u/Appropriate-Weird492

I’m just back from DragonCon and been decompressing.

Over the weekend of the 29th August my MIL fell at least once while in the assisted living home and broke her hip.

There’s a whole story about the falling part. The assisted living place had spied on her to see if she could get up from the hard dining chair at the dining table (she could and did) and decided that meant she could get out of soft surfaces (bed, recliner) without assistance. So for 6 weeks they refused to help her transfer on the grounds that “she’s just refusing to get up”. I’m gonna stop there because it makes me angry.

After pointing out to them that a hard dining chair is not the same as a soft bed, they decided to help her transfer. So they said. On the weekend in question, they said they’d told her to wait for assistance but she kept getting out of bed on her own. I don’t believe this.

So she fell and they didn’t call to tell me. (They had done that previously.) They also didn’t take her to the hospital, which they had also done previously.

Monday 31 Aug, about 1 pm, I get a call from Hospice Nurse #1 that my MIL had fallen and was now bedbound and they needed her to go into nursing home. The hospice that Hospice Nurse #1 is with doesn’t cover skilled nursing centers so Hospice Nurse #2 will be calling me. Hospice Nurse #2 called, we talked, she wants to evaluate my MIL to see where the best placement is for her, thinks the best place is a small personal care home run by a LPN that’s near Atlanta (currently MIL is 3 hours from me, this will put her 6 hours from me). Then the “care” home calls to tell me she’d fallen after getting up on her own after they’d told her not to (yadda yadda) so they’d been letting her stay in bed for the weekend. Whatever. Around 5:30 Hospice Nurse #1 calls back. My MIL is bedbound because she cannot move her leg at all and nurse suspects it’s broken and she’s sending MIL to ER.

To repeat that: MIL fell, broke hip, leg not work, assisted living didn’t call hospital or me, and she was like that in bed potentially all weekend. Emailed the ombudsman office who suggested I file a complaint.

I called ER around 6:30 to see if she was there, she was, and the scans had just confirmed broken hip and evidence of other fractures. Gave the PA in the ER my contact info as next of kin. (I’ve done this every time she’s been in the hospital, she only uses that one hospital, and they NEVER have my contact info.)

I hear nothing until Thursday 7:40 am when the nurse on her floor questions whether MIL is coherent and someone discovers she has a next of kin.

Discussions with many doctors and nurses to approve the hip surgery. I mention MULTIPLE times to everyone that MIL wants to die, so no extreme measures, etc. Let her go. She wants to go.

Goes through without a problem.

Friday I’m driving my 6 hrs to DragonCon, my annual vacation, paid for in Jan. Looking to destress, enjoy myself. Phone rings. Case worker from hospital with lengthy discussion that I cannot take notes on because I’m driving on highway. But we got the ball rolling. Follow up call with Hospice Nurse #2 who has still not seen my MIL despite saying she would (I know these folks are busy, it’s just a point). Trying to enjoy being with my friend who’s going to DC with me, overshadowed by this mess.

Sat get a call after the DC parade while standing outside the CVS amongst the mob. Nurse at hospital says MIL needs blood, I give approval.

Later Sat, get a call while I’m in the bowels of a host hotel with people playing kazoos and waiters running everywhere. This is the doctor on staff for the weekend who cannot seem to understand that no, she has no other living siblings; no, she has no other living children; no, she has no grandchildren; yes, I really am the only person who could be considered a relative and I’m the DIL to her and was married to her only child who died 12 Sept 2020 (and yes, I’m coming up on that date and am having problems). This section of the discussion sent my anxiety into high drive and I started getting the hypervigilance going and I was shaking. Yes, I do have mental health challenges without the rest of this mess.

Doc tells me that the magic words are “Comfort Care Only”. Hospital doesn’t recognise “is in hospice” or “she’s told me she wants to die”. They do recognise “comfort care only”. I’m telling y’all this so maybe it will help someone. Doc tells me that I should not have let her have the additional unit of blood, nor should she have had the hip surgery (they could have managed the pain with meds).

I kinda freak the hell out at this time. Outwardly I mechanically go through the DragonCon store for my bling, but then I start hightailing for an exit, any exit, to get away from the people. So many people. Friend keeps up with me until he gets distracted by a puppet yoda-baby and I find a panel room that’s just emptied out (not many people, space, chairs to sit on). I call Hospice Nurse #2 and focus on that. Friend finally finds me. I get off the phone and take an emergency klonopin because my maintenance meds aren’t hacking it.

Friend said he’d realized I was in trouble because my hands were shaking so badly when I was getting into my pill box.

I don’t hear from any medical people until about an hour ago on 8 Sept. They have approval to move her to the rehab place, then will get her on Medicare (whatever the state version is) for letting her go. They’ll need me to sign her in. I reiterate I am 3 hrs away and am not signing anyone in.

