Role Reversal. Taking care of your parents!

chrisinhouston · 12-12-2006, 09:57 AM

I realize this is the Parenting message board but now the roles are reversed and I am parenting my parents. I figure this is a good place to run this thread.

My 90 year old dad is blind but still mobile enough, he does have a slow walk due to a loss of cartiledge in his knees from years of tennis.

My mom is now pretty much an invalid. She no longer has the use of her legs or left arm and hand. She can not sit up on her own, walk or even role over in bed. I now call her by her name, Eleanor, when I get her up in the morning; she no longer remembers who I am or if she even has kids; she mostly remembers my dad though.

My dad gets himself going in the morning, he still shaves himself and dresses and heads down to the kitchen for the breakfast that I or my sister have made; we try not to forget to put the prunes in his fruit bowl, they seem to be real important now!

I wake my mom up and remove her covers which she doesn't like. I try to flex her legs a little, they are getting more stiff now. I change her, not much different then a baby. You learn how to roll the patient to do things like getting pants pulled up and shirts tucked in. When it's cold I dress her in polarfleece pants and a jacket. Because her left arm is paralyized, I got this great idea to take this polarfleece jacket and have it altered, I had them put a zipper on the side from the bottom up through the arm pit and down to the wrist. It makes it so much easier to get that arm in when she is on her back. What's that saying? Necessity is the mother of invention!

I use a Hoyer lift to get her out of bed and into her wheel chair. The lift is kind of like an engine lift, she lays on a webbing like a hammock and the lift attaches to the corners with chains and you crank her up and then let her down into the chair or back to the bed. She can only sit up until lunch time,then it's back to bed and undressing, all in reverse.

She feeds herself ok but she has a tendency to try to eat her napkin or any tissues we leave out. After breakfast my dad listens to tapes for the blind and I put a book out for my mom. We give her a gardening book with lots of pictures, she used to really like to garden a lot. She sometimes reads it, sometimes she just stairs at the pages and reads the same sentence over and over. I read my dad the front section of the NY Times, he especially likes the articles and editorials and op/eds that make Bush out to be an idiot; he is a staunch Democrat. He laments that things have changed so much for the worse since Truman!

Blindness is bad but I wonder if Alzheimer's is worse? I guess they are just both bad. We are lucky because she is a non-typical dementia patient, always happy and never complains and needless to say she is not prone to wondering off. She always compliments me on the cooking saying things like "this is so tasty" and "this is the best dinnner I've ever had." She also tells me how nice I look even when I'm in some old dirty T shirt that I wear for painting or yard work. When I go away from the table she asks my dad, "who is that young man?"

Dad always has tea at 5pm with some cookies and cake; he was British until settling here in 1947. He has a single malt scotch at 7pm with just a little water, you get a lecture if you overwater it. He really likes all kinds of food so we cook all kinds of things, last night we had some really good oysters, tonight I plan to grill a buterflied leg of lamb. We enjoy good wines together. I crash before he does and the day starts all over again the next morning.

I'm ok with all of this, when they are gone I will miss them but they have had rich good lives.

Does anyone else in the celler deal with their parents as caretakers?

orthodoc · 12-12-2006, 10:07 AM

Chris, you have my deepest admiration and respect. Your care of your parents is so special, and when they are gone you will have the comfort of knowing you enriched their later years immeasurably.

My parents are well and living independently so far; my mother-in-law needs assistance but unfortunately is unwilling to accept it. We are in a difficult situation right now, wanting to do more for her (and she needs it) but unable to. We wish we could make her life more interesting, more comfortable, etc., with some outside help and social activities. We do what we can, but my husband feels bad that we can't do more.

I don't know how common this is ... most older people I've known have been glad of help.

SteveDallas · 12-12-2006, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrisinhouston

I wake my mom up and remove her covers which she doesn't like.

That sounds just like when I get my kids up in the morning!!

