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I'm blessed in that my mom is very appreciative of what I do for her, unlike so many on this site. The one thing that she does that just drives me up the wall is when she argues about things I'm trying to get her to do.

Today in the Chicago area, the humidity is extremely high, with temps in the mid 80s. The news reports list the humidity as "oppressive". When I helped her shower this morning, I had her air conditioning turned on and told her to leave it on, given the temps and humidity outside. She agreed. Tonight when I made my nightly call, she was tired and sleeping. And of course she had her A/C turned off and windows open. GAAAAH!

When I try to explain that she needs to turn on the A/C, she tells me she doesn't feel the heat and on and on. And she can't reason that she's so tired because the heat and humidity is sapping her energy. I want to SCREAM! She can't remember jack, so when I get her all set up, an hour (or five minutes) later, all of that logic and reasoning has gone out the window. It's just so frustrating!!

So I'm just venting and looking for ideas or sympathy for these loved ones who want to argue, argue, argue about every little thing that we're trying to do to keep them safe and happy, when they have no reasoning ability any more.

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Damp cloth over head helps with heat. Lots of popsicles, cool drinks, fans, feet in a bucket of water......spritzer. Cool restaurant, ice cream parlor. Library, Swamp cooler. Grocery store. Museum, . Keep it cool for mom if that's what she wants. Walk her in Mall,
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YUP GOOD OLE GERIATRICS....What are we going to do? Mom kept calling me her sister;s name, and I kept correcting her....WHY? I was stupid.... Now she doesn't talk. She barely walks, and I think she is more or less blind, and can't her. She really doesn't respond. Go along with mom, and then find her assisted living where someone can be with her......
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Kazza, its August and its only 4 degrees? Wow. I have the opposite problem, My mom sweats like you would not believe. She gets out of the shower and is sweating. I have a tendency to be on the cooler side and always cold in the winter. We have a window unit a/c and I do not turn it on until my mom comes out from her room. We do not have a lot of money, so I am really careful about turning things off. Sometimes in the evening it will cool down alot and then I find my mom with a blanket on with the air on. It drives me crazy yet I know that the heat is not good. We live in California and it really has been a hot summer, lots of humidity.
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Will it be time to move her to a NH soon??? When my dad was in AL, they made sure he had his meds, temp control , ect..... is it like a small apartment she is in???? I feel for you, she might as well be living in your home as much time as you spend running after her...... but that distance helps too...for you anyway..... take care of yourself..... they might put you in a room next to her !!!! Hugs and chocolate ..
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LadeeM my mom lives in independent living, so she has a unit that is similar to one you'd find in a hotel or motel. It has an off/heat/cool button and you set the thermostat. My mom likes fresh air (I do too), so we both have our windows open as much as possible. But when it's oppressively hot and humid out, she needs to keep her A/C on.

Yeah, I probably should just let all of this stuff go. She can't remember anything two minutes later, so getting her to do something is a moving target, which is also frustrating. She'll do it one minute and totally forget the next and change what I've just gotten her set to do. I don't live with her, so she's on her own with a lot of this.

