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.
I’m sorry that you aren’t feeling any better. It is exhausting and you are right to stay home and rest.
You can get together with your daughter after you feel better.
I hope you will be able to rest and recover as quickly as possible.
"why doesn't DSS tell you what you actually NEED to get Medicare?"
To intentionally make it as difficult and complicated to get. Some will give up; that's good for DSS.
Totally agree there are facility care options for the elderly that the mi population doesn’t have .
In some states Medicaid will pay for assisted living for the elderly . My state is not one of them. Medicaid will only pay for SNF. I’ve known many people who had parent(s) living with them because they didn’t have money , and then the parent got dementia but they were turned down by Medicaid to go into long term care (SNF) ( and denied Medicaid home care ) because they did not need skilled nursing . Their elderly parent had no money for AL or MC . At least where I am , there is a gap where families are getting stuck until the dementia gets much worse , or they develop some skilled nursing need so they can go to SNF. I’ve known people who are leaving LO at home alone who should not be home alone while they went to work . I’ve known adult children who are using their own money to hire help to come to the house and “ babysit “ or use their own money for AL or MC , draining their own retirement funds, until the parent gets worse and Medicaid will pay for them to go into SNF.
The lesson to be learned is don’t take a parent into your home because , if the parent isn’t living alone it’s harder to get them placed. They deny placemat longer , putting the burden on the adult child. If the elderly lives alone it’s more likely they get approved for placement sooner. I’m sure it varies by state exactly how someone qualifies to get into a facility on Medicaid . By me , Often the elderly are on a revolving door , ER to rehab and back home with the adult child many times before they are actually placed in LTC on Medicaid.
We were fortunate that they had saved money and there was money from the sale of their house. We placed them in a nursing home close to us and began the Medicaid spend down. Luckily its a lot easier to get an elderly person with a lot of health issues into a nursing home - especially when they start off paying with cash $.
I know the families who put their mi family members out to the streets or work to get them arrested have their reasons.
No one should stay in a situation if they can't handle it and/or can't be safe.
golden: No, it did not get rid of it totally as when I discovered the contraindication, I had only taken half the antibiotic.
Sorry that you've had one for 3 weeks. How terrible.
Yes , need. major pain in the butt!
What a pain in the butt to have a hunt down a gas station to fill up your car. Glad you were able to get gas and see your DD.
Please keep us posted on how you’re doing. 💗
After supper I drove to the next subdivision and was able to gas up, There now is only one working gas station in our subdivision as far as I can see. There used to be four.
I said to dd if there is another evacuation I might just stay here. She nodded. A few people did last time and were fine. I don't know that I could handle a second evacuation.
"Some of us are people that can dump helpless animals and helpless people and some of us aren't and we all live with our consequences."
Right.
I saw this 40 years ago going in the wrong direction as a very young naive student nurse . It boggled my mind . That young man I wrote about that they sent home was not able to take care of himself. Either I don’t remember his diagnosis or they didn’t tell me . But imo he didn’t act like he could be employed . I could grasp the situation back then , 4 decades later they have had plenty of time to see what’s not working , but nothing is done .
It’s awful that families are between a rock and a hard place and are forced to make heart wrenching decisions either way and live with the consequences.
We have people in jail who go to college , have jobs at jail. Some have farms . Why don’t we have appropriate hospitals for the mentally ill where they can learn and work ?
The elderly as well can not always be taken care of at home. When my narcissist mother’s dementia got bad and she wouldn’t do anything I asked her , The doctor told me she had to be taken care of at a facility. Fortunately she had money . But other’s don’t.
All of that sort of care for the severely mentally was abandoned decades ago. The new location for the mentally ill is jail, prison or the streets.
New puppy grows up too big, too loud, mentally wrong, just dump it on the streets. Beloved normal child with a bright future suddenly has moments of mental confusion, just dump it on the streets. Both are helpless to take care of themselves.
Some of us are people that can dump helpless animals and helpless people and some of us aren't and we all live with our consequences.
very true . It comes to a point where it’s not fair to other children living in the house . They deserve to live as normal as possible, or their lives can be messed up for good .
I hear you and it's heartbreaking that this is so many times the only way a family in crisis can be safe and a mentally ill person can get help.
People have to do what they have to do. Especially if there are kids living in a house.
My friend did what she had to do. It wasn't a question of whether or not she loved her son. She had two children living in the home. She was not willing to sleep in one bedroom with the kids, have the door bolted and keep her car keys around her neck because the car would be stolen if they weren't.
You can get a mentally ill or special needs person who is dangerous out of your house if you're willing to live with the consequences.
I agree it can take some persistence but can be done. I also think that a lot of parents live with this ( locked up in their rooms ) for awhile before they try to get them out of the house. Like you said , guilt, shame , not really recognizing what is wrong at first , hoping it will get better , etc .
