Kinda how I thought, SO has agreed to be conscripted again for their medical appointments that she schedules deliberately for his weekend, which is really weekdays.
Today was getting MIL in for a cancer check. She was looking to get in on the latest 500k cancer treatment but for her MS. Now she can’t walk up her steps without two people but hey, no dementia, rich, always invokes family. She may well get her way but what then.
Tomorrow is going to be lifting FIL's chair down their steps so that he can go to…a pre op physical for his heart again. He just had hip and back fractures but the milk of Medicare cardiologist has an incentive to allow this, the sixth general anesthesia procedure in as many months. Oh, let’s all pretend like he will be just tip top after this one and…after this the knee op he wants. His mobility is standing up enough to plop him on the commode or with two people in a chair. So after he comes out of the anesthesia, gets the Nice Hospital to change his room to a better view, then what then.
I will tell you what then. It will keep going and going. So asked what the plan was and it’s just we’ll manage. like they haven’t been.
Yes, the doctors are getting very rich otherwise they would not do what they are doing.
Same with mil. Should either two of the most deadly cancers recur, it’ll be all hands on deck, more acuity, it’s my civil right to demand a million dollar treatment and you’re killing grandma if you don’t.
These pre boomers amuse me as it’s actually the boomers, their children, already drawing more rage. Even as a bloc, they’re now outnumbered by two to three generations.
Which is to say, mil, that you def are here because of your induction chemo, your refractory chemo and rads that took eight hospitalizations, plus the four you had from complications. Two years later, you can’t walk out your back or front door either as the disease and then it’s treatment aggravated all the other things you had, and added some. This treatment u want is high neuro risk and you have ms. So what’s the plan?
Which is to say fil, that you had this stroke event. After it got better, milk of Medicare got two head operations for you. Then a heart one. And since then you’ve sustained multiple fractures and can maybe get on the commode with help? And you want another heart operation.
The one predictable thing is decline sooner than later. If they wanna make it later in their sacred independence then how bout more safeguards to keep it I place.
Oh, I forgot, sil has some fatty liver thing. Huge back pain. Really just hire another 70k person.
Anyway, latest cancer drug, oh not so much. Some operation, not so much. They wanna age in place, then put in place a virtual nursing home instead of pretending like you’ll get back function.
If your SO has power of attorney or is at least allowed to discuss his parents's situations with their doctors, then perhaps he should bring up that question during one of these appointments. Does the doctor believe that surgery/treatment/medication will improve his LO's condition? To what extent? What about the effects of anesthesia vs. the expected outcome from the surgery? Make him answer the tough questions, and that may well open the door for more frank discussions about how realistic these treatments really are.
And I agree with Snoopy that carrying this man down the steps in a wheel chair is a back injury waiting to happen. If it does I am sure that SO's parents will be there to help him physically and financially if that happens and he needs help. End sarcasm.
When delving under the headline - there are holes in the story, gaping missing bits where reasoning, judgement, & decision making should be.
I remember the poster's MIL who hardly walk 10m without a fall, but would say "I'll manage" to cook for myself, wash her clothes, bathe, drive to the shops etc. Took a #hip for a hospital stay to pry her out of home. But the real change happened when the enabling daughter stoped doing all & sundry to keep up the charade.
I still think your MIL & FIL are fighting their battle with Old Age with everything they have. This may include necessary & futile treatments. It's their right to try..
Your venting (resentment? anger?) may be telling you to reduce the impact their battle has on your life. How to do this when constant drama is on the phone? Sigh.
You always seem so angry & frustrated that your ILs expect to GET treatment for what ails them, yet I think we ALL do! This is our society, our world, our human expectations of our medical profession, is it not? I know it's mine; when I call 911, I expect an ambulance to come get my arse and help me get to the hospital where I then expect to get treated for whatever my issue is.
It's unfortunate your ILs depend on their children to help them. I hope they will see the light and move into AL or hire more CGs in home to give your SO a break. But in reality, even if they do move to AL, they will STILL depend on their children to help them with all sorts of things, as my parents did of me. If I wasn't there for their myriad of health issues/crises for the past 10.5 years, I have no idea what would have become of them, except to say they'd have died way sooner than they did. I suppose I could have hired a geriatric care manager though, has your SO looked into that? It's an option.
Maybe you are just venting, which you have every right to do. It just seems like your anger is getting ramped up more & more lately over your ILs situation and it won't get better; it'll only get worse, sadly. What steps are YOU taking to ensure that YOU won't be hospitalized from the stress all this is taking on you?? And/or the toll it may take on the relationship you have with your SO? I hope you have a plan to ward off all the ill effects this can have on both, for your sake. I hate to see the toll all this caregiving takes on ALL of us! It can be devastating.