It's a tough row to hoe, and it sounds like you're doing yeoman's service. I'm not there yet. My parents are in their late 60s and 70s respectively, but they're active and in good health.

However, when I was in high school I saw what my parents with through with my dad's mom and it is sobering. By this time Grandma Dallas was in her 80s and did not get around as well as she used to, and was not always clear on what was going on--at other times, of course, she was sharp as a tack. Her older brother had made his fortune in the western NC textile industry, and had bought two houses next door to each other for Grandma and one of her sisters. At some point they got into the habit of taking turns sleeping in each other's house so they wouldn't be all alone, and this worked out pretty well.

Once her sister died, my mom & dad tried very, very hard to keep Grandma in her house, but it was an uphill battle as she declined. I remember them taking turns going over to her house to get her bathed and ready for bed, and I think at least occasionally staying overnight with her. (There was no room to move her in at our house.) As you can imagine, on top of two jobs and three kids (my brother was off on his own, my sister & I were in high school), this arrangement was doomed to failure. They tried paying live-in caretakers for a while but it proved impossible to find anybody competent who didn't cost an arm and two legs.

Ultimately they threw in the towel and moved her into a nursing home. This was a decision that nobody was happy about, but I think it was pretty clear that we just didn't have the resources to have her stay in her house and take care of her properly. But, after a period of adjustment, things went well and she was very happy for a while. For those keeping score, this summer corresponded to the one from the TMI thread where I was writing computer software for my school. At least one of us went to visit her almost every day, and I remember our pleasant surprise the first time Mom and I went and found she was not in her room--she was sitting out in the lounge talking to two other people! It also helped that her church (of which she was a founding member) did Sunday School classes for the residents, and the teacher was one of her nephews.

Sadly, this period of relatively good adjustment came to an end when she got up in the middle of the night without ringing for a nurse (typical--Grandma was as independent and stubborn as they come) and fell and broke her hip. She lived another couple years after, dying just short of 90, but she was never the same after the broken hip.

12-12-2006, 12:24 PM

My wife has a definite role reversal with her mom. Emotionally. Though we both (when I was physically in better shape) take care of her a lot with stuff that none of her other kids do.

My parents, on the other hand, treat me like I am an idiot...

xoxoxoBruce · 12-16-2006, 01:15 PM

Quote:

I got this great idea to take this polarfleece jacket and have it altered, I had them put a zipper on the side from the bottom up through the arm pit and down to the wrist. It makes it so much easier to get that arm in when she is on her back. What's that saying? Necessity is the mother of invention!

Kudos.

The last couple years of his life, Pop couldn't handle buttons which would frustrate him. I think it was partly having to go to Mom to get buttoned was embarrassing.

I took a bunch of shirts to a seamstress, (we were an item at the time so it was a freebie) and had the buttons replaced with velcro. The buttons were sewn on the outside so it looked normal. Trial and error taught us to use short strips of velcro at each button hole, rather than a long strip. That way the shirt was less likely to be misaligned and fell naturally.

BTW, You're a hell of a man, Chris.

Aliantha · 12-16-2006, 07:25 PM

Your parents are lucky to have you Chris. It's a tough job you're doing. When my mum was diagnosed with cancer I became her full time carer right up till she died at home in her own bed. I'd do it all over again just for one more day with her though.

I can tell from your post that you love your parents as I did my mum.

monster · 12-17-2006, 08:14 PM

You're doing a grand job, Chris.

Phil · 12-18-2006, 02:26 PM

much respect to you. i hope my kids have the same attitude when i need them.
slight tangent, but from the age of 12 - 25, i was parenting my parents in a different way : stopping my father from beating the living daylights out of my mother. im a better parent to my kids for it.
rot in hell, father dear.

wolf · 12-19-2006, 01:31 AM

Chris, because of your experience, I have a better understanding of how easy I have it with my mom right now ... but it's still difficult.