I’m waiting for the Docusign to get her signed in. I’ve talked to the rehab and to Hospice Nurse #2.

In the meantime, my 20+ yo clothes dryer has had a mortal blow, my remaining 15 yo dog is really not doing well (I expected the boarding might be hard on her).

When I have a panic attack, I have a rebound the day after of extreme exhaustion. I kept trying to fall asleep while driving home. I slept most of Monday. It’s possible that I was migraining as well, but I take meds that mostly eliminate the pain aspect of my migraines but don’t address the other neurological effects (exhaustion, aphasia, vertigo, etc).

You know what? We’re home safe. We have a plan. Next year my MIL should be dead (and out of suffering).

Signing out.

I currently have a 15 yo Chinese Crested with congestive heart failure (managed) and 2 adult domestic shorthairs who grew up around my dogs. My dogs have always been cresteds (I love the breed).

I recently had to put down my 16 yo crested who had advanced chronic kidney disease. He was around 20-25 lbs and was a big boy, good representative of the cobby style crested.

I kinda want the next dog to be 30-50 lbs, short single coat. Adult. Avoiding seniors because it’s been the house of geriatric dogs for too long.

Someone posted a dog their daughter had found. Seems to be a pittie/retriever mix. Described as very sweet and wants to be loved. Dog has evidently had pups in the past, not spayed, no vaccinations, no heartworm testing or meds. Is good with the family’s other dog and 3 cats. This dog is 4 states away. No meet & greet.

Or should I look at dogs from local rescue/foster situations where the dogs have been vetted?

Hi all,

I inherited my husband’s Vectrex and a stack of games. The light pen works. I haven’t tried the 3-d vision or the games with the overlays.

He told me about this system ever since I met him in the late 80s, mainly because BattleZone was my favorite arcade game and had the same vector-based graphics. It really is a cool system. He lovingly packed it all up around the same time that we got our marriage licence back in the early 90s, so it’s in fantastic shape.

Anyway, nice to meet y’all.

You folks will understand.

He “F” came to us at 5 going on 6, 2 weeks before my husband was diagnosed with cancer. We’d got him as a buddy for our existing pup, a Chinese crested PP “T” from a big puppy mill bust, who needed to have a dog in the house (because our first Crestie had died 5 months earlier from splenic cancer and other things).

Both boys loved each other—like instant brothers. Such happy dogs! Rubbing shoulders, doing the happy run, all the things.

The following year we brought another Crestie rescue in “M”, our first hairless (hairy hairy). She’s now 15. She’d been a show dog, then a breeder, and she mothered the boys (though both of them would show teeth when she cleaned their eye boogers, no growling, just “come on, mom” things).

The 3 of them kept me going after hubs died. They woke me up when his body gasses expelled. T knew death from his life in the mill, always paused and seemed thoughtful at dead creatures we found on walks. F stayed with my hub’s body, the first time he ever failed to follow me out the room.

I got a kitten the month after being widowed. All three dogs would follow this tiny 4 month kitten around although they were never sure how to handle having kitty head butt them and cuddle up to sleep.

My boy “T” crossed the bridge just before Christmas 2022 at age 15 and change, from chronic kidney disease (CKD). That was hard on all of us.

I learned F had beginnings of CKD about 6-8 months ago. I’d done the dialysis thing with T, but it had seemed to cause us both more hurt for minimal gain. I’ve done the Rx diet with M and learned it caused a lot of stress and wasted food. So we made adjustments and carried on.

The last month has been really difficult. Diarrhea, incontinence, then finally loss of appetite. He was still excited to see me when I came home, but then the agitation at night, pacing, refusing formerly irresistible foods, paling gums in the last few days.

We did this yesterday. I’ve been bawling for days. Anticipatory grief sucks so much, along with the “is it really time” doubt. But he let me know before we took the last drive that yeah, he was fading badly, and the vet noticed that his behaviour was really off when she checked him out and inserted the IV.

My poor puppy. I know 16 is an old doggo, I know CKD is age-related, I know we made every effort to keep the critters happy and healthy. It still hurts. I can’t explain to M or the kitties. They know he’s gone. I know M will be next (heart murmur, congestive heart failure, beginning CKD as well, and she’s stumbling and showing cognitive decline).

Grief is the inverse of love. The greater the love, the greater the grief. It sucks, it sucks, it sucks.

