Older people alarm their adult kids

Yes my 86 Yearold mother In law is doing the same things. What can I say. No one can tell her what to do

C’est la Vie she says 

My 85yrs,mom,

Says being locked down for 3 months in the UK not seeing anyone,

Has had an affect on her mentally,

She does keep herself busy,(she only stopped work 3 years ago)

By knitting very complex woollen  jumper  patterns,

 she is quite active, 

her sister who is 87 says starting to drive again has been daunting.....

Mom was very worried about catching it and getting ill with it she knows how bad the illness can be,

 i think they rather be alive than dead though!!!!!!

Carbon that is so hard on your family.   Yes, this corvid also causes a lot of mental problems as well, and in the case of dementia it can lead to a quick decline.

All good, 

Such is life, 

Nothing we can do,

Mother in law is not aware of what's going on, 

the guilt is like when you lose someone, hard at first,gets easier,pops it's head out at odd moments....

I've lost  quite a few very dear family and  friends on my life journey......

Makes you more human.....

Take care all.....😎😘

As a side note, negotiating the health care system with our elderly parents can be an adventure during this time.  My mother is in heart failure and It is starting to affect her kidneys.  In April, my mother fell in her bedroom at around 1 am.  It's just her and me in the house, and I had hell's own time getting her upright where I could get a bead on her condition.  She said she didn't hit her head, but she was clearly not oriented to time and place.  OVer her very strenuous objections, I called 911, and had EMT's come out. 

Meantime she had broken her pedestal fan falling on it, so on her instruction I went down to the basement to look for a replacement fan.  There was no fan.  My mother said, well ViQueen put It down there.  I said, I am ViQueen.  The fact that she didn't seem to know that didn't distress her, nor did the fact that she was going thru her mail, shredding bills and looking confused at the junk mail, which she normally curses at and shreds.

When the paramedics came they were onto her pretty quickly, and made her see that she was not oriented, so she let them take her in.

This was just the beginning of the problem.

This was early morning on a Friday.  I was, of course, not allowed to go with her, or visit her. They got her settled, and they eventually diagnosed her with a degree of kidney failure, which had caused a degree of intermittent delirium.  She improved over the next few days and she was on track to be sent home on Monday.

When I got up Monday, It was to five messages from my mother and two pages from the hospital.  They were sending her home, so I called my mother to get details on when, etc. When my mother answered, she was noticeably short of breath and complaining of pain in her hip.  I asked to talk to her doctor, but she could not be located right away, so I asked the nurse to have her call me, because I didn't think my mum was ready to come home, and the shortness of breath was concerning on many levels, not to mention the pain.  When I talked to my mother again, I told her I did not want her coming home until these concerns were addressed to my satisfaction.  My mother wanted to come home immediately, and was very angry with me, so she hung up on me.

Long story short, when it came time for the Dr. to call, she was given the wrong phone number and did not reach me.  I am not sure whether my mother gave them the wrong number because she was confused or because she lied.  She did lie to the doctors and nurses about her condition so she could come home.  When it became late in the afternoon and she still hadn't been released, I concluded that they were keeping her, and since she was mad at me, she wasn't calling me.  So I decided to go and run some errands and get some things we would need when she returned.  As I was just getting ready to leave, I heard a commotion at the front door, I looked, and the hospital had released my mother, and sent her home in a taxi, who just dumped her off on the front porch!

When I got my mother into the house, she was extremely short of breath and crying in pain.  I couldn't keep a mask on her.  To say I was furious would be to gravely understate it.  I got hold of her PCP, who told me to call 911 and have her delivered back to the hospital.

When she got back to the hospital, the ER doctor called me and told me they may very well send her back home.  I told her nobody that short of breath should be anywhere without among other things, a coronavirus test, and that her own doctor wanted her in the hospital, and the head of my mother's PCP group was also the head of Geriatrics at that hospital.  So the ER doctor apologized for the "communication gap".  She did not apologize for them sending my mother home in a taxi that dumped her off on the front porch.  She indicated to me that that was standard operating procedure when they couldn't get a hold of someone to take a discharged patient home.

The next week was a blur.  My mother had an infection that the hospital could not find the source of.  Their communication was lousy.  After readmitting her on Monday, I did not hear from her rotating bevy of doctors again till that Thursday, when I heard from a doctor and a kidney doctor.  They had still not found the source of the infection.  They were going to call in an infectious disease specialist.  That was the last I heard from them.

