Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I agree that we often can't "force" any adult to do what they don't want to do, even if what we want them to do is in their best interests.
I do think we can and should allow them to live their own lives on their own terms if they're not convinced that they need to make changes. But this also means that we don't have to enable them. I mean, if they can live independently, then by all means they should. But when they need help, it becomes a team effort and everybody has to be flexible, including them. And cooperative. And nice to each other.
^^^^^^ This !!!
well said KA thank you for saying what I was not finding the right words for...
Are they imprisoned? If not then they can leave if they want. Since when is AL a jail?
And...why can't they die how they want? If they want to die living, then why not let them? If they forget their meds, or fall, or forget to eat and die I'd hope they'd have that right.
Prolonging an elderly life is almost like torture. Nobody wants to live like a pickle in a jar. That's not living.
I think you should love and support their wants and allow them to live and die how they want. At least give them the freedom to do that. They aren't babies, even if they act like it.
I will put in writing to allow myself a death of choosing. If I want to fall and never get up then so be it. It's way better than being in an ALF or worse yet what comes after a nursing home.
My advice - Just follow their wishes and help if you can help in the same way you've always done it and allow them a couple years of more freedom. If you can't help then just don't.
Freedom is the most precious thing as you get on. Your physical body already slowly strips that away, at least you can make a few more good or bad decisions until you kick the bucket.
I hope to die living and not pickled so that's the only advice I can give.
Once you sell the house and place your elderly parent, you can't just roll every thing back.
Freedom isn't worth much when you are getting weaker every day, you risk setting the house on fire whenever you turn on the stove, and you can't go anywhere on your own.
Getting outside help is expensive, and finding good aides is hard. Some elders resist this.
We do not get to decide how we die. Some of us will drop dead, and others of us will decline for years before dying. And, often elderly people have terrible judgement about money, time, their own health. Sometimes their loved ones have to intervene.
The fact that your parents are asking to move tells you that they cannot move themselves. You have noticed that their health is much better.
I think you have gotten som good advice.
But I will tell you that caring for your patents would much easier if they lived in your town. You can pay their bills from afar. But how do they get to the doctor? How do you know what the doctor says to your mom? If one of your parents has a health crisis, will he or she be all alone for the first day?
Look ahead. I think they need to be in an ALF that is close to you.
As others have recommended, you can ignore their wish to move out of an ALF. If they are unable to move themselves, they are unabl to function on their own.
People who move to ALFs do grieve for their lost and independence. They long to go home, but what they really long for is their former, healthy, functional selves.
I love your story and believe me, ours is similar. Nothing like going through the hell of NOT having any documentation or legal paperwork to teach the importance of having it.
Well, you could have the opposite problem. I was executrix of my dad's estate. He was a frugal incredibly detail-oriented investor who had small checking and savings accounts, mutual funds, IRAs (regular and Roth), insurance policies, bonds, CDs, notes, and stocks scattered everywhere. He kept every transaction statement for every one of them, and was on the phone making little adjustments to all these accounts about once a month for decades. He didn't trust anyone else to do all this, never engaged an attorney to set up a trust, never worked with accountants or advisors. He would spend hours trying to explain all his ledger books and checking account spreadsheets to me every time I came for a visit. If one bank account was used for more than one purpose he had separate ledgers for it. All noted in tiny crabbed handwriting that filled every page from edge to edge. It took months to even get every asset re-named into the estate and I got to wrestle with numerous banks and investment houses who don't really want anything about all the invested assets to change.
His house was stacked with filing cabinets, closets, bookshelves full of 3 ring binders and boxes of statements, and stacks and piles of paper dating back to the early 1970s all of which had to be sorted before knowing it was safe to pitch. When the mobile paper shredder truck arrived to take it, they weighed everything and found that all this painstaking work weighed over 1/2 a ton. It took almost 2 years to get through probate...not because of problems, but simply because he had such complex financial records. THEN we had the task of clearing out the physical belongings and selling the real estate.
Believe me I was glad he had the records for all these assets and the funds to cover all these costs, but the work was like having a second full time job. I remember the sad thing was that even though he paid close attention to his money, he left very little information about what he expected for himself (care etc). Made that pretty difficult.
Last edited by Parnassia; 09-06-2017 at 11:07 PM..
