Your use of words about your apparent step-father sounds like there is not a healthy relationship there to begin with. I gather you are living at home with them and trying to help take care of your mother. I can see where he might take this an opportunity to communicate who is in charge. How is his health? Why at 42 are you living at home? Who has durable and medical POA over your mother? If you have it, a third party if possible might need to explain it to him so that it does not risk coming accross as a power game or an attack.
Dear Duane: Next time you take your mother to the doctor, get your mother to sign a permission slip for the doctor to share her medical information with you. Your mother's spouse is in no way required to share health info with you. The doctor can only do so with your mother's permission. You can also ask your mother what she knows about her medical condition. To my knowledge, those are the only ways to get the information you want if mom's spouse won't give it to you. Good luck.
Without knowing more, I would go directly to my mother's doctor. You can talk to the doctor without him giving you any information, ask the doctor to please talk to your mother's spouse regarding your mother's condition. That way the spouse knows that the doctor knows that he is withholding information from her children! He may be more likely to talk to you or it could piss him off! I am going through something simular with my parents, my dad has hepatitis C & when doing further testing found Hepatitis A, however my mother wants to deny that dad has Hepatitis A, we think because they would have to do a lot of expensive updates on their property & home! Mom somehow convinced my brother who is executor & very greedy & my sister who is equally greedy that they will just pretend dad doesn't have Hep. A. Now I am considered an outcast in the family because I am not willing to pretend with them! I was the one present when the report was read to my parents, however mom swears the doctor didn't say that! What I am getting at is "there is probably something they don't want you to know & is it going to cause problems if you find out?" Has the spouse shared the information with anyone else in the family? In my case my parents do whatever my controlling brother wants them to do, in fact it looks to me like he is just not wanting them to spend any money, less for him in the end! Sad!
Did your mother ever give you the 'legal rights' DPOA as far as her medical situations is concerned? If so, you can bypass the spouse and go directly to her doctors I would think. Otherwise, talk to him. Make it non-confrontational if you can, don't get him riled up and defensive. Just tell him that you're worried that your mother's health may be worse than he's letting on, maybe to protect the family etc. Without knowing more, that's the best I can do. Sorry.
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Duane please listen to Crowe. He has quite a bit of knowledge.
All of the above advice is great!
Your use of words about your apparent step-father sounds like there is not a healthy relationship there to begin with. I gather you are living at home with them and trying to help take care of your mother. I can see where he might take this an opportunity to communicate who is in charge. How is his health? Why at 42 are you living at home? Who has durable and medical POA over your mother? If you have it, a third party if possible might need to explain it to him so that it does not risk coming accross as a power game or an attack.
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Next time you take your mother to the doctor, get your mother to sign a permission slip for the doctor to share her medical information with you. Your mother's spouse is in no way required to share health info with you. The doctor can only do so with your mother's permission. You can also ask your mother what she knows about her medical condition. To my knowledge, those are the only ways to get the information you want if mom's spouse won't give it to you. Good luck.