My mom is pretty much firing on all cylinders mentally, even if there is an occasional misfire, but her physical health is pretty poor. She's doing a bit better as far as getting around with a walker, but is very dependent on me for things like meal prep, laundry, and so on. I have to do wound care for her every day, although hopefully, the last little bit of the incision will close and I'll at least be done with that. I also have to do all of her colostomy care, making me a veritable connisseur of fecal matter.

Encouraging her to do more on her own is a constant fight. I know that she is capable of a lot more than she's doing, but her insistence that she can't do something ends up being louder than my insistence that she won't do it. Her tears tend to be loudest of all. Usually an apology follows, but that isn't getting her up the steps or down the walk to my car on her own.

I have little to no time to myself. I am only able to go to work because of the good graces of my sister who is footing the considerable bills for a home-health aide to watch her while I am out of the house. Weekend before last, for the first time since September, I went out of the house to spend time with my friends. I do not know when I will have this opportunity again.

I have not been able to take any overtime shifts at work. We are short-staffed, so this has been a sore point at work, although overall the hospital has been very understanding and flexible as far as my need to randomly take off to deal with some crisis or another.

All of this, incidentally, is why I haven't been on here as much as I'd like.

12-12-2006, 09:57 AM	#1
chrisinhouston Professor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Houston TX Posts: 1,857	Role Reversal. Taking care of your parents! I realize this is the Parenting message board but now the roles are reversed and I am parenting my parents. I figure this is a good place to run this thread. My 90 year old dad is blind but still mobile enough, he does have a slow walk due to a loss of cartiledge in his knees from years of tennis. My mom is now pretty much an invalid. She no longer has the use of her legs or left arm and hand. She can not sit up on her own, walk or even role over in bed. I now call her by her name, Eleanor, when I get her up in the morning; she no longer remembers who I am or if she even has kids; she mostly remembers my dad though. My dad gets himself going in the morning, he still shaves himself and dresses and heads down to the kitchen for the breakfast that I or my sister have made; we try not to forget to put the prunes in his fruit bowl, they seem to be real important now! I wake my mom up and remove her covers which she doesn't like. I try to flex her legs a little, they are getting more stiff now. I change her, not much different then a baby. You learn how to roll the patient to do things like getting pants pulled up and shirts tucked in. When it's cold I dress her in polarfleece pants and a jacket. Because her left arm is paralyized, I got this great idea to take this polarfleece jacket and have it altered, I had them put a zipper on the side from the bottom up through the arm pit and down to the wrist. It makes it so much easier to get that arm in when she is on her back. What's that saying? Necessity is the mother of invention! I use a Hoyer lift to get her out of bed and into her wheel chair. The lift is kind of like an engine lift, she lays on a webbing like a hammock and the lift attaches to the corners with chains and you crank her up and then let her down into the chair or back to the bed. She can only sit up until lunch time,then it's back to bed and undressing, all in reverse. She feeds herself ok but she has a tendency to try to eat her napkin or any tissues we leave out. After breakfast my dad listens to tapes for the blind and I put a book out for my mom. We give her a gardening book with lots of pictures, she used to really like to garden a lot. She sometimes reads it, sometimes she just stairs at the pages and reads the same sentence over and over. I read my dad the front section of the NY Times, he especially likes the articles and editorials and op/eds that make Bush out to be an idiot; he is a staunch Democrat. He laments that things have changed so much for the worse since Truman! Blindness is bad but I wonder if Alzheimer's is worse? I guess they are just both bad. We are lucky because she is a non-typical dementia patient, always happy and never complains and needless to say she is not prone to wondering off. She always compliments me on the cooking saying things like "this is so tasty" and "this is the best dinnner I've ever had." She also tells me how nice I look even when I'm in some old dirty T shirt that I wear for painting or yard work. When I go away from the table she asks my dad, "who is that young man?" Dad always has tea at 5pm with some cookies and cake; he was British until settling here in 1947. He has a single malt scotch at 7pm with just a little water, you get a lecture if you overwater it. He really likes all kinds of food so we cook all kinds of things, last night we had some really good oysters, tonight I plan to grill a buterflied leg of lamb. We enjoy good wines together. I crash before he does and the day starts all over again the next morning. I'm ok with all of this, when they are gone I will miss them but they have had rich good lives. Does anyone else in the celler deal with their parents as caretakers?

