Elderly bedridden mother wants to go home - advice please!!!

nightsong

margaretclare wrote: »

I am really not convinced that any other nations/cultures manage this any better than we do. I'm aware that in some cultures it's the job of the daughter(s)-in-law to look after husband's parents, but that must mean that their own lives/ambitions/aspirations are put on hold or assumed to be less important.

Looking after children, when you're a parent, is completely different. You chose to have those children. The people who have contributed to this thread did not choose to be put in this position.

One must also consider the difference between physically handling a baby or toddler and an incapacitated adult. Surely, someone could have seen that your Dad could not carry his wife up and down stairs? Unless he was a rugby-playing ex-fireman he would never have been able to do this! Why didn't someone point this out?

To the OP, I used to do a bit of agency-typing for a sub-section of the hospital services. An OT/physio/rehab person would go with a patient to his/her home on a temporary visit just to see if he/she had a hope of being able to manage if discharged. Quite often they'd be brought straight back. One lady I knew - she used to go to the same church as me - was taken indoors to where she'd lived for 50 years, asked to make a cup of tea in her kitchen. She couldn't even remember where the kitchen was!

You've said just what I think but put it much better

I wish my mother could go back to hospital. The nursing care was very good. And now that she is in a room of her own in the home, which I thought she'd like (she has always been quite a private person) I realise that she no longer has any real capacity to entertain herself. She can't see the TV very well (or operate the remote) and can't be bothered to read. So she lies there looking at the walls.

At least in hospital she saw people coming and going from her bed.

Half the time I think she should be sent home just so she can go back to hospital - and she has been in there for several weeks at a time, they have not been in any great hurry to discharge her except right at the end of each stay when they suddenly seem so keen to get shot of her.

The other half of the time I think this is an insane plan. I'm driving myself mad thinking about it all the time.

margaretclare

Parva wrote: »

I totally understand this point of view and realise that it's such a tough choice. That said, I am seeing both my Mum and my Uncle (nan's daughter and son obviously) being slowly eaten away by my Nan who's 86 (I think). She will in no way go into a home or accept that she's too frail to do anything, hell she's wanting to book a holiday in Benidorm. The truth is that she can't even make it up the road to her local Tesco's.

I guess it will come to us all eventually although I'm hoping that I can accept the "I can no longer do this" regime before I become a burden on my family. My Nan doesn't see what she's doing to her son and daughter, indeed she doesn't even believe she's frail despite numerous falls and hospital / doctors visits.

I love her to bits but I hate seeing how much pressure she's adding to my mums and my uncle's life, and she doesn't realise she's doing it. She's totally oblivious to the stress and tension she's causing the family because she is determined to cling on to that independence. I know there's two trains of thought on this but my train (and particularly since I have entered the disabled club) is that I would do anything to avoid putting pressure on others when I begin to struggle.

And yes, I would go into a nursing home if I could not function alone. I know it's not so cut and dried when it's parents and really feel for you on this.

It does creep up on one.

DH and I are not far off 80 - him at end of year, me next August - and we consider ourselves to be independent. However, up to this summer he liked to go round Tesco and make his own choices. He's never been a great gardener, but he used to cut the grass at least.

Now, because of a recurrent infection in a repeat knee replacement, side-effects of powerful antibiotics have made him dizzy and unsteady on his feet. He has at last accepted the need to do online grocery-shopping on a regular basis. And we have a regular lady gardener. NB: I hate shopping so I was happy to leave it to him as long as he enjoyed/was capable of doing it without pain. Online grocery shopping to me is one of the better inventions of the last decade or so.

The last time he tried cutting the grass at the back he attempted to dislodge a tree-root with his head. No good calling my mobile to tell me - I can't pick him up - but this happened twice in one afternoon. I had to bring a plastic garden chair and do my best to assist him to use it to get back to his feet again. Oh, and the results of spinal surgery 2 years ago made that not a good idea - but no option. He then had a strained shoulder-muscle which is only just subsiding.

The things we used to do with ease, we can no longer do.

However, to nightsong, a woman who can't even pull herself upright in a chair sufficiently to breathe, I would have thought cannot live at home. She'd need help/observation 24/7 and this can never happen in your own home. Think about damage to your own back/carers' backs! Can't be done. No matter what they do in other cultures.

margaretclare

nightsong wrote: »

You've said just what I think but put it much better

I wish my mother could go back to hospital. The nursing care was very good. And now that she is in a room of her own in the home, which I thought she'd like (she has always been quite a private person) I realise that she no longer has any real capacity to entertain herself. She can't see the TV very well (or operate the remote) and can't be bothered to read. So she lies there looking at the walls.

At least in hospital she saw people coming and going from her bed.

Half the time I think she should be sent home just so she can go back to hospital - and she has been in there for several weeks at a time, they have not been in any great hurry to discharge her except right at the end of each stay when they suddenly seem so keen to get shot of her.