Well, you could have the opposite problem. I was executrix of my dad's estate. He was a frugal incredibly detail-oriented investor who had small checking and savings accounts, mutual funds, IRAs (regular and Roth), insurance policies, bonds, CDs, notes, and stocks scattered everywhere. He kept every transaction statement for every one of them, and was on the phone making little adjustments to all these accounts about once a month for decades. He didn't trust anyone else to do all this, never engaged an attorney to set up a trust, never worked with accountants or advisors. He would spend hours trying to explain all his ledger books and checking account spreadsheets to me every time I came for a visit. If one bank account was used for more than one purpose he had separate ledgers for it. All noted in tiny crabbed handwriting that filled every page from edge to edge. It took months to even get every asset re-named into the estate and I got to wrestle with numerous banks and investment houses who don't really want anything about all the invested assets to change.
His house was stacked with filing cabinets, closets, bookshelves full of 3 ring binders and boxes of statements, and stacks and piles of paper dating back to the early 1970s all of which had to be sorted before knowing it was safe to pitch. When the mobile paper shredder truck arrived to take it, they weighed everything and found that all this painstaking work weighed over 1/2 a ton. It took almost 2 years to get through probate...not because of problems, but simply because he had such complex financial records. THEN we had the task of clearing out the physical belongings and selling the real estate.
Believe me I was glad he had the records for all these assets and the funds to cover all these costs, but the work was like having a second full time job. I remember the sad thing was that even though he paid close attention to his money, he left very little information about what he expected for himself (care etc). Made that pretty difficult.
LOL I am LIVING this "opposite problem." It's tough. But after living through absolutely zero communication or legal paperwork straight, and the deaths of two very unorganized "paper hoarders" who kept everything but in absolutely no order, I prefer the overload of information and documentation over chaos.
My dad's been dead almost a year and we are not through with probate - it will probably take another 6 months to a year at least. And I know what you mean about it being like having a full time job!
I had to move two tall filing cabinets into my office just to accommodate all is records. And I still have boxes of them up in my attic as well Oh and he has two barns full of stuff, much of it paper records, as you say, going back to the 1970s, out of state. I haven't even gotten to those records yet but when I do I'll have to just have them shredded. I've had to facilitate the sale of three different properties, as well as close down his business also. Good times.
The only difference is that my dad did have his medical directives and that sort of thing in order.
Were our dads brothers? Because my dad always told me he was an only child...
That is horrible! This is what people don't realize. Laying there for a day in agony is not how anyone wants to pass away. The thought of no one coming to help or if they do that you'll be there for an extended period of time in pain and suffering. Not pleasant at all especially when it doesn't have to be this way. I know folks love their independence and many are very stubborn, but it's sad to watch this happen and be helpless to help them. I do really wonder if some of them truly grasp what's going on.
This is exactly what my sister and I feared for our Mom and what precipitated our moving her to an ALF. After her knee replacement at age 89, it became apparent that she could no longer live safely in her home. The laundry was in the basement down a steep flight of stairs, and one fall would either have killed her instantly or injured her to the point that she would have died from her injuries after days of pain and suffering. Although she was reluctant to move at first (and her beginning dementia added to that reluctance), she did like the place and eventually agreed. Once she moved into the ALF, she just loved it! I don't believe she realized how isolated she had become from fear of driving and getting lost (which had happened several times), or from not wanting to drive in bad weather or at night, etc. In the ALF she had companions for meals, parties, entertainment, a manageable space to clean herself, and pets that she could love on but not have to care for. And when she had several falls a couple of years later and subsequent brain bleeds and further memory loss, she moved right over into the Memory Care unit with no idea that anything had changed at all. Win-win all around.
This is exactly what my sister and I feared for our Mom and what precipitated our moving her to an ALF. After her knee replacement at age 89, it became apparent that she could no longer live safely in her home. The laundry was in the basement down a steep flight of stairs, and one fall would either have killed her instantly or injured her to the point that she would have died from her injuries after days of pain and suffering. Although she was reluctant to move at first (and her beginning dementia added to that reluctance), she did like the place and eventually agreed. Once she moved into the ALF, she just loved it! I don't believe she realized how isolated she had become from fear of driving and getting lost (which had happened several times), or from not wanting to drive in bad weather or at night, etc. In the ALF she had companions for meals, parties, entertainment, a manageable space to clean herself, and pets that she could love on but not have to care for. And when she had several falls a couple of years later and subsequent brain bleeds and further memory loss, she moved right over into the Memory Care unit with no idea that anything had changed at all. Win-win all around.
Exactly!
The first time my FIL had a big health scare involving several months in the hospital, we realized quickly that we couldn't keep my MIL at home with us - she was doing things like getting up in the middle of the night turning on the stove, getting into the bathtub in the middle of the night and then not being able to get back out, etc. Plus we literally could not leave her alone for fifteen minutes - no lie. She couldn't walk, couldn't get to the bathroom by herself, couldn't get off and on the toilet by herself, etc. She couldn't read, couldn't watch TV, couldn't entertain herself in any way. All she would do was sit in the living room and ask people to do things for her non stop. NON STOP. It was impossible to do anything other than literally wait on her hand and foot 24/7. She seemed to be totally helpless.
