She Fought the Weed and the Weed Won

This is about elderly parents, not marijuana, FYI...

Received the news that my 81 year old mother was in her yard on Sunday to watch the Thunderbirds fly over (the USAF demonstration team, they fly at the base near her once a year - and go over her yard twice during the final formations [y]) and she saw a weed whilst waiting for the passes.

She tried to pull it up, yanked on it too hard, lost her balance and fell backwards, losing to the weed! Her prizes: her fourth break on her left arm in six years, and the latest set of sutures on her head. She's lucky it's Irish-hard and stubborn (as my father's was Scots and doubly stubborn).

My brother and I are at our wits' ends. We have tried everything to get her to live closer to us (she's 1500 miles away from our Puget Sound houses). Are there any V-flyers who've been successful getting their parents to see reason for this kind of situation? We could use some ammunition. Her doctors are threatening to take away her driver's license (at last) this year, due to macular degeneration. We thought that would do it. No; she says she'll just take taxis everywhere...

She owns her house free and clear. She has a comfortable widow's income. Money isn't the reason she won't move. We both have houses with room (and there's no shortage of senior housing in Seattle).

So, please, any ideas? She's still mentally competent, so that's not an issue either. She just gets banged up more and more as she gets older (this is her 14th hospital visit in 6 years, and only two haven't ended up with her being admitted). We're afraid the next phone call will be the last one.

How do two concerned children get their mother to face facts?

TIA, vs_itsallgood

vs_itsallgood

If your mum has lived in that house for years it will hold memories that will be part of her and I guess she has friends in the area too. Your mum is an adult too and is making her choices in sound mind, however hard and worry making they are for you.

My brothers and I faced a similar situation over the past 5 years with my mum, and despite a degenerating physical condition to the point of being bed bound she was resolute in her determination not to move. She died just before New Year, but she did so as she wanted - peacefully, in her own bed, in her dream house she'd loved and shared with my dad.

On a practical level;

- Is there any kind of system you can tap into to provide someone who could visit daily just to do some housekeeping and keep an eye on her ?

- do you know any of her friends / neighbours enough to have a chat ? Where we did have little victories in terms of how my mum was living - getting her to part with the menagerie of wild cats she'd adopted and had living in the conservatory - it was generally through expressing our concern to her friends and their having a quiet word.

Hope it all works out.

Paul

[Decker]

See PM

This is a serious subject & a headache for many of us. I have 4 relatives with a combined age of 339 spread over a 50 mile radius.

I just wanted to say that the title for your query really made me larf[y][y]It has made my day but I haven't helped you at all - sorry.

Hi Alana

There's little you can do - they spend years worrying about us, and I think as they get older it's payback time[}:)]

I've lost count of the daft things my mum has done. Like ordering new beds but being too mean to pay the company £10 each to take the old ones away. She struggled (on her own) to get them downstairs, out into the yard where she broke them up. Leaving aside the matter of the £20, which to me was good value for money but would never be for my mum, the thought hadn't occured to her to break the beds up upstairs and then carry the smaller bits downstairs. And no, she would never have phoned to ask for a hand either. In the last year she's fallen off ladders, sliced her hand doing a "bit of tiling" and burned her other hand mixing cement.

I've decided to just let her get on with it and to hope I can stick to my resolve not to feel guilty if (when) something does happen.

Regards

Pat

Arrived way too stinkin' early today at the scene of the crime. Admired the new bright green fiberglass consolation cast and duly exterminated the winner of the bout with all due ceremony. The weed died well.

Then I got down to business. As usual.

Discovered my mother hasn't filled any of her prescriptions this month. 'Knew you'd be along to do it.' R-i-i-ght. On the 27th? She ran out on the 3rd. [n] Discovered two bills lost and unpaid - checks written, envelope stamped, but she forgot to put them out for the carrier and mislaid them. Tossed them in the mail (one by o'nite) to get them paid without penalties. [n] After making a few calls found out she'd forgotten to pay the electric bill on time last month (forgot to mail it until two days after it was due). [:(!]

I won't even mention what was in the fridge. I couldn't identify it, nor would I eat it... (But that's still good! You can't throw that out! Oh yeah? Watch me! It's green, Mom, and it's not St. Paddy's...)

This is what she calls competent to live alone? [V] I was in to see her in February. I did the same thing then. My brother did the same last November. We'd set up autopay, but she won't sign the authorization. She's an old-school woman - doesn't even know how to use an ATM. After much instruction I got her to start using debit for purchases (all those broken left arms have made her signatures very squiggly!).

So this evening we had a long talk (my brother attended by phone). Well, we finally talked her into moving, but alas, not to where we live. No, now she wants to go back to some little burg in Pennsylvania where she went to high school and one of my dad's brothers still lives. She's refusing to consider any other locations, and at least she'll be in an assisted-living apartment tower with a hospital less than four miles away, with included transportation and daily meals.

The catch? It's 2000 miles from us, and where it snows! She thinks 85 F is way too cold [:0] and sets her a/c at that in the 115 F summers in the Southwest heat. Wait until she gets to suffer a COLD Pennsylvania blizzard. She won't be keeping the heat at 78 F in the winter unless she wants a $1000 monthly heating bill!

But at least we've finally gotten her to agree to move...[:w]