As always, thank you for your kind thoughts and prayers. I am back at The Ranch and saw both my mother and my father yesterday.
Mom: My mother is doing well health-wise. We did comment that when we saw her today, we did not remember either the sweater or the glasses she was wearing. We assume she got them from somewhere?
Sadly, the insurance appeal was rejected. We may have a slightly modified back up plan: in the re-reading of the rejection letter, the insurance company noted that it was either a 24 On-Call RN or an onsite RN at least 5 hours a day, 7 days a week. The current location of my father (which has a memory care facility) says they meet the requirement. Best case, we relocate my mother there. Less best case, there seems to be one facility in our area that meets that requirement so we will try that one as well.
The policy is good and pays 100% - if you can find a location that meets the requirements
TB The Elder: TB The Elder was released from the skilled nursing facility on Saturday and went back (literally across the parking lot) to the location we previously moved him into about a month ago. This facility allows outside visits, so I was able to see him for the first time in month not through a window.
His voice almost sounds like it is back to normal, but he is still weak - the RN that helped bring him out said that he had almost fallen once or twice getting into the wheel chair. The conversation at first was pretty bland - he did not remember the fact that my sister and brother in law were there the day before to help him move over, he is not that enthused about the meals, he did actually change his clothes at the suggestion of an attendant.
And then, things got a little rough.
He announced to us that he did not want us to be angry with him, but he intended to go back to The Ranch.
No Dad, my sister told him, you have to stay here. You cannot live there any more because it is out and you cannot drive.
I can get a car here and drive was the response.
The conversation went downhill a bit from there.
My father never got angry or yelled, but he was very firm and insistent that 1) He did not want to be here; 2) That he was concerned that the Ranch be taken care of; 3) That he wanted to be living back there, not in the current location; 4) That if we would not do it, he would drive himself there.
What followed was a sort of circular argument: 1) We understood that he did not want to be there, but that given his health (and memory), he had to be here and we need him to try to make a go of it; 2) The Ranch was being and would be looked after; 3) Even if somehow he could physically do it, he cannot drive and thus cannot be there alone and it will be a while before someone could be up there at all; 4) He cannot be driving. End of story. Hopefully we would be able to take him up to The Ranch or other places on day trips once The Plague has ended, but not until then.
This is going to be hard, harder perhaps than the last month has been.
My fear - and I think my sister's fear as well - is that he is going to be difficult and if difficult, eventually will be asked to leave (as my sister told him, "If something happens, I get that call. Or TB does". That either in what can only be classified now as his dementia or his stubbornness, he will not be willing to make a go of it. Truly, I do not know what we would do if something like that happened (we would have to figure it out, of course).
The one thing I need to work on - and something I suggested to my sister - is working on not engaging him when he is like that. Just nodding and saying "Okay, let us just give it a few days more and see how it works out". Do not engage in the argument. I am not smart enough to understand it fully, but I suspect that in some way the argument is a way to engage us and draw us in. We need to find other ways to engage him - and us - that does not involve re-covering the same ground over and over.
And hopefully, does not involve us (either by insurance or request) having to relocate him. I cannot now at all imagine how we will manage that.
My condolences for your Father's condition. I am wondering if there is some part of the facility's routine which bothers him a lot. A certain resident / care taker that bothers him. Has he mentioned any event or daily activity that he does not like ? If anything is found, perhaps that can be changed or accommodated to change and relief him of that.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he is tired of being 'looked after'. For some, it becomes an aggravation with people asking if 'everything alright'. Nobody is alright all the time.
I hope you and your sister are able to find a way to make things work for your parents.
Anonymous - Thank you for the thoughts and comments. To be fair, he may be resenting how things have gone the last few weeks, although he has only been "back" where he started for two days so I am not even sure he has had enough time to establish a routine to dislike.
DeleteI think he misses The Ranch and my mother and at the moment is only remembering the good parts of it and not the last three months when things were not good and he was very much in a regular state of fear about something going wrong.
We are working to relocate my mother to where he is. Hopefully that will help. Being able to do day trips would help as well.
Still praying for you all, TB. Hugs and God bless.
ReplyDeleteThank you Linda. We are hoping that we can get to a more normalized situation soon.
DeleteBeen there, had that discussion on numerous occasions with my dad. Even after he had forgotten most things, he would get really stinky about going to get his car! Every now and then he'll ask if we have his car, but mostly he doesn't mention it anymore.
