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And the relatives want the money out of the house. But grandma has seen her pension cut in half and staying in the house keeps her costs low compared to renting or repairing a home that's probably fallen into disrepair. It would be wise to tell her not to spend more money on her kids and plan for alternatives.
(snip)
At 89, things can turn on a dime. For example, a few weeks ago she called my mom and sounded out of it. I called and confirmed, and it took me close to 3 hours to get to her house during rush hour to get her to a doctor, and she told me she wouldn't open the door for EMTs if I called because it was unnecessary. Turned out she had a UTI. It was very frightening to be so far away. Her stepson and stepgrandkids that are still on speaking terms were all contacted, but they couldn't take off of work despite living within 20 minutes of her even during rush hour. The friend she visits with weekly doesn't have a cell phone and volunteers with her church most days of the week, so I wasn't able to get in touch with her either. My brother claimed he couldn't help because he and his wife work at the same place so they only have one car, and they wouldn't be able to get the kids ready to go in time for him to drop her off and drive down. It's a terrifying feeling.
(snip)
Your grandma is very lucky that her problems were caused by a UTI and not a stroke. Arriving at her house three hours (or more) after someone noticed that she was disoriented would be too late for the hospital to give clot busting drugs (Ideally it should happen ASAP, best within an hour of the stroke).
And you now know that not only can you not count on relatives who live closer to grandma to help, but grandma herself is not cooperative in caring for her own health (by saying that she would not let the EMTs inside, if they came).
BTW, the excuses of your relatives were pretty lame. If you tell your work "I have to leave immediately to take my mother/grandmother to the hospital, I think she had a stroke" they will let you leave. And, your brother could have taken a taxi or Uber to grandma's house (or asked a neighbor or friend to drive him there).
Quote:
Originally Posted by LilyMae521
This all sounds very familiar to me also.
OP, you are a good person but if I can be frank, also naive.
IMHO, everyone in your scenario is playing you. Your parents and all the rest of the family are no longer going to step up to the plate bc you are consistently doing that, no matter how difficult it is and no matter how negatively it impacts your life. Your grandma will not make any changes in her life bc she has already learned that she basically doesn't have to, bc you will handle it. (she can even threaten to not open the door to EMS in order to get you to drive three hours in rush hour traffic...)
It took me a long time to see that this is exactly what I did (and am still doing, ten years later) in my own life (I used to think it was "what families did" which of course it is sometimes, but the key word there is the plural "families")
I accommodated every whim bc I thought we were a team and if everyone compromised a little, goals would be met. LOL! The only person who compromised was me. But I just didn't see it, I thought it was family.. I also was naive.
Now the relative whose life I manage is in her late 90s. You could be at this for a long long time.. Please try to get your ducks in a row sooner rather than later.
I wish you the best. None of this will be easy. But try to take back some of the concessions you have been making. (your grandma seems to still be somewhat capable and she is the one who should be making some if not most of the concessions)
May I also comment on what you said about having a "normal" relationship with your grandma. I'm thinking that may not be entirely accurate. Sounds like a fair bit of manipulation with a modicum of guilt. If, as you say, your family uses money in these ways, it may stand to reason that there are also other manipulative maneuvers afoot. And I think I remember you saying that your grandma can be gruff and/or stern.. Perhaps that type of behavior on her part is more likely to get her what she wants without her having to compromise.
Again, best wishes to you.
Your grandmother isn't acting rationally and so you have to.
If she has a medical event call the EMTs. Who cares if she approves. Stroke victims will generally say do not call the EMTs (it says so right on the stroke information page). You have to do the right/smart thing and not listened to the demented sick person. Who cares if she says she will let them in or not. A person lying on the floor passed out from a stroke isn't letting them in either. They figure it out.
On your trips down there use your time wisely and start taking her to visit assisted living facilities. She needs to see them and you need to know which one you like when it comes time to put her in one. If she says she doesn't want to go then really evaluate what is the purpose of your visit and make sure you are accomplishing something with the time and energy you are spending. Once she is well situated you can go back to visiting over cups of tea and on outings. She isn't going to suddenly get better so do it now while she still has the capability to visit them.
Get her some medical dog tags so she has contact info on her in the event of a fall or collapse. Shop for these on the internet while you are with her and have her pay with her credit card.
Get her some type of medical alert system so she can contact someone in an emergency. Again shop with her right there so she can pay for it.
If she asks for more help than you can reasonably give tell her that you will hire the help for her but she needs to pay for it. Look up visiting nurse/companion services while she is there. That is how you spend your time on your monthly visits.
Go for a drive with her and evaluate her driving skills. If she could not pass a drivers test take the keys when you leave. Contact her Dr. and let them know what you have done. Then call the DMV. Who cares if she gets mad and threatens to cut you out of the will etc.