My mother herself told me she was having diarrhea.  I asked her if they had checked for C. Diff.  She said she didn't know but she imagined they had -- duh, no brainer, she said.  I told her to have the Dr. talk to me every day, since I couldn't go there, to give me peace of mind. She said OK.  On Saturday, I pleaded with the nurse to write on my mother's chart that I wanted a doctor to call me every day to report progress.  She said she would.  I never heard from another doctor again.  My mother improved enough by the following Monday to be transferred to like a halfway house to receive therapy to get her strength back.  No one notified me until I heard from my mum Monday evening that she had arrived there.  An earlier call to my mother's hospital room to talk to her, not knowing she was already gone, went unanswered.

Come to find out my mum did indeed have C. Diff., which her PCP concluded she got from the hospital.  (It recurred when she got home; Saturday will be her final dose of antibiotic for that.)  Her PCP was furious when he heard everything that happened.  He apologized profusely to me.  I was contemplating a lawsuit, and did indeed talk to a lawyer, which the PCP didn't know but probably could've guessed.  I decided against it because I believe this man was stretched too thin, and he has since given up private practice in order to concentrate on the Geriatrics dept. of the hospital, and a retirement home nearby. Interestingly, the lawyer I consulted told me that the hospital probably stonewalled me because Covid was preventing them from performing elective surgeries, their true moneymaker, so they were making money by ordering unnecessary tests and calling in unnecessary doctors to consult.  He told me to expect to receive a lot of bills.  And we have.

Anyone who is still with me to the end of this long story, God bless you.  I told it to let y'all know what it's like right now if your oldsters are in hospital.  Not good at all.

ViQueen, That was horriffic!  Surely, doctors can't treat people like that unchallenged.  Vets would lose their customers for behaviour half that bad.  I took my dogs and cats elsewhere for smaller infractions.

I can't help, but I really sympathise.  The whole concept of "medicine for profit" is wrong!

Technophobe wrote: ViQueen, That was horriffic!  Surely, doctors can't treat people like that unchallenged.  Vets would lose their customers for behaviour half that bad.  I took my dogs and cats elsewhere for smaller infractions. I can't help, but I really sympathise.  The whole concept of "medicine for profit" is wrong!

Thank you, Techno.  Yes, I'm afraid that crappy care like this does go unchallenged frequently, and is probably more common than we would like to think.  The lack of communication was the worst; I was very stressed every day not knowing what was going on.  My mother wants to die at home.  My mother is also a former nurse who knows how to shop-talk other medical professionals.  She was also in the grip of the intermittent delirium until she was properly stabilized at the halfway house.  So I don't know whether she conned them first time around in the hospital or whether she really thought she was OK to come home that Monday when they went her home the first time, but when I asked them how they didn't see that she was not fit to come home, they said they asked her, and my mother told them she felt she was "at baseline", and ready to come home.  I asked them how they could let her come home when she was that short of breath?  They said she didn't tell them she was.  I said, You didn't notice?!  Cuz I'm a layperson, and I sure noticed within five seconds of finding her on our doorstep!  They just more or less shrugged and said, "Oops."  It was very hard sending her back there because I didn't trust them to take care of her.  I only sent her back there because it was the closest hospital, it's where her insurance covers, and her PCP was head of Geriatrics, though as I said, stretched too thin.  Obviously I could've made some different choices if the US had some sort of single-payer-type system that was not for profit.

She is improved, no more C. Diff.  And hopefully she has kicked that, please God.  She is still short of breath, but that is also to be expected with the heart failure and now the beginning of kidney failure also.  But I can't tell you what it feels like to have a hospital, and supposedly Pittsburgh's UPMC system is world-class, take such crappy care of anyone, especially not being bogged down with a lot of Covid cases.  It does not bode well for any future visits she might have to make, and doesn't bode well either for me if I would catch Covid and have to go there.  I don't know if hospitals are still not letting people in to visit their loved ones, but if the conditions are still the same as in April, that is a helluva system for exploitation of people who have to navigate it.  This is why I wrote the lengthy treatise above, because I would never want to see anyone go through what my mum and I did -- it was ridiculous.

carbon20 wrote: ViQueen, Stressful times for all, Thanks for sharing your story....... Keep safe, take care....

Thank you, Carbon.  Now you know why I've never criticized you when you've called America out.  I believe if we are going to be a role model, we better be worth modeling.  And I do believe our healthcare system has a long way to go.

carbon20 wrote: ViQueen, I never want to "call out Americans" I think you yanks are the among the most nicest and generous people on the planet.... Just think your administration is S...t Lions led by.......? You deserve much much better..... Take care......