The other half of the time I think this is an insane plan. I'm driving myself mad thinking about it all the time.

Just an idea - have you thought of radio or audio-books? I listen to recorded books on my iPod - it was an absolute godsend last time I was in hospital and your Mum might like this in her room on her own.

Errata

She's totally oblivious to the stress and tension she's causing the family because she is determined to cling on to that independence.

I just wanted to pick up on this posted by Parva. She's totally oblivious because she no longer has the capacity to understand. My relative's mum appeared to be as sharp as a knife, but her incapacity to understand 'what's what' resulted in her daughter to having a heart attack swiftly followed by a breakdown.

nightsong

margaretclare wrote: »

Just an idea - have you thought of radio or audio-books? I listen to recorded books on my iPod - it was an absolute godsend last time I was in hospital and your Mum might like this in her room on her own.

Yes, that's a good idea - thanks. She has enjoyed the radio in the past and talking books is a great idea. She is hopeless with technology but I expect the staff might help her (maybe).

I fear she might be too depressed to bother actually, is the truth, but still it is a very good idea and worth a try.

nightsong

Errata wrote: »

I just wanted to pick up on this posted by Parva. She's totally oblivious because she no longer has the capacity to understand. My relative's mum appeared to be as sharp as a knife, but her incapacity to understand 'what's what' resulted in her daughter to having a heart attack swiftly followed by a breakdown.

This is it. Thank you. My mother has always tended to be very egocentric but now she has lost any capacity to see things from anyone else's point of view.

Does this count as lack of capacity? Can I argue this?

Errata

nightsong wrote: »

This is it. Thank you. My mother has always tended to be very egocentric but now she has lost any capacity to see things from anyone else's point of view.

Does this count as lack of capacity? Can I argue this?

Skinny version: if someone is unable to understand the world about them, then it could be robustly argued they no longer have capacity.

nightsong

margaretclare wrote: »

It does creep up on one.

DH and I are not far off 80 - him at end of year, me next August - and we consider ourselves to be independent. However, up to this summer he liked to go round Tesco and make his own choices. He's never been a great gardener, but he used to cut the grass at least.

Now, because of a recurrent infection in a repeat knee replacement, side-effects of powerful antibiotics have made him dizzy and unsteady on his feet. He has at last accepted the need to do online grocery-shopping on a regular basis. And we have a regular lady gardener. NB: I hate shopping so I was happy to leave it to him as long as he enjoyed/was capable of doing it without pain. Online grocery shopping to me is one of the better inventions of the last decade or so.

The last time he tried cutting the grass at the back he attempted to dislodge a tree-root with his head. No good calling my mobile to tell me - I can't pick him up - but this happened twice in one afternoon. I had to bring a plastic garden chair and do my best to assist him to use it to get back to his feet again. Oh, and the results of spinal surgery 2 years ago made that not a good idea - but no option. He then had a strained shoulder-muscle which is only just subsiding.

The things we used to do with ease, we can no longer do.

However, to nightsong, a woman who can't even pull herself upright in a chair sufficiently to breathe, I would have thought cannot live at home. She'd need help/observation 24/7 and this can never happen in your own home. Think about damage to your own back/carers' backs! Can't be done. No matter what they do in other cultures.

You absolutely would think this wouldn't you? Yet because it is her preferred option it is what is currently expected to happen. The social worker at the hospital (who is new in post and has never met her) seems quite happy to let her go home like this, with a care package of visits totalling two and a half hours a day.

I'm glad it's not just me who finds this incomprehensible.

margaretclare

nightsong wrote: »

This is it. Thank you. My mother has always tended to be very egocentric but now she has lost any capacity to see things from anyone else's point of view.

Does this count as lack of capacity? Can I argue this?

Sounds very much like it. I agree with Errata.

Egocentric = me, me, me. One must be realistic. We all have things we'd like to do but it's not possible. As DH said yesterday when requesting an electrician to call and replace an outside light - 'I used to shinny up ladders 60 feet off the ground. I can't any longer'.

Going on holiday to Benidorm, Parva? What's she going to do there? We recently went to Alicante and even that was difficult, although we did manage to amble slowly along the Explanada de Espana. I've long had an ambition to go to Jerusalem and walk the Way of the Cross. It ain't going to happen.

margaretclare

nightsong wrote: »

You absolutely would think this wouldn't you? Yet because it is her preferred option it is what is currently expected to happen. The social worker at the hospital (who is new in post and has never met her) seems quite happy to let her go home like this, with a care package of visits totalling two and a half hours a day.

I'm glad it's not just me who finds this incomprehensible.

No, it absolutely is not just you.

Two and a half hours a day? And what happens in the rest of the 24? Absolute nonsense.