opposite coast. Like, over a hundred miles away. I couldn't convince her that there was no reason to fret so I just changed the subject completely to something upbeat and then hung up. On the other occasion she called me up on some pretense but really wanted to talk about a recent school shooting in Iowa (we live in neighboring MN) that was just reported. I said "oh, that's awful" then changed the subject completely and then hung up. I refuse to get sucked into her negativity vortex or allow her to wallow in it on my watch. It is relentless and I know if I entertain any of it, it will affect me.
Please make boundaries for yourself regarding your Mom. She won't like it but eventually (if you defend them strongly) she will stop resisting them, or at a minimum it will support your mental and emotional health. You are the priority and need to take care of yourself first and foremost.