This question made me think about my grandmother when my grandfather - her husband of 60+ years - passed away. She had been stricken with progressively worsening dementia for a few years. Couldn’t really speak coherently anymore, or form a sentence. Most words that came out of her didn’t make sense or were not germane to what was happening in front of her. You might get her to nod or say “good” if you asked her how her food was. Or she might be able to say it’s cold if she was outside and it’s cold. But that was generally the extent of it.
After the burial, we return to our house, with a number of family around. We are chatting about my grandfather, people are telling stories, and at many times laughing at funny stories or good memories. Out of nowhere, my grandmother starts loudly saying through tears, “Why is everybody laughing? This isn’t a funny moment…I’m all alone now, [my husband] isn’t here any more, I don’t know why everybody is laughing. Who’s going to take care of me?”
I was absolutely blown away. To see that things are still working inside the mind, but I guess the dementia was making it such that she couldn’t really ever verbalize thoughts. But something about this moment made her very lucid and able to verbalize her thoughts. But at the same time she was still unable to understand that the laughing was a great thing, being done in his memory. The human brain works in mysterious ways.
Something very similar happened with my dad when my mom passed. He was very lucid on the day of the funeral (they were married 55 years). However about a day later he became totally non communicative and aware and passed about a month later. Obviously I hope this doesn’t happen to your grandma, but it is amazing how you can get a glimpse of their whole self.
Yeah. My dad was losing weight. The docs basically said that this is bad for old folks. It took a lot of goes at it to convince my dad this was a problem, and in the end we had to sign him up for meals on wheels to arrest the decline.
My parents are having the problem that one parent wants to move out of the house, and the other doesn’t.
They are both mid 80s, in relatively good health, although there have been a series of surgeries and issues that range from minor to serious (heart valve operation for dad, although that was 10+ years ago).
Dad recently had a memory loss episode (where he forgot what he was doing/had done for a couple days), Neurologist said it was not Alzheimer’s, although doc implied that Alzheimer’s was perhaps a possibility in the near future. Dad is scared and wants to move into a retirement facility. They have one that they have a “slot” in, although it’s not clear how fast or how cheaply they could move in.
Mom does not want to move. She has told me she wants to die in their current house, although that seems implausible. My sister and I both live very far away and would not be able to assist much. They live in SC and neither I nor my sister can or wants to move down there. They live in the burbs and have to drive everywhere. The driving seems fine so far.
They are fighting about it and my dad is apparently being kind of rough/mean about it (“we’re moving and I don’t want to discuss it”).
My mom has her grandmother’s last 20 years in mind–her grandmother stayed in her big house until the end–the difference was though that her grandmother had a lot of family around to help. My parents have no family around.
I wish they could come to a compromise. Maybe stay in the house another year or two, with some hired assistance? My dad doesn’t want to do yard work anymore (he fucked up his biceps pruning a couple months ago). I suggested they hire a yard helper and he got mad at the suggestion. He seems to be getting very scared/cranky about the whole thing. I am having trouble getting them to talk to me, let alone to each other.
They are ok on $ for now, although the place where they have a slot seems very expensive.
I’m just venting I guess, I don’t even know where to start to find a solution.
FWIW, I think it’s pretty cruel of your mother to basically tell your father, “I’m sorry that your brain is failing and you want to live in a place where you’ll feel safer and more comfortable. It sucks to be you.”
I know it sounds like I’m going nuclear, but someone might want to bring him to a lawyer to protect his own interests, even to the point of divorcing your mother and then selling the house and splitting the money if he’d rather be divorced and living elsewhere than staying in the house with your mother.
I don’t know what to tell you, except maybe they can learn more about the retirement center. Talk to residents there. Talk to staff members. See if they can just hang out there for the day. Maybe learning more about the place can help with the decision.
I’m not sure it’s as bad as that, my dad has been normal since the event. I forget the exact diagnosis of the memory event, but it was something to the effect of “not Alzheimer’s, a non-specific memory event, cause unknown.” It’s not clear to me if docs think it’s a precursor to Alzheimer’s or what (they seemed to give evasive answers to that question). I think (hope?) my mom is slowly coming around to the idea of moving, but it may take some time.
@Rugby yes we are trying to fly down when we can, we try to get them to give away stuff to make the move easier. I assume the move will happen in the next year or so, but who knows.
OK, but now that his brain seems clearer it’s not surprising that he may be terrified at what he believes his future holds, especially if he has reasons to question whether your mother is going to do what’s best for him if he begins rapidly declining.
My dad is in a continuing care retirement community and he loves it. He is so busy with activities and social engagements sometimes it’s tough to get him on the phone. But he’s just a super positive person.
@crash_face I think my dad’s biggest motivation for moving into the CCRC was to make things easier for my sister and I when he eventually wasn’t able to live on his own. Obviously you can’t go to your mom and say “you moving will make it easier on me”, but perhaps there is an angle where she can see that moving would make it easier on you with regard to your dad. Something along the lines of “I am worried about dad, I hate that it all falls on you, and I would feel so much better if you were in a place where he could have help available without it having to be you.”
Hah, my parents are both big introverts and I think both are sort of dreading the social aspect of a retirement community. This explains why I am such a cranky sob
But who knows, maybe they’d like it more than they think
That’s hard. It is much better to go into one of the places when you need minimal care.
Our next door neighbors when we moved in were like 86 and 92. They had some family around but not children. So when she broke her leg, we and the neighbors on the other side did a lot of the lifting for him. It was for a couple of months we took turns making sure he got dinner.
He passed after a couple of years. Then she lived another few years. She fell repeatedly so we got to know the town paramedics, picked her up from the hospital, etc. we were glad to do it but no idea what would have happened without us stepping up.
My mom died on Tuesday. Dying is awful and traumatic, death is peaceful. At least in this case. I’m relieved she listened to us and let go. 5 weeks ago she was doing okay on chemo, 3 weeks ago she was vomiting into a Tupperware I was holding while asking me to help her end it, 1 week ago she was comatose, and Tuesday she was gone. She died at home, with my brother and I next to her.
I did not intend to announce this here but saw some posting in the mental health thread that inspired me to say hey I’m struggling too but for different reasons.
Man. Seeing old man rugby with his Alzheimer’s makes a few things hit home.
Social life and friends are so important. He’s basically got no friends left, and relied on my mum for any semblance of a social life.
Equally. He’s really not good at handling his emotions, so he’s just a grumpy old man most of the time
He eats dinner in the care home with the same 3 people. Ever day. For weeks. He doesn’t know there names. His memory could handle this with some effort, he just doesn’t try.
Makes me worry for my own old age. when we get boiled down to our simplest and perhaps worst self, will we like what’s there?
Just another reminder that as much as we assign a magical existence to our minds, we are just biocomputers wholly dependent on the biology, chemistry, and electrical impulses of the 3 lbs of meat inside our skulls.