Our first hint that she had more ability than she let on about was when she thought I had walked out onto the porch to have a "private conversation about her." No - I just couldn't hear in the living room because there were so many people talking. Well as soon as I walked outside, she jumped up - with no help - and didn't even use her walker to quickly stride outside to listen to my conversation! My husband and I thought "Things that make you go hmmmmm..."
We placed her in an ALF that had room for her husband to move in with her when he got out of the hospital (they had apartments with two bedrooms). He was not going to be able to drive for many months, or so we were told, so this seemed like a good idea since they lived an hour away from us.
She was furious at first. She kept saying, "I don't know why HE had a heart attack but I'M the one who gets punished and kicked out of my own house!" (Where she was totally isolated and had slipped into a mode of complete helplessness.)
Within a few days though, she was up and about, walking everywhere, visiting with other people, etc. One day when I came to visit her, I couldn't find her - till I looked in the Bingo room! She was having a blast! As soon as she saw me though, she immediately wiped the smile off her face and slumped into the chair and began saying how she couldn't get up and walk without her walker (though she had managed to get in there by herself without it).
She really blossomed - began walking everywhere, eating much better, dressing better, being much more conversational. Turns out she knew several people who lived there and they began visiting each other regularly.
But when my FIL got released from the hospital, he came over one evening and literally snuck her out of a back door. We had a feeling they were up to something and so we drove over there and actually caught them both - both these very frail, elderly people - loading her personal items into his beat up car (that had been new and beautiful a year earlier) - now the car had a piece of trim literally hanging off the side of it. Apparently he'd side swiped something in just the few days he'd been home.
Anyway, they broke the lease and he took her back home - and within a few months she was worse than ever. All she did was sit in a recliner all day long, with NASCAR races blaring on TV and her depressed and sick husband making daily forages to local fast food restaurants. They lived off Whataburger and donuts for months - in a dark, dirty house with nothing going on but NASCAR and with the blinds drawn. Within a few months she was completely unable to move by herself. Then he had another massive heart attack.
It's my understanding that the OP's parents agreed to move into this facility - and the OP helped them do it - and now they want to move back out.
Folks - I helped my elderly parents move three times in four years trying to help them be happy (and five times in twelve years). They kept thinking a different living arrangement would fix their problem - but their problem was that they were getting older, sicker, and less and less able to do the things they'd done all their lives.
Finally, THEIR CHOICE - they moved back to the town I live in (the one they had left on one wild goose chase after another twelve years earlier). Once again, because they were so old and "helpless,"I helped them move back - helped them find a good house, helped them unpack, helped them decorate, hang pictures, etc. I told them, "THIS IS IT. I can't do this anymore."
About a year later - what were they talking about? MOVING INTO ANOTHER HOUSE - this time, right down the street from their house. Within eyesight of their house. A cookie cutter house built by the same builder as their cookie cutter house. I said, "Fine. It's your money. But I'm not lifting a finger. I'm not packing or unpacking a single box. You are completely on your own."
They didn't do it. And they quit talking about doing it. To me, anyway.
I say that if people of any age are truly independent, have at it. The issue comes when they expect others to help them - when they are not truly independent.
This is pretty much our story too. After Pop's death, MIL (84) didn't want to continue living a 10 hour drive from us (our driving, she would never have been able to drive that long!) So we found a place for her to live which she was familiar with, and could afford, her deceased brother's home in a pleasant 55+ community 2 hours from us. We packed her stuff and moved her there. She had what she needed, a familiar home, a pleasant supportive community, a gardener, a housekeeper once a week, we visited every 4-6 weeks for the weekend. Her niece lived 1 mile away. Perfect.
18 months later she wanted to move closer to us, but not into our home. We lived in a very rural community with few apartments for seniors, and few that would work financially. We found her a place finally and, after showing it to her and getting her okay, we sorted her stuff to bring along only what would fit into the new place, donated the rest, and moved her again.
3 months later she hated that place and wanted to move back to the 55+ community 2 hours away, but this time into independent living apartments in the area. So....since her living near us wasn't really working for any of us (seven to ten phone calls per day, multiple trips to the store per week, hassling the landlady about a hundred tiny things, etc) we accommodated her move, again doing all the moving ourselves because she didn't have money for movers. We got her set up in the IL place of her choosing, which was more than she could afford and it used up a lot of her savings.
