She's Killin Me Here ... Could Use Some Tips on Living With the Elderly

After nearly 10 glorious hours of sleep last night -- in a row!!! -- I'm feeling a little more coherent and a lot less desperate today. Thanks first for all the great advice and personal stories ... they have all helped and made me realize we're not alone in this.

His mom is totally lucid 99.8% of the time and her episodes of seeing things are only at night when I suspect she's just dreaming. The three weeks she spent with us in August after Lee's fall / hip break showed NONE of this behavior, and the only real difference between now and then is that her husband isn't coming home this time.

She goes back and forth between seeming to be comfortable here and wanting to go back to her house and live by herself. Billy's pretty much given her the ultimatum that she can stay here with us or she can go to a nursing home. Though she doesn't come out and say so, I think she's internally pissed off that we're taking away her independence -- I can relate to that myself -- but if she goes back home (four miles away) I'll just be spending a lot more time in the car responding to her little daily emergencies.

I neglected to mention in yesterday's post that she just went to her doctor on the 11th. He gave her a clean bill of health, said her blood work was fine and that he was going to continue her pain medication (for arthritis). Out of one side of his mouth he told me that "Her blood sugar is right in line where it should be," while simultaneously handing me three prescriptions for a new blood glucose meter, test strips and lancets.

I've been the one cleaning up their house gathering all the paperwork I need for the probate attorney. Though I won't go into details here about that fiasco LOL, I will say I've found no less than five blood glucose meters, a stack of Arriva diabetic testing supplies FOUR FEET HIGH and countless boxes of unused lancets.

After looking at the prescriptions he just handed me, I asked her doctor "Why does she need all this when she already has five brand new meters and all these supplies at her house already? This seems an awful lot like Medicare fraud to me," he opened and closed his mouth like a trout out of water, started stammering and uhhhhhing, wouldn't meet my gaze and started paging through her file. All he could come up with was that he gave her one prescription for blood testing supplies in June. He couldn't answer my question of where the other meters and supplies came from. He's her only doctor, and has been since we all moved to Tennessee in 2006.

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Needless to say, after that 3-minute conversation with her doctor (who incidentally was also his dad's doctor, and who refused to authorize an autopsy), I don't have a lot of confidence in his assessments. When I got home with her and told Billy what the doctor had said and done, he got worried too; we'd like her to see someone else and get a second opinion at least on the diabetic issue -- we don't know if she's diabetic or not, and neither does she.

The problem with the suggestions of senior care facilities, doctor shopping and even church are that none of those things are right here in Greenfield. The only Catholic church is 12 miles away (this is serious Baptist country) and "real" hospitals are further than that. They do have a senior van from the Northwest Tennessee something-or-other but each trip is $15 regardless of where they take ya, and the driver is prohibited from helping the riders on or off the bus. (???) I'm missing enough time from work just dealing with all this stuff as it is, let alone driving her out of town all the time too.

She and Lee also had the same problem that Billy and I have endured since moving here: Everyone is friendly but it's really hard to make FRIENDS. Maybe I'm over simplifying it, but it sure seems as soon as they find out you aren't interested in going to their (Baptist) church, they'll be nice to your face but don't really want anything to do with you or be inclined to get to know you better. So relying on her friends and finding people her age to help us out and keep her entertained isn't going to work either.

Giving her little projects to help out like making lunch and peeling potatoes for supper and things do seem to help her and give her some purpose off the couch. I've got about two gallons of nuts and bolts -- her husband's hardware left overs lol -- in a five gallon bucket that I'm thinking of having her sort out since she seems to enjoy being out in the shop a little bit.

Anyway, the more I think about all of this and compare right now to how she was in August, I'm fairly confident and very hopeful that this weirdness is only temporary. Her own mother lived to be 102, and it's my understanding she didn't have dementia or Alzheimer's and that it doesn't run in their family or anything. Only time will tell I suppose. In the meantime, we'll just have to make the best of things.

Thanks to each and every one who replied -- even the FABO wives!! :-D thanks ladies -- and shared their own experiences. I know we're not alone now, and comparing Vert's actions to some of your parents' helps me to realize she's not as bad off as she could be (yet). At least I know what to expect if it gets that far.