Hello everyone. I’m responsible for my 93 year old mother who has congestive heart failure, stage 3 kidney failure, significant cognitive/memory issues, and probable colon cancer (no definitive diagnosis as she can’t go under anesthesia). She is in an assisted living facility that provides excellent care, though she has never been happy there. I’ve been retired 4 years, and 3 of those have been solely devoted to getting my mom into a safe care situation, taking care of finances, taking her to doctor appointments, selling her house, moving her across the country, shopping for her, and listening to her complain. She’s a sweet lady, but not above using the guilt card, and it’s hard to listen to the same complaints 50 times without taking it personally. I’m an only child, so no siblings to help with any of this. Mom has never seemed to realize the pressure involved in doing all this when I am only one person.
Two weeks ago, I got an urgent call from Mom’s doctor that an internal bleed was picked up on a routine blood test, and that she needed to go to the ER for a blood transfusion. You haven’t lived until you’ve spent 6 hours waiting in an ER with a person in her condition. By the time she was admitted she was screaming that she’d be dead by morning if I left her there. They had to give her tranquilizers to keep her there. After all that, there was nothing they could do except to take her off blood thinners. The transfusion seemed to make her feel better for about 24 hours. I have hospice lined up as I’m not repeating that experience for either one of us. She’s back in assisted living now and pretty stable.
I have been to visit once since Mom returned to assisted living, and I usually visit several times a week. I just can’t seem to get myself to go over there, but I sit in my house and worry about it, so I’m not really getting a break. I feel like my life has just been canceled. Does anyone else ever feel that way? Thanks for listening and strength to you all!
So many of us are the only caregiver to an elderly parent who is exactly like your mother. Even when there isn't dementia their expectation is that they must be the center of our universes. That our lives must revolve around their needs and wants the way the planets orbit the sun. The pressure they out on us is either given no thought or it is very much discounted. Then there's the incessant complaining, stubbornness, guilt-tripping, and fight-picking. The person having dementia does not make all of this any easier to cope with.
When my mother wanted to fight or complain and I ignored her which is what I normally did, she'd work herself up into a panic attack and ask me why I hate her so much.
I answered her honestly some time back that I didn't hate her. I dread her. And I most seriously do.
You need another person to carry some of the burden for you. Maybe your mother should be in a nursing facility instead of an AL. This would take some of it off of you.
I completely understand putting your life on hold. I've been on tenterhooks for seven years now, and our retirement plans to move have been postponed until Mom no longer needs me. I honestly thought that might be a couple of years after she first got sick when my husband was still working, but he's been retired a year now and here we still wait.
Your mom is safe and well fed.
Take some time to take care of you. Acute care is DRAINING.
That said, I had no other choice but to take my mother off of blood thinners too..........that was in 2018. She had a small stroke shortly thereafter, nothing major, and no further problems since. She's still alive and well at 94.5 and her tongue is sharper than ever. She's 'nowhere near ready for hospice' is what they keep telling me and telling me, so that's that. Taking your mother off of blood thinners is not an automatic death sentence, although I don't know if the internal bleed issue was remedied with the transfusion? I do know that I've spent many, many, many 6 hour stints with my mother in the ER over the past 10 years, the latest runs were for horrific nose bleeds caused by the blood thinners, followed by her latest bout of pneumonia which had her admitted for a week and then off to rehab for 20 days.
Anyway, my suggestion to you is to visit your mother once a week and leave if/when she trots the guilt card out. Like I told my mother yesterday, she makes me feel like a 'bad daughter' when I've spent the past 10 years managing her entire LIFE for her and being constantly told it's not good enough. What's 'not good enough' now is her repeatedly telling me that, and I'm going to cut down my contact with her as a result. I'm not a punching bag and neither are you.
Wishing you the strength & the courage to say ENOUGH to your mother, too, and to set down some strong boundaries with her. Best of luck.
To answer your question I don’t know if the bleed has stopped. Probably not, but I’m sure taking her off blood thinners slowed it down. She had colon cancer and a bowel resection in her 70s, and since this is a GI bleed we’re assuming it’s back. But there was no testing for that, as no matter what they found they wouldn’t be able to repair it due to her chf and anemia. So we just wait to see what happens next I guess.