The other piece of it that is frustrating is we're just now getting over a couple of months of dealing with her not taking her meds. She wouldn't listen to me (argued every time I tried to get help to give her her daily meds) and forgot her blood thinner for three days. That resulted in ischemic limb, which meant a 4-hour trip to the ER and a trip to the vascular surgeon and weeks of dealing with a bum foot. This all means much more work for me. It's just frustrating. She's not doing it on purpose and I know that, but it still can drive me up the wall. At least now I've got people coming in 2X a day to give her her meds. Small victories. :)
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I didnt know until a friend of mine mentioned something about high blood pressure effecting your body heat? mum is cold alot than warm i know its old age too but i never knew BP can influence this?
Lucky we live in Ireland and hot temps is something we dont have to worry about so theres no thermostat here. In winter i set the gas heaters to come on and thats in the garage so mum dosnt go there as i lock the door and she has no key but wouldnt touch the gas as she wouldnt know how to use it thankgod so i can imagine in hotter countries this would be an issue with thermostats yes a nightmare! the joys of living in a damn cold country right now its 4degrees yep winter is coming am dreading it!
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blannie, I understand this so much. We live in the south, so staying cool is a big thing. We play thermostat wars all day long around here. She turns it up. I turn it down. I try to keep the temp on 79-80 in summer, but this year she is still cold.
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some people probably do better in AL pam , but my eyes and ears are always open and after breakfast at ednas NH this am i heard two old gals in wheelchairs discussing how they were going to possibly live thru yet another day of the monotony . they were brave and as cheerful as possible but it shook me up . i spent only 24 hrs in jail a couple of years ago and it seemed like a week . no day or night , etc . my mom wanted to die at home-- i see why NOW . she died in control of her environment . different kinds of people i guess . id cut my jugular before someone would " require " me to do anything .. granted, NH and AL are slightly different animals .
sickness and frailty are the primary culprits here . edna is faking nurses out and tossing her meds in the trash . shes tired and doesnt want to be sustained ..
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Assisted Living is safer. We did it in March. Best move we ever made for mom. She has lots of friends now, and we sleep better at night.
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Blannie i know this is hard mums getting to this stage, how do i cope? well maybe im as crazy as her but i laugh it off! I walk away and laugh a bit to myself i dont argue anymore no point! I just walk away put back on or off whatever then i have this little laugh in my head "yeh shes nuts" the more i see of it now its becoming more obvious its craziness and thats all it is! The more i see it the easier its becoming to accept it? that may sound strange but i didnt really see this crazy side of it before now its like ok theres nothing i can do about this except laugh its just something i do to keep me saine! i hope that makes sense? I go around like a robot turning things off and on checking like a "nightwatchman" it becomes routine if shes left the tap on why mention it to her she IS going to do it again! Tiring yeh but this is my way of coping who knows maybe ive mastered something here? when mum left the stove on last week and i saw her face and how sad and scared she was that shed done such a silly thing yeh no point arguing she dosnt know what shes doing so reminding her just hurts her. I could handle this alot better if there was no "danger" involved thats the stress for me!
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Oh Blannie , I hear you! When my momlived in IL, she kept her thermostat in the 80s. We got her a large digital thermometer which generally read 87 degrees. I had her doctor lecture her about how bad the heat and humidity was for her CHF. To no avail. Same thing with handwashing, by the way. Yes, yes her to death. Ps mom is now in a nursing home where she always wears sweaters but raves about how lucky she is that they have a.c.! Go figure.
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Capt gave me the same advice a while back. It worked. I yes her to death, do what she asks, and as hard as that sounds, it's SO much easier than arguing. Thanks again Bob.
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I understand your concerns with this one.... is it a window unit?? If not there are little boxes that go over the thermostat that lock..... I would think easy to install and you can keep the key..... but elders are cold all the time it seems..... the man I work for mows the lawn , in Texas heat with his down vest on..... and then complains he is wore out and refuses to drink extra water.... and he's not the one with dementia...... I understand how frustrating this is...... Cujo is very hot natured, so if anything..... trying to adjust house temp for both of them is crazy making......
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by the end you are going to have to enter the insane persons world ( be insane ) to comfort them .
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blannie , my mom routinely lived at 82 - 84 degrees - cold all the time . your mom probably has no energy because shes OLD and not far from death . it takes two to argue is all im saying . my mom was nuts and nearly blind . we didnt argue about much , id just recheck the thermostat behind her to make sure she hadnt overadjusted it . reasoning isnt going to work . its like arguing with a stump . you become somewhat of a yes man and a con artist instead . by moms end of life when she was hallucinating steadily i had gotten pretty good at going along with her . she told me one day that the bike shop out back was burning . i told her the bike was safe in the front yard so we'll just let ' er burn . the burning shop was never mentioned again . it takes practice but you have to learn to go along or redirect -- its going to get w o r s e .
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