Pay no attention to what money help she is giving to whom or the will. Just act like a responsible person and ignore the distractions.
Your family has been orbiting around her in hopes of getting money from her and she knows it. She is hanging on to the house and dangling out the carrot of money to keep the orbiting. Stop dancing to the tune. Even though you say you don't want it a large percentage of your post indicates it is in the back of your mind and dictating your actions.
Once you give up on that completely, no house payment assistance, no new cars etc. you will find out what you are willing and not willing to do.
Her vet sounds like the most clear thinking of the bunch in wanting to call adult protective services. Hopefully he follows through with it. He obviously found someone with impaired decision making skills and likely confused. Hopefully they only pretended to put the dog down and took him off to a rescue or humane society.
Check with local animal rescues and ask if they have a program to set up elderly people with older adult dogs. You might also ask the local council on aging/eldercare services if they know about it. Typically a rescue will adopt an older dog (get a smaller one, so she could walk it if desired), to an elderly person. If the elderly person can no longer care for it, they take it back, so it gets a safe landing. (Maybe consider a doggie door installation to a fenced area...if gm isnt very mobile, so dog can go out on his own if needed. Even a chainlink kennel (6x10 ft) abutted to a doggie door would work.
See if you can set up meals on wheels each day. Would get someone to check on her daily.
See if she would be ok with a housekeeper/aide coming in for a couple of hours a day.
Get her a 1st alert necklace/fob.
Get a lockbox with a key for house and give 911 the code. Or maybe 1st alert gets it for for responders.
NotifCheck out local assisted living facilities, and talk to her about viewing them.
Tell parents they need to step up and take care of their parents.
Thank you everyone! I want to say up front that I don't think I'm beyond an average granddaughter who is stuck in the same spot (though luckily, most people don't experience this). Stepping away isn't an option. For better or worse, my grandmother is the only family member who I have a "normal" relationship with. We're very close and I cherish that relationship. I also know I'm not likely to have it for much longer. While I can't restructure my life to care for her as a 32 year old trying to make some serious leaps in her career while maintaining a semblance of a social life, I also can't walk away.
1. Definitely shouldn't get another pet. Quite honestly, she couldn't manage her dog as it was. When she got her as a puppy, my grandparents were splitting time between Florida and New Hampshire. She would spend all winter walking around the neighborhood in Florida and would take the dog to a dog park in NH in the summer. After close to a decade of caregiving for my grandfather, she wasn't able to keep it up. The dog was 46 pounds overweight which contributed to the health problems.
2. The way the house is set up is weird, so while there's an extra bedroom, an extension to the house makes it so that you have to pass through that bedroom to get to the rest of the house. Her bedroom has an ensuite bathroom attached that has been made accessible, so it wouldn't really be possible for her to switch.
3. This is the goal! I remind her frequently that she and my grandfather saved and invested in their future for years so SHE would be secure in her retirement, not so that my parents would be absolved of their responsibility of saving for their own. I think she's having a hard time making that jump.
4. I go with her to most of her major appointments. I haven't contacted any of her doctors separately, but that's a good idea! Even if it's just so they keep an extra eye on her. She has many more appointments on a monthly basis that I'm not able to be there for.
Charolastra00, even the way you respond here shows you to be a careful, thoughtful, conscientious person.
1. Okay, but please note I said "pet," not dog. It did occur to me that a dog requires walking which might be too much (although that can be a good way to ensure that the owner gets exercise). But, as I said, maybe a cat, that requires much less. Or even a parakeet! Just the feeling of connecting with another living thing.
2. Too bad about the house layout, but keep in mind that if getting a live-in renter were a viable option, maybe a little work-around could be figured out with a contractor, like creating a new doorway.
3. That's a lovely way to put it, reminding her that her husband wanted her to be safe and secure. You can add that your parents will be happy (or should be) with anything she leaves them, but it would be fine if it were just the money OR meaningful things like a special piece of family jewelry. (I know someone in the same situation, in her 80s, running out of money, refusing to consider a roommate for her second bedroom, but determined to pass on the house to her kids (who will, of course, only sell it, because there are two of them, and only one house).
4. Hope this works out with your checking with her doctors. If they're geriatricians, they may be able to tap into a whole network of information/suggestions.
Glad that some of this may have been useful. Good luck.
Thanks for the additional comments! Rereading what I wrote about the incident regarding her UTI/confusion, I recognize how ridiculous the whole thing was. In the moment, I was just pumping on adrenaline and not really thinking.
To address a few comments:
- Not everyone can take time off, not even for a family emergency. Hell, my own mother was fired from a job once because she went to her father's funeral out of state and had to miss a day of work (and, in Jewish tradition, the body is buried the next day so there's not much time to plan).