12-12-2006, 10:07 AM	#2
orthodoc Not Suspicious, Merely Canadian Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 3,774	Chris, you have my deepest admiration and respect. Your care of your parents is so special, and when they are gone you will have the comfort of knowing you enriched their later years immeasurably. My parents are well and living independently so far; my mother-in-law needs assistance but unfortunately is unwilling to accept it. We are in a difficult situation right now, wanting to do more for her (and she needs it) but unable to. We wish we could make her life more interesting, more comfortable, etc., with some outside help and social activities. We do what we can, but my husband feels bad that we can't do more. I don't know how common this is ... most older people I've known have been glad of help. __________________ The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. - Ghandi

12-16-2006, 07:25 PM	#6
Aliantha trying hard to be a better person Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 16,493	Your parents are lucky to have you Chris. It's a tough job you're doing. When my mum was diagnosed with cancer I became her full time carer right up till she died at home in her own bed. I'd do it all over again just for one more day with her though. I can tell from your post that you love your parents as I did my mum. __________________ Kind words are the music of the world. F. W. Faber

12-17-2006, 08:14 PM	#7
monster I hear them call the tide Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Perpetual Chaos Posts: 30,852	You're doing a grand job, Chris. __________________ The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity Amelia Earhart

12-19-2006, 01:31 AM	#9
wolf lobber of scimitars Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Phila Burbs Posts: 20,774	Chris, because of your experience, I have a better understanding of how easy I have it with my mom right now ... but it's still difficult. My mom is pretty much firing on all cylinders mentally, even if there is an occasional misfire, but her physical health is pretty poor. She's doing a bit better as far as getting around with a walker, but is very dependent on me for things like meal prep, laundry, and so on. I have to do wound care for her every day, although hopefully, the last little bit of the incision will close and I'll at least be done with that. I also have to do all of her colostomy care, making me a veritable connisseur of fecal matter. Encouraging her to do more on her own is a constant fight. I know that she is capable of a lot more than she's doing, but her insistence that she can't do something ends up being louder than my insistence that she won't do it. Her tears tend to be loudest of all. Usually an apology follows, but that isn't getting her up the steps or down the walk to my car on her own. I have little to no time to myself. I am only able to go to work because of the good graces of my sister who is footing the considerable bills for a home-health aide to watch her while I am out of the house. Weekend before last, for the first time since September, I went out of the house to spend time with my friends. I do not know when I will have this opportunity again. I have not been able to take any overtime shifts at work. We are short-staffed, so this has been a sore point at work, although overall the hospital has been very understanding and flexible as far as my need to randomly take off to deal with some crisis or another. All of this, incidentally, is why I haven't been on here as much as I'd like. __________________ wolf eht htiw og "Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception." --G. Edward Griffin The Creature from Jekyll Island High Priestess of the Church of the Whale Penis

12-12-2006, 12:24 PM	#4
rkzenrage Guest Posts: n/a	My wife has a definite role reversal with her mom. Emotionally. Though we both (when I was physically in better shape) take care of her a lot with stuff that none of her other kids do. My parents, on the other hand, treat me like I am an idiot...

12-18-2006, 02:26 PM	#8
Phil Hoodoo Guru Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 304	much respect to you. i hope my kids have the same attitude when i need them. slight tangent, but from the age of 12 - 25, i was parenting my parents in a different way : stopping my father from beating the living daylights out of my mother. im a better parent to my kids for it. rot in hell, father dear.

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