It’s very difficult for a parent to abandon a child . It’s sad that it takes that extreme act to get mental health services. Also like what happened to Hothouses friend , if you don’t take extreme steps the mi patient got sent home again.
I know getting a mentally ill person out of your house is not easy. It's not impossible though. Families just have to be able to live with the guilt and consequences of their decision.
You may have to abandon the person at a hospital and allow them to be made wards of the state. Parents may have to allow a violent child to be put into foster care if they pose a threat to their sibings. This is hard when it's family and loved ones but it's better than living in fear of them every day or letting the other kids in the house be put in danger.
Our mental health services are very lacking and sometimes this is the only way to get someone the help they need.
@Hothouseflower
Yes, an 'ER Dump' will work in the case of your friend with the bi-polar son in hie 50's.
A 'Social Admit' (ER Dump) can also come with a restraining order. Sometimes the police have to forcibly remove the person from the home and bring them to the hospital. Then the person (usually a parent) has to go to the hospital and ask for it.
This is certainly better than having to hide in the closet because a violent maniac lives in your house.
My friend's son is a schitzophrenic and a heroin addict. This is how she got him out of her house. Her other son was still a minor and she had custody of her mentally ill son's daughter (the mom lost custody). So this was really the only way. He's homeless somewhere. Been to jail a few times. Once in a while he calls asking for money. She doesn't give him any. He knows that he cannot go to her house or he'll be arrested and put back in jail. He's not allowed any contact with his daughter either. He had supervised visitation for a while with the conditions that he comply with behavioral health treatment and drug tests weekly.
He got a dirty test and stopped going to therapy, so that was taken away.
I stopped visiting a friend who had a teenage son who was dangerous. He would lash out at his mom. She told me that when she was frightened she would hide in a closet. So sad.
I didn’t want to be anywhere near this guy. He was over 6 feet tall and over 200 lbs! People are stronger when their adrenaline is running high. He was as strong as an ox!
She finally got him back into his program that he was refusing to go to and his meds were adjusted. It was a good outcome but I don’t think an ER dump works in this situation. The person needs to have an advocate to get them the help they need and deserve.
For now things are okay with my friend’s son, but this can change on a dime.
I don’t know that it is always so easy to get someone out of the house. That’s why people sleep behind bolted doors at night afraid of their own adult children . People living with the elderly with dementia have trouble getting them out as well . The police come to the house and don’t do anything many times if they don’t see the violent behavior themselves.
Actually a city by me is suggesting having social workers respond to domestic disturbance calls instead of the police . I don’t know what social worker will want to do that . I have a friend who is a police officer. He always said he felt walking into domestic disturbance situations are the most dangerous . He said you don’t know exactly what’s going on when you get there , and things can go from bad to worse in an instant .
Many times you hear how the police just talk , leave and then not long after someone kills someone they live with.
True , some are misdiagnosed . I knew a woman they were treating for depression. Turned out she had Lewy Body . I knew another that was hypoxic , had delirium from undiagnosed COPD . They had her on antipsychotics. I’ve seen other cases as well . Often we see posts recommending tests for UTI , when behavior changes . There are many illnesses that cause mental illness symptoms .
Always need to look for a medical problem , don’t just assume it’s mental illness .
I agree, many are undiagnosed . My mother was a narcissist diagnosed when her dementia was diagnosed . We normalized it in my family for the most part . We knew something wasn’t right , but when you are so close to the person day in and day out , it can be difficult to see the forest for the trees. I tried many times from the time I was in college to have my mother get help for depression. She always said “ I’m not crazy “. Also my mother played the victim and Dad gave up , just went along to get along most of the time . It was a losing battle. You can’t help those who don’t want help or think nothing is wrong.
People taking care of a mentally deranged adult can do a 'Social Admit' (ER Dump) at the hospital. The police can actually transport the person if they are hostile. This is not just for caregivers who cannot meet the needs of an elderly person with dementia.
Parents have had to do this with their children. Spouses have had to do this.
No one has to keep a dangerous, mentally ill person in their home if they believe their lives or the lives of their other children living there are being threatened.
I don't think herding elderly people onto cruise ships is any kind of a possibility.
That would end like the Titanic. It would be impossible to staff an operation like that.
Put a thousand elderly people with dementia and various other health conditions out to sea. What happens if there's an emergency and the ship has to be evacutated? It ends like the Titanic.
I was shocked to hear about your experience as a student nurse with the child molester at the mental hospital and his behavior. I don't think I would be capable of the great level of restraint that you have.
There are today at least a few laws in place that would prevent that monster from being allowed to live next door to his victim. There are also 'Stand Your Ground' laws in some states. The victim's family could defend themselves and a child from a potential threat if it should come upon their property.
People can say what they want about the Italian mob, but when they ran a neighborhood in New York there was none of that. They dealt with people like that child molester.