Posted: Jan 27, 08 8:44am
My mother has finally realized she is getting old. She turned 90 in July. My father died in '89 and was buried on my mother's birthday. My brother ( mother's only son and eldest of her children ) passed awa y after a lengthly illness just two weeks before Christmas in '07.
I am disabled and cannot get up the stairs into my mother's house so I have been having my son do her yard, air conditioner, pathways, etc. One daughter now does her finances. My sister lives next door to my mother but she has little patience for my mother's bad attitude.
I arranged through Mystic Valley Elder Services to have some assist her in showers, do her rug vacuuming and washing her floors, signed her up for grocery deliveries, and she has a medic alert.
However, she isn't to take showers alone or go into the cellar alone, but she does these thing and then sas " Ha, ha, you said not to do it and I did it anyway."
She has a dog who never leaves her side and an African Gray Parrot that she loves dearly.
However, her mind is aging and she is so very forgetful.
Her health is good except for a recent hip replacement and a broken foot anf ankle which has been surgically repaired. She does her own cooking and laundry ( she has a washer & dryer which was installed in a bedroom closet so she would not have to go downstairs.)
She constantly fights with my sister who lives next door with her.
My mother and I never got along, but no grudges remain. She wants me to move into her house and take care of her but her home is not wheel chair accessible. I live in a handicap apartment two towns away.
She does have a computer and enjoys getting e-mails and I e=mail her all the time and have asked my children to do the same.
There were four of us. My brother's children were helpful when they were younger but my mother is bitter that they do not see her now. My two sisters children are my mother's joy and she raves about them so much that she turns the other grandchildren away. ( Part of the reason my deceased brother's children do not wish to visit as was my brother's feeling.
She is really stressing everyone which makes it difficult. It seems deliberate to get attention.
Any suggestions from anyone on how to make her remaining years more comfortable? She said if we try to put her in a nursing home she will commit suicude first.
JanL
