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.
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.