All went well for about 2 years. Then the rents went up, management changed, food service was different, whatever, and she now wanted to live near us again. We were planning to retire and move out of state and explained this. That moving near us, meant moving IN WITH US, because she would probably need to live with us soon anyway. Dementia had started to set in and we all knew it. She wouldn't be able to manage life 100% on her own, and she knew it. So once again we moved her, into our guest room. We retained as much of her belongings as she had left at this point and stored them in our barn, knowing we might need them when we got moved to TN. So she lived with us until we moved.
Four months after we moved into a rental in TN, as we shopped for a home with a perfect MIL setup, she decided she no longer was happy with the community we lived in and wanted to be in an IL facility. We found one to her liking, albeit 45 minutes away from us. She didn't care for the ones closer to us. We moved her in there and she seemed pretty happy until she fell and broke a vertebrae.
From that point, her dementia got worse and she started being too confused to live in IL. The mgmt. called us and told us she didn't know where she was. She thought she was on a cruise ship. She kept taking the mini-bus to imaginary doctor appointments and then getting stranded when the doctor couldn't see her. She kept calling the pharmacy and asking them to refill scrips for pain pills and sleeping pills that they had just refilled days earlier. She was calling us multiple times per week insisting to go to the store to get the same products over and over, and going into tantrums if we refused. On a visit I found random loose pills lying everywhere in her room. I asked her what they were for, when had she taken them last, etc. She didn't know. Upon looking about we found over 100 packages of various decongestants, OTC sleep aids, allergy pills, cough remedies, etc., in some cases 15 to 18 packages of the same product. I found Tic Tacs in the bottle with her blood pressure pills. She was a danger to herself, and the mgmt of the IL wanted her out since she had started causing problems with the staff and neighbors.
So I ask what would Tokinouta do if this was her mom? Walk away and let her figure it out herself? She can't even remember her own address, how will she take care of herself?
Because in a "controlled environment" they won't LET you die. Fall down? They'll get you up and send you to the ER to be checked out and when you return, you're labeled a Fall Risk and won't be allowed up without a walker, or an escort. Get sick? Off you go to the hospital and when they get you better, back you go to the walker/wheelchair/escort scene. With more meds. But not to worry, the nurse will be in to give them to you at the appointed time(s). Cry and ask to go home and now you're referred to psych. With another pill.
I need to use the toilet but since I'm a Fall Risk I have to wait for someone to take me. Well, I can't wait, dammit. I need to go now. I don't understand why everyone assumes Old People fall down a lot. I've only fallen twice in the last 22 years. Once was on the stairs when my shoe came off and I bumped down six steps. My stairway has a right-angle turn at the landing. Up 7, turn, up 9. I can even rest on the landing if it's too much for me to continue but that hasn't happened yet. The other time I fell because I left my shoes in the middle of the floor and tripped. Fell on soft carpet and only hurt my dignity. Lesson learned - put shoes under sofa.
I'm going to be 82 in a month. I live in my own 6 room home. I'm responsible for everything except mowing the lawn and shoveling snow. I've got all my wits (I think) and I have my own little tricks to remind me to take my meds. I rarely miss a dose. I keep my phone in my pocket and I know how to dial 9-1-1
One of my kids wants me to come and live there. It's only about 7 miles from my own house. But I don't want to go. I like it here. I can do what I please and if I don't please, I don't do. I can play my TV all day and night (it helps to block out the tinnitus) They mean well but living with two teens and a 2 y.o. is not my cuppa. I've done that already, no need to do it again. I love them to pieces but I can go home when I've had enough.
No, charly, that old house is MY old house. It's not like any other building. And it is a Big Deal. If I'm dead, I can't tell anyone I "did it my way" now can I?
I don't want confinement because "it's for your own good, Mom" just to assuage the kids' guilt. If the only person I'm a danger to is myself, what's wrong with that?
ETA: In the case of dementia, or a totally disabling cerebral accident, of course one cannot continue to live alone. And for that situation, people do what needs to be done. For those who decide that this is what the elderly relative requires, I have no quarrel.
I am simply stating here that in my current circumstances, this is what I want. To get up and have my coffee and read the news and decide if I feel like doing anything more than reading or working on the jigsaw puzzle or get back to crocheting that afghan that has been sitting since February. To go to the store or the post office or the park. To shoo the friggin' birds off my deck! To do the laundry. To cook supper or get take-out. Not all in the same day. As long as can choose for myself.
As long as you have no dementia and are capable of feeding and caring for yourself, I say fantastic. But I respect that you also see the need for family to step in when dementia becomes a problem.
MIL was someone whose entire life was focused on seeing the greener grass on the other side of the fence.
Sadly, she never appreciated what she had.
Same exact thing with my MIL....everyone else always has it better, and if she could just _______ she would be so happy.
Only, she wouldn't.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
