I posted before about my mother who is paralyzed and in a wheelchair. She needs skilled care, but expects her children to care for her.
One sibling, Tom, does care for her the majority of the time and has for the last five years. He has DEMANDED that we do what he does. This includes transferring her from wheelchair to bed and vice versa using a slide board. (He has refused to get a Hoyer lift) She needs diapers changed, bed baths and wound care. She weighs over 200 lbs and can help a little bit with her transfer, but there is still a lot of bending and twisting happening on our part.- she cannot roll over or lift he legs etc. Nor does she help with bottom care.
Tom is 6’ 7” and weighs over 200 lbs. I am 5’6 inches and weigh 130.
Tom moved in with her before he ever discussed anything with my sibling and I. We were just expected to be on board. I have said from day one that I can’t handle her care, yet for five years he has insisted. I have tried and ended up unable to move due to back spasms after. I don’t care how good my technique is, I am almost 60 and she is big and dead weight.
. We have offered to help in any other way. Cooking, shopping, cleaning, maintenance etc. Tom says it is his way or the highway. He says he hates us. He refuses to communicate with us, except to demand us coming to take care of her. He has always been a narcissist and has trouble with people in general. The hate is not new or a surprise.
I have changed adult diapers. I don’t mind. It is the fact that she is heavy and paralyzed AND she has a massive bedsore on her back side that has not healed. She is also getting another bedsore next to the first one.
We talked to her a few weeks ago and explained that we do not feel comfortable doing physical care and will not do it, for our safety and hers. She said she understood.
Tom doesn’t want her to hire anyone, he want us to do it when he cant. Tom did contact a licensed nursing agency who said the only way they would come out is with two people, and one had to be a nurse, so he refuses to use them.He has found someone who will do private care for $15 an hour but will only hire her on a rare occasion. They won a lawsuit and she has plenty of money as well as long term
health insurance. So she can afford care, whether it be private care or nursing home.
Mom knows that Tom has made the family miserable by his unwillingness to communicate with us and his hateful attitude. But she is so afraid of going into a home, she lets him call the shots. She is totally capable of making decisions. She guilts us by saying if she goes to a nursing home, she will die. Tom loves the martyr roll.
My other brother and his wife went to visit her today. With the understanding that an aide would be there to care for Mom.
The aide was never scheduled. Instead, Mom insisted that they put her in bed and change her diaper, etc. She says that we have to, it is expected of us. My brother, who has serious heart issues did as she asked. It was hard on his back and he isn’t supposed to lift anything over 40 lbs because he has an enlarged aorta.. She has two bedsores on her perinium. One is very large and deep. It is packed. My brother was expected to change the packing and redress the wound. He is a janitor, not a nurse. The other is about the size of a half dollar and also deep. She had a BM so he had to try to get that out of the wound.
If brother had not put her in bed and changed her tonight, she would have sat in her chair for who knows how long after he left. Mom knew nobody was coming , it was her plan to have my brother do her care all along.
Apparently, our heart to heart with her did no good. What are we supposed to do in this situation? We can’t walk out and say, sorry, can’t do it,and leave her there. We want to visit with her but do not want to be put in this situation again. Tom leaves when we visit, he doesn’t want to see us Help!
Perhaps you can use your phone in her hearing when you are there to call APS, then leave. Make sure you tell APS that it jeopardises your safety, and you have made that clear to mother as well as brother. You say “Mom knew nobody was coming, it was her plan to have my brother do her care all along”. She has to find out that it isn’t going to work. Things have to change for her, not just for your brother. She should be able to use her phone to call your brother, and tell him that things have gone pear shaped.
With luck, APS will have a look at brother's care as well as mother's needs.