Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Thank you Walter! Yes, NOVEMBER 30, this Friday.

I guess it will be a while before my head works properly, especially for times and dates.

These days distraction as a part of grief is ignored.

Grief involves distraction--no need to apologize.

I'll be thinking of you on Friday, Tomkitten. How are you doing, btw?

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Swimpy - I'm doing fairly well, but I think Friday will be hard; worse in some ways than the funeral itself - perhaps because it is the absolute ultimate step in the sequence, and I have not merely 24 hours, but 72 to wait. I do tend to break into tears if people hit the right (wrong?) chord. The trouble there is that I'm never quite sure what the chord is; it seems different every time.

I'm keeping busy, though. This is the beginning of the time of year when I compile final records of stuff like medical expenses and charitable donations; These are things that I'm sort of slow at, so that occupies a lot of time.

I'm finishing up a couple of baby afghans for our annual fair which takes place this Friday and Saturday, and I'm working on turning a Thanksgiving poem into a Hanukah one for our upcoming Bell Ringers' holiday concert. I'm using "Over the river and into the wood/To grandfather's house we go", and I don't have much more than a week to do it in.

Then I'm reading a couple of new books - "The Nine", all about the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin, and "The Terror Presidency" by Jack Goldsmith. And, finally, I've just borrowed the Teaching Company video, "The History of Impressionism", part one.

What I am NOT doing is sitting and contemplating my navel.

Noddy - They seem to have analyzed "the grieving process" into discrete bits and pieces, and many people seem to think you must go through every step at a certain pace. I haven't read anything about "distraction" being part of it all (but then I haven't read very much on the topic anyway) but it would surely be a totally normal aspect. Keeping one's mind on things is sufficiently difficult at the best of times, and sorrow and loss would make it just that much more so. I thank you for reminding me of that. It may not make me on time for meals, but it does alleviate the guilt.

You are all very kind.

TomKitten--

I learned a lot about the mechanics of grief when my son died. Fortunately a good friend--who had also lost a child--warned me that distracted, scatter-brained ineffectiveness was perfectly normal.

On my worst day of grieving, I managed to mess up making Jello.

You're organized enough to try to move on--and angels could expect no more.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones


That explains why I find myself starting some small project, switching to another halfway through, then on to a third, and so on. Hopefully it will eventually turn into a circle, and after beginning chore #23 I'll find myself back at #1 again.

Be kind to yourself, Tomkitten.

Tomkitten, I'm one who thinks that tears are a perfect way of letting go of the things that need to be released. Maybe they don't come at the most opportune times but let them come when and where they may.

I'll be thinking of you on Friday at 10:00 am.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
It's odd, but looking at them objectively, I've never cried tears like these - they just plop and splash onto things, almost bypassing my face altogether. Really extraordinary.

The worst reaction, though, is my voice, which then goes into incomprehensible squeaks. Very strange. Normally, when singing, for instance, I tend to take the lowest register called for, more of a rumble, really. When I was in college (all female) I was always given the "bass" parts in the Glee Club. Unfortunately, these squeaks and chirps make conversation difficult - and I do enjoy conversation.

However, tears, squeaks, chirps and all, I go down to dinner with friends almost every other night which I do like - it's been two or three years since I could do that, because I refused to abandon Bob.

The state of widowhood may not be inherently happy, but I can still enjoy things like dinner with friends and my work in the library. I'm still here, and I don't see the point of retiring from the world. Thank God we're not living in Victorian times when mourning was deep black and no public or social pleasures were permitted. I can get out and about and putter around on the usual errands.

I'm thinking of you too TK.

Grief is a visceral, physical emotion.

You know your Tennyson:

Just got a phone call from the nurses: mother had fallen last night (whenever), got some really bad wounds .... and is send to the hospital.

The only chance we'd got. (She had lost nearly three kilos weight within one week, too.)

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Oh Walter - we'll be keeping our fingers crossed - saying our prayers - thinking of you all.

I hope she is OK, Walter. Maybe now your sister will see that she can't live alone.

