I’ve written about my 90yo mother on here before about her health issues. She’s always been extremely independent and prided herself on that and also always been a force of helping others. She has also made a strong point that she plans on staying in her house come what may. As her only daughter we’ve always gotten along well, pretty much even as a teenager. Her health has taken a pretty dramatic turn over the last 1-2 months to the point where me, my brother and SIL are taking turns staying with her day and night. She has become very demanding and impatient and has even asked us to dress her unless it is my brother. My SIL said she CAN dress herself but chooses when a female is around to demand we dress her. If I say anything to her that is even a little bit reluctant when she says jump, she puts it back on me. She also will not allow me to tell her anything as she knows everything but wants to do nothing for herself. We not that long ago had nice discussions over a cup of tea. Now she is just into herself and hardly speaks at all, unless it is to demand something. The icing on the cake is she can be doing pretty well, until I walk in the door, then the sky is suddenly falling. When I walk in rather than say hi it’s “ I’m nauseous you need to ….” I thought it was just in my head but it is happening without fail every single time. She seems quite happy for the 3 of us to up end our lives so she can live in her own home. We do have a little outside help coming in but hoping to get more. I feel myself getting quite resentful but sad at the same time as the woman I knew is mostly gone. Then there’s the guilt. This is such a miserable place to be.
Start looking for good people. We found our two fantastic caregivers on NextDoor. Start interviewing. Have a plan in place.
Remember that her situation today is the best it will ever be. It is only going to get worse. Hopefully you can handle her being at home. It will get harder.
Also thanks for the reality check. I can handle knowing what's coming, but what's been the most frustrating is her medical providers giving us no answers, which I kind of expected, but it does not make it any less frustrating. I have now called in palliative/hospice evaluation. Hopefully that will give us some advice at our disposal.
My 95-yr old Mom became the same way (she lives next door to me). She'd come into my house and without even a greeting she'd launch right into, "I need you to do this and that!" and she made it into an urgency, which it seldom was. Then I decided that I would always answer her as if she did exchange pleasantries: "I'm *fine*! And how are *you*?" She'd get flustered and blurt out an obligatory, "Oh, yeah... hi."
Now I go to her house every morning to make sure she has her hearing aids in. If she doesn't greet me with "Good morning! How are you?" I will stand there with my arms crossed and stare at her until she does. Then we're good to go. Last year she started having bouts of crying for no reason so she was totally open to getting meds for depression (Lexapro). It helped her a lot.
Is anyone your Mom's PoA? She sounds like she can use some meds for anxiety and maybe even depression. Dementia often creates the need for meds since it robs elders of their ability to bring their own selves to a place of contentment and peace. They need external help to do it.
Caregiving needs to happen on the caregivers' terms. If her unrealistic dream of dying in her home while burning out her children isn't something you look forward to, you have no moral obligation to make this desire a reality. You aren't responsible for her happiness. She probably was making that declarative when she had no idea of the collateral damage that would come with it. We've got 3 adult sons and I've already told them that in no way do we ever want them to orbit around us like that. I even told them what facility we should go to (a great one that my MIL spent 7 years in LTC on Medicaid in a private room).
You need boundaries and you need to defend them. If your Mom has the funds then keep hiring more and more in-home help -- as long as one of you is willing to do the management.
There's a lot of "hindsight is 20/20" in age-related decline and caregiving. There's a huge Caregiving Topic on this forum called Burnout. Please read it so you don't become a statistic.
Bless you for trying so hard to take good care of your Mom. May you receive wisdom and peace in your heart as you find boundaries.
Also what's hard is struggling with the "I have to protect them from my frustration" too. I want to be the loving daughter, but I feel like she also needs to know we have our limitations. But I think I'm past that...just trying not to let the guilt for that overwhelm me.
And I'm 100% with you that I refuse to make my 2 daughters go through the same thing. As soon as we retire in the next year, when we will hopefully be unencumbered, we plan on making a huge downsizing. My husband and I both have moms that have their own homes that require maintenance because no one wanted to plan for this eventuality. In fact my in-laws built an even larger home 20 yrs ago so rather than downsizing the upsized. My MIL has always been the entitled sort that likes to collect things and her things are the most valuable lol. My FIL died in November. We had 3 almost 90 yos at the same time. Now down to 2. I have said for years "I do NOT want my kids to have to figure out what to do with all my stuff." In fact we've already downsized once to the house we are in and now are empty nesters. And yes, no orbiting....lol
Thanks for listening. I will take a look at that forum.