Transportation and general rant.
I’m an adult who moved in with elderly parents to help keep them in their home. Stepdad is 90 and in rehab facility, doesn’t drive now. Mom hasn’t driven in many years. I work ~30 hours a week. My mom has been getting weekly immunotherapy. I drove her before and after a 7 hour shift at first, but now the treatment is only half a day. Our neighbor has been giving her rides into town or home, as we live in a rural area 30 miles from town. Neighbor had a death in the family and may be gone for a week or two. Now mom is freaking out, saying she has “no transportation”, and she “might as well quit the treatment”. IAs we are in a rural area, there are no buses or even Medvan availability. I reminded her that she DID have transportation, just not at the time she would like (before and after my 7 hour shift). She would have to wait for me in the waiting room for 3 hours or so. Mind you, when she is at home she just sits in her recliner and plays on her tablet, and could do the same in the waiting room. Now she is talking about changing her treatment day to my one weekday off. She wants her own private taxi service, and wants me to change my work schedule to accommodate her. I work with clients, and changing my schedule impacts them and their families as well. But she just dumps it in my lap and expects me to magically conjure up transportation according to HER needs! What do you do with someone like this?
My stepdad’s health has deteriorated recently, and he unfortunately is not long for this world. He is ninety and has lived a good life, beating the odds of pancreatic cancer twenty years ago. Mom has agreed to move to another part of the country where I used to live and she has family there as well. It also has numerous transportation options. So when my stepdad passes, I will work on getting the house ready and moving us out. If she changes her mind and wants to stay here, she will have to move to a local nursing home, because I will be moving back.
Thanks again for all of your support!🥰
Whether she continues treatment or not is up to her, and the answer when she threatens to quit is that that is her own decision and not your business, but that you cannot be responsible for getting her to and from treatments, nor should a neighbor have to.
It is time for hired help in this.
Let mom know that you cannot arrange your life to her schedule. That many parents do not have children or do not have children who live nearby.
You are not responsible for your parents' choices in treatment, in where they live and in how they get to appointments. Taking this on enables more and more helplessness and denial of the truth. Tell Mom that she needs now to find hired drivers to get her to and from treatments. She should speak also to her MD to find out just how patients in this area are getting from rural to treatment. There may be some options. A call to the local council on aging may also help.
Are there Caregiver Agencies in the area? If so you can hire a "Companion caregiver" for the days that a ride is necessary and while there may be downtime for the caregiver that time could be used to get a few errands done for you. Pick up those few grocery items that you needed, drop off the books at the library (remember those brick buildings with all the books🤣) If you are worried about giving a caregiver a debit card or cash for groceries you can order on line and the caregiver can pick up the order that you have already paid for.
Every boundary I put up I got push back until I lost it. That's what your getting now is , your mom pouting because she is trying to groom you to being there 24/7 so she is doing the poor me business, ignore it .
Figure out your boundaries and don't go above what you want to do and what your comfortable with! And don't feel bad for it or what you can't do.
Aging in their home sounds great but only when elders are truly independent, which they are not. They are either going to have to pay for more and more in-home help or you are going to have to quit your job and they pay you or they move into a facility. It's really your decision since you are propping them up for now and you see that her (probable) beginning of dementia robs her of her ability to have empathy for you.
Also, if you're going to be their main caregiver I hope you are their PoA. I would never do it unless I had the ability to legally manage their affairs. When is stepdad coming back? How will you help 2 helpless people? The caregiving arrangement needs to accommodate the caregiver or it doesn't work and another plan needs to be made.
So she has to sit in a waiting room because the neighbor is away , so what .