It's been a long saga with my parents. Dad had been in a memory care home for 3 years and died a few weeks ago. In his absence from their house, mom has done nothing but sit in self-pity and drink and pop pills, while her health keeps deteriorating. We are at the point where falls are frequent and she's had multiple broken bones in the past year. Oh, and lucky me, her house is 3 doors down from me.
Mom's drinking & falling have resulted in multiple 911 calls, hospital stays, and now 5 stays in a mental health hospital since mid-2018. She recently spent 3 weeks in the mental hospital, had two severe falls, lots of confusion, etc. The hospital directors called me in for a meeting and we all agreed she is no longer safe at home and they said they would only discharge her somewhere safe with their own direct transport. I was 100% in agreement.
Off I go to tour ALs. I found the absolute Taj Mahal, $6,000/month, in a wing where she will get more structure than regular AL but not rising to the level of MC. I picked a beautiful little apartment with a view of a city dog park. Spent a day decorating and getting it all ready.
Now she says I've dumped her there to die and she wants to be released. She is in a wheelchair and needs medication management. I am an only child, work 6-7 days a week. There is no other family and my mom has no friends. I told her she has destroyed my life but she does not believe it. My parents' decline has been an ongoing saga for 8-9 years now, continually getting worse, and I am left as a shell of a person, trying to hang on to what I have left. I start seeing a therapist next month to deal with my issues.
Anybody have any thoughts on her rights to demand to come back to her home? I am in new territory. When I placed dad in MC, of course he did not want to stay, but his cognitive situation overrode his ability to make his own decisions. If my mom comes home I'm afraid it's going to be the end of me.
That being said: you must take charge of your life, NOT play martyr& tell Mom this is how it’s going to be: here’s what I can do and the rest will have to be procured from available resources. Good luck: I was in your shoes. Remember you have a right to put your life first- you must, if you’re providing difficult support!
It's good that you are seeing a therapist, you need the support. You have done your best for your Mom. Now, you need to do what you need to do to "save" yourself.
G-d bless you.
When my mother was semi-able to think halfway straight-- she was alittle upset in the beginning, but came to love her new home and took part in the activities and entertainment. Use all the ammunition you have to keep her in there. In the beginning my mom thought she was in a hotel.... and thought she would go home. Then she had to be put in the assisted living next door because she wandered twice in the winter in knee deep snow no less. By that time she was in decline and was more open to our lead. Tell her you love her and do what is necessary. And forget about fancy places unless you want to run out of funds early.
The sooner you prepare her home for sale to pay for the dog-view-apartment the better. Property taxes are probably due in the spring.
Motivated sellers put houses on the market at the end of March/early April. Hire an estate liquidator to clean out the house. Clean empty houses show best. Hire a professional realtor who knows the neighborhood. Ask for references.
I would not rent out the house because you are going to be the one managing the property and acting like the landlord and that's a lot of work and headache.
Your mother's needs are only going to increase and that's going to cost money. Sell the house and put the proceeds into an investment vehicle for her. Talk to your financial advisor about her options.
May I suggest that you meet with an administrator or supervisor on a regular basis? Once a month a first would work. Schedule an appointment and bring up any situations your mother mentions, so that you get the facility's take on it. They have seen it all and handled it all and may have suggestions for you. Ask how often she joins activities - from someone reading the newspaper to them in the recreation area, to chair exercises, to craft classes, to special events such as musicians who come to entertain.
To outsiders who seemed sympathetic my MIL would have sounded like the loneliest person on earth who just sat in her room all day with no family to visit, no mail, no phone calls. She had been tossed aside to rot.
The AL people would tell you that she played piano in the recreation room, received mail several times a week, had a son and DIL who visited at least twice a week and always brought her something - cookies, photos, clothing - and took her out to eat at least once a week.
Mom can demand to go home all she wants. You do not have to meet those demands. Do you have durable Power of Attorney and access to her accounts? Whether you do, or do not, speak with an eldercare attorney to be sure that you are in control of funds, or find out what you need to do. It will give you more peace of mind that mom won't do anything crazy financially.
activities as her? notify staff so they can spend some qualified
time with her when u are not there
Your mother is now in the same situation. She is unsafe to live anywhere except someplace that is safe for a person in a wheelchair and where she has 24/7 assistance.
However, right now you have to change your attitude. Your parents have not ruined your life. Never repeat that phrase again, ever. They just got old, that's all. It's no one's fault. It's the natural progression of life.
You are a great daughter. You got the VIP AL and have been taking care of everything.
Decide to visit your mom regularly, maybe once a week. On those visits, do something nice or fun. If she's mobile, go out to lunch. If not, find an activity at the AL.
You can stop feeling guilty right now. You followed doctor's orders and that's what you can tell her.
No, she can't move back home, but you can bring items to her apartment.
Going to see a therapist pronto is the best thing you can do for yourself.
Focus on yourself, your mom is getting the VIP treatment and she is just fine.
Your mother can't control you unless you let her. Stop enabling. It sounds impossible, I know, but give yourself a stern talking-to. Decide how much of your time you are willing to devote to her wants and needs and stick to it. DO NOT let her plans include you as a hands-on, on-demand, caregiver. Be very firm that you are unavailable. Tell some therapeutic lies if you have to. "My job has changed and I won't be available" or "I will likely have to start traveling more."
She has the "right" to do whatever she wants, however she cannot dictate what you must do for her. As she talks about her plans, keep reminder her of that. Good luck.
Best of luck to you in finding your own future!
You have done all that you can and then some. As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water... In your case, it is more like a donkey and the donkey refuses to even go along or drink water!!!
As for ensuring mom stays put, and to put the kibosh on her blaming you, have something in writing from the doctor, so you can say the decision is out of your hands. I would also seek legal consult to see if it would be possible to get guardianship (her assets should cover this, not yours.) Not that you need more work, but sometimes just having POAs is not enough. Both our attorney and the staff in mom's MC indicate that even those with dementia still have "rights!" She does not have dementia (to the best we know!) and so technically she *could* demand/try to get out and return home. If you could get guardianship, it would override what she wants. If legal advise against it, so be it, but given her self-destructive nature, it might be possible to have more control than with POAs*(from reading some posts Babs75 has made, guardianship doesn't necessarily end up being 100% oversight, but it might be better if it was - but, still blame the docs!)
*Although you have POA, you would still have to get mom's signature on paperwork to sell the house. Our mother has dementia, and although I could use my POA to sign all the other documents related to the sale of her condo, her attorney told me she *MUST* sign the deed with notary. Thankfully they have a notary in her facility AND she told me when asked that she only had to witness the signing, not confirm mom knew what it was! I passed it off as some kind of insurance or something. We really needed to sell it. It took over a year and a half to get it cleaned out and fixed up (heating system died, windows were going foggy from blown seals, and taxes/condo fees in addition to utilities were sucking down too much money - oh yeah, we had to find alternate insurance as normal homeowner's does not cover unoccupied houses!) In all that time, it cost about 14k to cover the expenses/repairs!!!