- I bought her a Life Alert and a tag with her dr.'s number and medical issues a few years ago. She refuses to wear them. I stuck the tag in her wallet. She finally accepted a pre-paid cell phone I got her and keeps it in the bathroom when she showers, which is a step. She acknowledges that if she were to fall in the shower, she wouldn't be able to reach the phone and makes jokes about it, so no amount of cajoling has helped get her to use the Life Alert instead.
- At least once a month, we go out for lunch and she insists on driving. It's great because it gives me the opportunity to observe her driving. Besides being incredibly slow, she's still a fine driver. Her eyesight is better than mine and her reflexes and judgment are still sound.
My grandmother isn't stern or gruff at all - but she's become very final about boundaries that you may or may not know you're approaching. She's very sweet and accommodating (even at almost 90 flits around the kitchen like a 50s housewife and won't let ANYONE visiting lift a finger), which is why some of her decisions have puzzled me as out of character. That said, in her eyes her grandkids can do no wrong and her kids are her kids no matter what.
I'm sure a lot of my reaction to my grandmother's current situation and also the money question is rooted in a lot of my own personal trauma and issues. Because there were times when I was going through cancer that I couldn't fill prescriptions because of the cost, crawled out of bed the day after chemo to go to food banks, and at times came close to not being able to afford to pay rent, I'm very preoccupied with not having enough money. My fear of not having enough, even though I'm in a much better position now all around, is projected onto my grandmother. I also group up in a home where my mom passed all of her anxieties about money onto her kids. My dad lost his job when I was in middle school and hasn't worked in the 15 years since - I was told for years from age 13 on that "we'll be homeless next year" if my dad didn't find a job. It was used as a justification for everything, including not being able to afford college application fees, cancelling all holiday and birthday gifts, mental health care for my brother, or high school enrichment experiences like band or prom, while I also watched my parents still go out to eat and have their wants met. Yes, I go to therapy about it, but dealing with money and addressing the inequities about how money is distributed in my family gets me *very* turned around.
It's easier to just keep money as much out of the equation with my relationship with my grandmother. I made my peace long ago that when she passes, I will get some of her collections, Judaica, and family heirlooms that I cherish but not to expect anything of monetary value. In all honesty, I'd rather it all went to save a rare beetle in Zimbabwe! While I don't expect anything, it certainly burns me that I am the most involved in her care and am the most responsible with money while also having the least, but I also get the least out of the "family pot" so to speak. I feel a lot of pride when I look around my apartment and know that despite some really serious adversity, everything here is from the fruits of my own labor, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous of all the of the help others in my family have received.
A few big developments:
- My grandmother once again brought up helping pay for a down payment and for the first time dropped a figure. It would be enough for 20% on a starter condo about an hour from work - way more than I thought she was talking about. Reflecting on some of the comments here and my own grappling with how I have thought about accepting help, I told her I would accept if if she'd be willing to meet with a financial planner (with me present) to make sure she is secure. She accepted, though wouldn't commit to a date, and even said for the first time that she would be willing to sell her house if she needed money (rather than saving it for my mother as she's always insisted).
- My great aunt (grandmother's baby sister) is in the hospital and it's not looking too good. It was pretty touch and go for a few days, at one point not expecting her to live through the night. They are very close and speak every day on the phone, but haven't seen each other in a few years as each has take turns caring for their seriously ill husbands. My aunt planned a trip to visit but cancelled due to coronavirus, and now it looks like she might not ever be in a state where she can safely travel, if she even leaves the hospital. My grandmother is of course distraught.
- I spoke with my stepcousin about my grandmother losing her dog, so my cousin offered to swing by a few times a week so my grandmother can hang out with the dog. She came by twice this week and my grandmother was tickled. My cousin just opened up a restaurant so she's working 100+ hours a week and gets no time off, but has been paying for doggy daycare. If it seems like my grandmother is up to it, she could become the doggy daycare. That may not only get her access to a dog but also ensure that she's making human contact every day in person.
I'm going to see her tomorrow and hope to nail down some times to visit with her financial planner and also broach the topic of a senior community.
And the relatives want the money out of the house. But grandma has seen her pension cut in half and staying in the house keeps her costs low compared to renting or repairing a home that's probably fallen into disrepair. It would be wise to tell her not to spend more money on her kids and plan for alternatives.
It sounds like you have a good handle on everything. She may resist going to the senior living communities but tell her you want to know which one she likes if there is ever a time she needs it. That may help her not get to fearful about visiting.
-The doggy day care idea is wonderful. Plus she would also get interaction with cousin.
-If she offers to give you the down, just go ahead do it without all the consult- it is her way of making sure you get something..
-I would insist she get paid part time help.
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