Taking Care of Your Parents: My Own Story

So what if Aunt Gertrude is being helped by Milly, and Milly is not doing anything she shouldn’t do (as in so many of our earlier examples), but Aunt Gertrude still needs more help.

What if Aunt Gertrude gets to the point where one or more of the following occur:

• Aunt Gertrude refuses to cook for herself unless Milly will visit her.
• Aunt Gertrude leaves the water running in the sink, for who knows how long.
• Aunt Gertrude refuses to care for her own routine needs, like bathing.
• Aunt Gertrude gets frustrated because her sister never calls her anymore, and you know that her sister […]
  

Who wants to help? Who is willing to help in your family? In our case, my brothers and I are all eager to help, if only Mom would let us. But I digress. We want to help, we want to pitch in. One brother is much closer geographically than the other two of us, so he and his wife seem to end up with the long oar more times than not, and that without complaint. Thanks, Tim, in case I haven’t said it yet today.

We look for ways to help, to keep Mom engaged, and with varying degrees of success, […]

The phone at my office rings. It is Mom’s neighbor, the one who looks in on her and who helps her with grocery shopping and the dog. She has never called me at my office before, so I know immediately that it is important, and I’m praying that it is not something awful.

She tells me Mom is okay and I’m breathing a little easier.

She begins to tell me about a series of phone calls Mom has received and then tells me that she is much more worried about Mom’s reaction to the phone call than the content of the phone […]

You can’t be there with mom, every minute, every day. If you are like my brothers and I, you each have your own lives to live with your own sets of details, successes and challenges to address. So you do all you can for the senior in your life. For us, it’s our mom.

Mom doesn’t ask for anything. Ever. She is content to be right where she is, taking each new day as any other day. We would like for her to read more, to keep her mind sharp, but she doesn’t. And you know, by the time someone has […]

Recently, we had a suggestion that Mom, who is 86, have a certain medical procedure. Most times we are all the type who say “whatever the doctor ordered” is what we are going to do. This time, however, we weren’t so sure. Mom is frail, and doesn’t have the reserve energy she once had.

If you are a caregiver, you have either been at these crossroads before and are yawning, saying ‘tell me something I didn’t already know,’ or you have not yet crossed this bridge. If not, get ready…your turn is coming.

Whether it’s helping decide on the best nutrition for […]

My mom is doing well living in her own home, using her cane rarely – her walker even less. She hasn’t had her hearing aids in for years, but she manages. My brothers and I are always talking, always scheming of ways to help mom. . .then when we run our “idea du jour” by her, she often tells us “No thank you,” whether it’s replacing her old chair or suggesting some new device which will help make her life easier.

We care about Mom. We want her golden years to be enjoyable. But our form of caring, with all our […]