Latest Mom Adventures

[frugal-one]

On Thursdays, I work at our main branch in a town about an hour away. This past Thursday, I could see through the Ring doorbell that my husband's friend had dropped him off from taking him to lunch. DH was ringing the doorbell and knocking on the door. I tried calling his cell - no answer (learned later it was in the house). I talked to him through the Ring. I tried to talk him through opening the screen door (sometimes you have to push it in a bit before turning the handle down). No go. I tried to explain to him how to use the garage door keypad. He ended up taking it completely off the door frame. I ended up calling his friend who came back to help him. Turns out, DH had actually locked the doors behind him this time (he never does this anymore). They struggled and got the doors open and DH got in the house. I tried later and no problem with any of our keys working in the doors.

When I got home about 6:00 that evening, he had no memory of this entire episode. I went into our bedroom to change and found the shower going full bore. Who knows how long that had been running, because DH certainly didn't. The water was still hot, so probably not more than a couple of hours. Can't wait to see that water bill. Kind of ironic that he actually took a shower that afternoon - I call it a win if he showers twice a week.

I've started the process of applying for medicaid to get him into a local PACE program. It's $5K a month private pay, which we don't have. Management will let me start WFH 2 days a week, also. Good times.

Very sorry to hear all this beckyliz... a very stressful situation to be sure.

[early morning]

This sounds like my mom, I remember getting her a jitterbug phone and preprogramming it to call me and then explaining to her what buttons to push and just hoping she could remember how to do it. Dementia is so terrible. Would she be open to moving to assisted living? My mom became a danger to herself--would melt things on the stove, put weird things in the microwave, tried to mow the lawn with a new zero turn mower and threw herself off it into the side of the barn.

I understand these problems!! We really had to think outside the box with my mom, who refused to consider moving from her home until she fell and had no choice. We turned off the breaker for the stove after finding it left on, and told her it didn't work right. As she was too frugal to want to pay for repairs or another stove, she switched to her microwave - much safer. We took all her metal pans that would FIT into the microwave and moved them to the basement, where she would/could not venture, to avoid that problem. We took out the toaster oven after finding melted plastic in it. We took the car keys. We took the spark plug out of the mower and hid it. We bought her a coffee pot with an auto shut off - which now is pretty standard. We bought her a phone with large buttons and programmed every one of them to call one of us three kids, so whatever buttons she pushed, she got one of us. Her neighbors on both sides had a key to her house and all of our phone numbers. One of us - or spouses, or grandkids - stopped in every day, and had a rotation of calls also. And one day a week, we all met up there and either brought take out, or turned on the stove and cooked. She never asked why the stove worked for us and not her, lol. And we were very lucky in that she never wanted to go out for a walk alone!! I feel for everyone who goes thru this with loved ones- and that's a LOT of us, isn't it?

[iris lilies]

My brother did something to our mother’s car, maybe remove the alternator cap? Then it wouldn’t start when she tried it. Hmmm, that is so odd the car is not working right! We all shook our heads about it.After a few months she forgot about getting it fixed.

[Simplemind]

These stories remind me so much of our caregiving times. Both my dad and MIL got the phone mixed up with the TV remote. No matter how we tried to simplify with a new device, it was new and couldn't be learned. It was frustrating and sad to try to help them keep some independence only to continue to lose ground.

[Teacher Terry]

I tried to mark my friend’s tv remote with different colors. It didn’t work. Diane lost her ability to use her flip phone. Fortune she could be left alone during the day so her husband could work. Locally assisted living facilities won’t take people with dementia.

My friend that recently died was in a very nice AL apartment but it cost 8k/month. They always got decent meals in the dining room. The aides really cared and when my other friend and I couldn’t sit with him while he was dying they took turns. It took 10 days for him to die and my friend and I split the days and the night aides rotated. When it became evident he wouldn’t live more than a few hours they called us in the middle of the night to come. They are having their challenges keeping people but wow they were awesome. We gave all his new furniture to the aides.

[early morning]

Both my dad and MIL got the phone mixed up with the TV remote.

Yeah Mom did this too, and it seems to be a common issue. Our solution was to replace the newer, small cordless phones with great big honkin' things with big buttons and a wired handset that looked more like an old-style phone to her, and marked the TV remote with "TV" with bright red nail polish. She never had cable or satellite so only one, fairly simple remote, TG. She only found channels by hitting random buttons but she had much patience with that (?!?) and only got three channels anyway. We bought her two phones, and put one right by the chair where she sat, and one on the bureau where the phone had always been. She/we were lucky in that even with her dementia she still formed new memories, she just couldn't usually access any particular memories when she wanted them. One never knew, from day to day, what she was going to remember. As it progressed, it got harder and harder for her to make sense of her world. I so hope I go more like my grandmother, who announced to a somewhat mystified family gathering that she was going to bed, and they would most likely not see her in the morning. And then she went to sleep, and that was that.

[pinkytoe]

The scary thing is that my 88yo MIL has all of her faculties. I am starting to ponder what happens when the money runs out as no one expected her to live this long with so many physical ailments.

[Tradd]

An Apple Watch with cellular phone service (don’t need an iPhone to call) might be an option for some seniors. The new model has fall detection and maybe will call someone if a fall is detected - best check on that as I may have that wrong. If a senior will wear a watch, might be something to look into.

[Tybee]

Beckyliz, how scary. I am so sorry this is happening to you both.

[lmerullo]

To the OP and the original concern - how about a thermostat that is WiFi enabled? I've got one at my home and one for mom. She can handle the up one degree, down one situation but not changing from heating to cooling. The WiFi is the answer, so either my brother or I can set it for her . Some even interface with Alexa for voice commands.