No, you're right, I meant to say, call out some of America's sacred cows.  You're right about the rest of it too, lol.  Stay safe!

Posting this here, because of VQueen's story...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/17/us/florida-coronavirus-patient-dies-hospital/index.html

Florida coronavirus patient went from diagnosis to dying in her daughter's arms in a matter of days
Fri July 17, 2020

Hortencia Laurens was nearing her 70th birthday when she was diagnosed with coronavirus on July 2.

Her grandson, Diego Fereira, told CNN that she spent her final days navigating the Florida healthcare system with a rapidly progressing illness.

"My grandmother was alone, she was scared," Fereira said.

[...]

Just days after her diagnosis, she would die of the virus -- wrapped in her daughter's arms -- on her way back to the hospital.

'Everybody is afraid'

Her family was set to go on their annual trip on July 6 to the west coast of Florida, but a week before the reunion Laurens started to feel unwell, Fereira said.

The illness began with stomach symptoms, but Laurens' daughters soon noticed she was very weak and not making sense, Fereira said.

Late Wednesday, July 1, her daughter brought her to the Memorial Hospital in Pembroke Pines, Florida, Fereira said. Due to virus precautions, his aunt could not stay at the hospital with Laurens, who had underlying conditions including diabetes and did not speak English.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, the hospital called the family to tell them Laurens had been diagnosed with coronavirus, Fereira said. On that hospital phone call, Laurens cried to her family that she was scared.

According to a medical document provided by Fereira, she was released around 3 a.m. on Thursday with instructions to pick up prescriptions and to call her doctor for a follow-up consultation in two days. But her family had no way to make contact with her directly, because she did not have a cellphone with her, and it was 6 a.m. before the hospital let them know she could be picked up, he said.

[...]

That Thursday night, still feeling unwell, she was taken by her daughter to another Memorial Hospital Miramar location, Fereira said. She was again diagnosed with Covid-19 and prescribed new medications for her symptoms, according to documents provided by Fereira.

Although documents from the hospital instructed her to schedule a follow-up visit around July 4, Fereira said medical offices were closed for the holiday and she got an appointment for early that week.

But Laurens didn't make it to that day, Fereira said.

Laurens' daughters cared for her over the weekend. She had a bad day Saturday, with fever, chills and body aches, but seemed to improve Sunday, Fereira said. Then Sunday night into Monday morning she developed pains in her chest, had a hard time breathing and was sweating profusely, Fereira's mother and aunt told him.

Fereira says he woke up Monday morning to a 2 a.m. text from his father saying Laurens was being taken to the hospital in an ambulance with her daughters.

In his aunt's arms, Fereira's grandmother flatlined in the ambulance, he said. An EMT looked on, frozen, and his aunt told Fereira that she had to shake him out of it.

"It just goes to show, everybody is afraid," he said.

Medical personnel attempted to revive her at the hospital, but she did not make it, Fereira said.

[...]

"I hear ambulances going to that hospital once every one to two hours," he said. "The thought of it, that my mom had to see my poor grandmother in an ambulance strapped up to life saving devices ... it's so fresh."



[...]

"The worse it gets, the worse it's going to get in hospitals -- and things like this are going to keep happening," he said.

***

Well, that is one way to ensure your hospital is not overwhelmed; send them home even if they are dying.

I am horrified!  Our doctors would be struck-off the medical register for that.

I agree in theory with my mum dying at home.  But if she's in pain, screaming and crying, both of which I have experienced with her through 26 years, that is rough for loved ones to watch.

Thank you, BeachMama, yes, things are better now, although my mother remains in some level of kidney failure, and from now on basically her life is a balancing act between all the meds she takes, some of which stress the kidneys.  For example, she is diabetic and has chronic pain and neuropathy, but her pain meds strain her kidneys, so there is a trade-off between medicating her pain enough to keep her from being miserable, and protecting her kidneys.  In addition, my mother is also in heart failure, and becomes short of breath and tires easily.  It is sad to watch.  We live together, and I see it coming to an end.  But this pandemic has given me a gift.  Being furloughed means I'm at home with her more, and we've had meals together and had some laughs and great talks and talked about our memories.  My mother is my best friend. I wouldn't trade this time with her for anything. 

Cheers to you and your dad!

Thank you, BeachMama, yes, I am sorry, but grateful, too.  And there's no quit in my mum!   I am grateful to have her with me during this pandemic.  She, and my AFT friends, have helped keep me grounded amid the Covidiots.  There are so many of them that a person can begin to doubt things she knows, if not for Mother and AFT!