My sweet old Mom has been incontinent after a couple of strokes. No bladder control up until now. Now she’s lost control of her BMs. On Mother’s Day, we had shit all over the house. Kids get more independent as they get older. My mom is doing the opposite. It really sucks but I will not put her in a nursing home.
She also suffers from dementia so between the shit and hallucinations its pretty damn crazy around here.
best regards,
mud
“In the fight between you and the world,
back the world.” - Frank Zappa
Dad is getting worse with the Alzheimer’s. The meds have helped but it looks like they’ve done all they’re gonna do. It may not be too long before we have to look into nursing homes. He got mad at me when I was up Saturday because, as he said, I didn’t take him fishing last week. The man has never fished as long as I’ve known him anyway. But I made it up, cause I took him to the cemetary twice to visit my brother’s grave. He also told me he’s been sneaking off to the neighbor’s house “to get me some” and that his cat has taking to walking up and down the hall on her hind legs. Alzheimer’s sure is interesting sometimes.
lite, many condolences to you and your family. That’s not an easy thing to go through, and as you can see, a lot of people here on the board are thinking about you.
I don’t have any older relatives ailing at the moment. My mom, although she drinks and smokes (well, she’s quit - several times), also walks 2-4 miles a day, and will probably outlive all of us.
However, my wife is going in for major abdominal surgery on Monday. We’re hoping this will be the end of her health problems.
So sorry for your loss, Lite; your family is in my prayers.
My Mom, who was diagnosed with what they think is ovarian cancer back in January, was able to return to her home a month ago (April 12), after spending nearly 3 months in hospitals and nursing homes, save for a brief one-week stay at home in February. Towards the end of March, after enduring 3 rounds of chemo and IPN feedings (that’s the liquid protein via IV pump; Mom hasn’t had any solid food since January), Mom decided that she wasn’t going to have any more chemo nor IPN. The chemo treatments were done in the hope that the tumor might shrink enough so that they could try surgery, but it wasn’t working very much, if at all, and my Mom was really just miserable; she kept getting infections. She then went into Hospice Care, first in a transitional unit in a hospital then in a nursing home itself.
She really wanted to be able to go home, but was unable to be there alone; the nursing home was going to be very expensive and Mom has always been ultra cautious with money (read on the miserly side! I have to laugh about that, because it’s true), plus she just was unhappy there–she wasn’t even able to keep an over-the-counter nasal spray in her room; the staff at the nursing home was nice, but I think my Mom felt very restricted and treated as if she were a child. So…my 21 year old daughter, who does not currently have a job, agreed to go and stay with her grandmother and help take care of her. And that’s where things stand currently: my daughter is living with my Mom, with hospice workers visiting once a day during the week. Mom has had good days and bad; right now, she has had several bad days in a row–unable to keep any liquids down, nauseated and in pain. She does have a morphine patch for the pain, at least (although she didn’t want to use it at first), and is fairly weak. I’m glad that my daughter is able to help her out and be there with her; she helps her get dressed and undressed and has even helped her when she has gotten up in the middle of the night to get sick. It is so very painful to see a parent suffering like this; my daughter is doing a wonderful job too, and holding up like a trooper. Yesterday, my Mom told me that even when she just stands for a few minutes, she gets dizzy. I don’t know how much longer she will have or how long she will be able to stay in her home with my daughter (it’s so hard to type when you’re crying…), I only know that it is so awful to see her suffering and I don’t want her to suffer any more.
I’m sorry this went so long; I hadn’t posted about my Mom in a while. Please keep my Mom (and my daughter too!) in your prayers.
We just found out this weekend that my husband’s grandfather may have ALS – commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. They’re still doing tests to rule out other stuff, but my gut tells me that it’s ALS. He’s in remarkably good spirits under the circumstances, but it’s difficult for the rest of us to contemplate the fact that he probably has a progressive and fatal disease.
And, I just got back from the emergency room with my husband – he had an anaphylactic reaction to an antibiotic. His face and throat swelled up like a balloon, and I think he came within a gnat’s hair of being intubated, or trached, but thankfully the medications reversed the reaction. He’s sleeping in our room now and I keep having to go look at him, just to make sure he’s all right.
My great-grandmother died a few weeks ago unexpectedly at the age of 97. She had Alzheimer’s, but she wasn’t terminal yet. She was standing out on her porch and she just collapsed.
Not a relative by blood, but the micro-preemie grandson of my church pianist just got home. He was born in February (due this month :)). He’s 5 lb 8 oz, last I heard.