ReplyDeleteThe Alzheimer's literature we have read mentions "therapeutic lies" like you telling your dad that you'll check on getting him a car. It saves becoming embroiled in fruitless arguments that only upset the patients.
Kind of fuuny: We have a friend who had to take her father's truck from him when he became unable to drive. He kept saying he was going to get another truck, but they kept stalling in hopes he'd forget. One day she got a call from the dealership because her dad showed up on his riding mower to buy a truck!
I do not think you have to worry about your dad getting tossed out. The people (bless them for their patience) who work with the elderly are used to their patients being less than happy with their circumstances.
SBR is spot on as usal, TB.. talk to the experts. They know all about comforting and consoling the elderly... and their kids as well. Your dad will be fine, and so will you.
Deletesbrgirl - I do not doubt that father would do the same as your friend's father did, given the circumstances!
DeleteMy concern is as much for my sister as it is for my father. I assume that at some level, this will be a "thing" for a while with him. I could see my sister getting stressed as it was coming up; my hope is that we can manage our stress levels and so help him to manage hers.
I am hopeful that if he will give being there a try, some of this will dissipate as well.
Thanks Glen. The staff there - really everywhere - has been nothing but graceful.
DeleteHi TB, I"m sorry to read this about your father...at first I felt empathetic towards him...if something were to happen to me, I would want to live out my life in my own home. But I'm sure you have his best interests in mind as he cannot take care of himself. What a hard situation to be in. You are in my thoughts!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rain, it is hard. I can completely understand his position - to be fair, it is beautiful here and he has lived here for so long. What he is not remembering is the last three months, including the month in the hospital, or the fact that he should not be driving, or (sadly) how fearful he had become of something going wrong. He was not really "happy" as he had been in years earlier.
DeleteI do not know how much of this has developed as a result of what happened that sent him into the hospital and how much of it was just there earlier and either we did not see it or he was able to manage it. Either way, a year ago I would have said "no big deal"; now I can only say "no real way". Hopefully if we are able to relocate my mother things will be better at least in that sense.
I worked in a long term care facility and watched old folks who had been independent and hard working adults being treated like children. Being watched every minute and told what to do. Everything measured...how much food eaten, how much in the toilet, etc. Unless someone is totally demented, this kind of treatment fosters anger and resentment. I watched nurses put patients to bed at 7pm so they could watch tv and play games. Patients were yelled at and otherwise abused until the family arrived, and then they were all lovey dovey to the patients. Better an old person still halfway with it to live at home with a caregiver. I swore I would never agree to that kind of treatment. Your dad is still lucid enough to know what he was and is.
ReplyDeleteTewshooz - On the one hand I agree that in a very real sense, my father remembers who he was and is. On the other hand, he is not remembering the last few months where he became overwhelmingly concerned about any number of things going wrong, or completely forgetting how an automatic transmission worked, or the relatively multiple visits to the hospital he had over the last three months (more than his entire life, I think), or the fact that in some ways he was very unhappy up here with not really anything to do or anyone to see except the television. I do not believe he is consciously ignoring that; I do not think that he recalls it at all. The fact that he does not recall it all is one factor in why we decided to do to make the decisions we did. It certain was not the easy one
DeleteThe learning never stops... Holding you up, bud.
ReplyDeleteThank you brother. As you say, the opportunity to learn a whole new thing. Just not something I had anticipated.
DeleteCircular arguments are common if you engage. It will be the same demands each day. Hard to disengage after a lifetime of engaging but the biggest clue you wrote was him not remembering your sister being there the day before. Just agree, nod in the right place and when possible ask what he had for lunch or dinner. Nothing about this will be easy and hopefully lean on the knowledge that you have many people praying for you and your parents.
ReplyDeleteSqueeky's Mom, that is exactly what I am afraid of - daily circular arguments that go no where. We had a little of this with my mother initially asking when she was leaving; we simply said "in a few days" and that seemed to push things off long enough to when it did not become an issues.
DeleteHim not remembering my sister visiting the day before was not the first time these lapses have happened since he got out of the hospital, which sort of confirms the assessment. And the feedback we get from the staff there is that he has some level of dementia and he is much weaker than he appears to our eyes, and I have to accept their judgement in this.
I do appreciate everyone's prayers. They keep things going in ways I am sure I will not understand this side of Heaven.