My mom had another episode of fainting last night. The assisted living people called the ambulance, but the doctors couldn't find anything seriously wrong with her. We already know she has times when her heart rate slows way down. A pacemaker would be called for in a younger person, but we don't want to put her through any risk. She said she doesn't want it either. So the hospital sent her home.

Walter--

Worrying--and the fact that you knew in advance that this was a possibility doesn't help.

What does your sister say?

Swimpy--

Also worrying--but a more peaceful worry. How are you holding up?

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Swimpy - Noddy's right. Your worry is real and serious, but more peaceful than Walter's. My prayers and thoughts are with you.

One day, one step at a time, and you'll get through it.

Just back from .... from all and everything.

Preface: when reading, please consider that not only I'm a non-natibe English speaker but especially that we have a different law as well as different health insurance systems here in Germany.


After the nurse called me this morning, she called the ambulance, packed stuf for the next copuple of days, wrote me a short notice, informed Mrs Walter that mother was minutes later on her way to the hospital .... and shut down the heating, closed the doors etc.

I phoned my sister, told her about what I knew until then on the answering maschine - she does her shopping at eight and then meets with some 'coffee friends' in a café evry morning.


Our local hospital is a rather small one, actually since two years officially a branch of one of the hospitals here in town.
They've got a surgery 'unit' (for smaller stuff up to inguinal hernia and such).

Since it was quite early and due to some arrangements (between the hospital and doctors), mother was x-rayed and looked at first in the practise of a practising surgeon, which is annexed to the hopsital.

Nothing broken, bad really bad looking haematomas.

Back to the actuall hospital, the doctor making the admission for treatment in the hospital had before worked as deputy chief surgeon here in our town, now working part-time in my native town's hospital.
She remembered mother .... since she looked twice at her feet years ago, when mother was in the ambulance and staying in hospital > phlebology.

This (lady) doctor noticed at once what was all about.

So mother stays now for a couple of days in the surgery ward, but will be looked at by the interio doctors as well (she had been in this hospital after her stroke, too).
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At 2pm, the nurse on night-duty was called by the callcenter from 'emergency call system': they got a call from my mothers signaller, but mother hadn't answered to the later done phone calls.
The nurse found mother five minutes after she had been alarmed laying in the hall.
At a first inspection, she didn't see the wound, only the multiple haematomes.
Mother asked her, why she (the nurse) was there, since it was in middle of the night and was sleeping well .... in her bed.
[Mother told various variations about this, later.]
In the morning, the 'normal' nurse .... see above

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I've got the formula from the court for getting the right to determine the place of residence, and have been to her psychiatrists that she writes the necessary expertise for that.

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I've informed my sister this morning, from the hospital and later, after I'd heard/read the nurses' report.
At the first call, she listened, but had to do the cooking for lunch/dinner.
The second call was after I got the infos from the home-care nurses. When I told her that I was driven now to the court .... she agreed but stopped the call, because she was feeling ill.



She and Mrs Walter phoned three times as well until now.
My sister stopped all calls after some time, because someone was at the door, she had to go to the toilet ....

She will phone me later again.


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Mother was doing fine this afternoon: she had told my sister that she would leave the hospital tomrrow.
She told me that she had eaten the meal for lunch completely, that she knew exactly what was going on and what she had to do. She wasn't telling me what it was, so I left her room after a very short time.
(My sister told Mrs Walter that mother was very angry about me and the nurses because we had 'jailed' her in the hospital.)

Mother sounded very clear - which is the one and only point where I agree with my sister. Sounded that is, but actually she looked clear as well.

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In between, I'd been to the psychiatric hospital as well, bringing my aunt a couple of things she 'ugently' needed ....

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Thanks to all for your concern!!!


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All the very best for your mom, Swimpy!

Walter--

Your sister has great talent for creative excuses now--jump ahead 20-30 years and she'll be magnificent in senility.

That's what we are talking here, too, since a couple of weeks already :wink:

Checking in.