Just to recap:
- MIL is in her 80s
- She had one child, a son, and I married him
- My husband died of cancer about 6 years ago
- MIL drove my husband nuts with her crappy attitude and inability to deal with the consequences of her own actions
- While hubs was going through cancer treatments, she’d come up to offer “moral support”. While here, she’d expect him to carry her luggage and order for her and all kinds of whatever and expected me to cater to her because “she’s the guest”.
- She hated me from the beginning and worked to break us up while we were dating and when we were married. This went on for about 10 years.
- She’s a hoarder. Her home was condemned by code enforcement in April 2025 when I called local LE for a wellness check on her.
- Had to pay $17k to get the house cleared and approved by code enforcement for her to move back in.
- She’s fallen several times since, totalled her car because “hoard in car” and a bitcoin scam.
- She has been diagnosed with cyclothymia. This is a mild version of bipolar, but honestly, there’s likely more going on.
- She fell again beginning of Dec 2025. She had a nursing service check on her weekly and the nurse called for a wellness check. I went to do some errands for her (she’s 3 hours away) and learned the hoarding had resumed with gusto and the toilets were all backed up. At the time, her echocardiogram was normal.
- I got her moved into a personal care home (PCH, not a nursing home) on NYE 2025. She hated it at first, but has been singing praises for the last several months.
- Got her house sold 12 June and her outstanding (massive) credit card bills cleared. One had entered arbitration. She had this idea that, because she was old, she didn’t have to pay cc bills anymore.
- The week after the house sold _something happened_. Not sure what. Could have been a silent heart attack, could have been caused by grief over the house selling. Regardless, between Dec 2025 and 2-3 weeks ago, her heart function dropped to 10-15% and she developed congestive heart failure.
- While in the hospital she decided she was refusing medical care. Doc totally confused by this, but ok. She also got a psyche eval while she was there because she kept saying “I just want to die”. Also diagnosed with UTI (and her usual delirium).
- Back at the PCH and under hospice care. She won’t talk to me on the phone, whines in texts constantly. She’s on lasix and O2 for the congestive heart failure.

THE NEWS:
Sunday (yesterday) AM I got a call from the manager of the PCH. MIL keeps her roommate up all night making her get up and fix her pillows and tuck her in. Roommate is miserable (also in her 80s and in bad health). MIL is not going to the bathroom anymore; she just lies in bed and fills her diapers and expects the PCH staff to clean her up. She won’t keep her legs elevated, she won’t keep her O2 on. She refuses to eat. Complains about her stomach hurting all the time (not eating, hmmmm?). If she won’t cooperate, they’ll evict her. She has no where else to go.

I had guessed at some of what they told me. She’d complained that she was breaking “the new rules” last week, that they wanted to put her in a hospital bed and that was “insane”. She whinged on and on about needing a specific blanket from amazon (I finally just caved and got it for her even tho she has blankets).

I text her. I cannot call her. She won’t answer the phone, and if she calls me, she complains she can’t hear me (then says she can’t hear anymore, which the PCH says is bogus). I tell her she has decisions to make and it’s on her to make them. I tell her that she’s being moved to the hospice room that’s closer to the toilets and that she’s getting a hospital bed so that her legs stay elevated. (The PCH is “losing” the remote, which I totally agree with.)

She freaks the fuck out, tells me all this is old news, that she’s been in the hospital for tests (they call and tell me when she goes to the hospital and she hasn’t been). Bitches that she likes it where she is, she doesn’t want to move, yadda yadda. Then she claims the toilet paper holders have cameras on them.

A few hours later she says she was moved, it’s cold, she has blankets, and I’ve heard nothing since.

So that’s where I am today.

Concurrently, I’m gonna have to put my 16 year old dog down this week (chronic kidney disease [CKD]), my 15 year old dog won’t be far behind (heart murmur, congestive heart failure, beginning CKD). A side effect of the CKD is chronic diarrhoea, so I’ve been cleaning that up for over a month multiple times a day and night; a side effect of the lasix that younger dog is on is increased urination (more things to clean up). I have pee pads all over the place, but there’s only so much of that you can do.

And my therapist is on vacation for a few weeks. It will be a month before I get to talk to her again.

Whichever of you pinned that comment deserves a case of cookies. Thank you!!

My MIL is in assisted living. She was diagnosed like 10 days ago with congestive heart failure possibly from silent heart attacks or result of grief/upset over selling the house she’s not living in.

At the same time, she was also diagnosed with a UTI. When she gets UTIs, she gets delirium.

She informed me while she was in the hospital that she’s not taking any meds for it. She apparently told everyone she wanted to die and got a psyche eval, which pissed her off. So she’s in hospice.

She’s pissed about the hospice care. Hospice care is about making you comfortable so you can die. I don’t know what she wanted, but apparently this isn’t it.

She texted me that she’s getting a bunch of tests, then that the hospice care is rougher than the hospital care.

A whole week, no texts, then a flurry of complaints like this.

I texted her that if she wanted medical treatment she just has to opt out of hospice. No response. I’m not real surprised. She’s never been one to take responsibility for her own actions.

ETA: I forget not everyone knows my story.

MIL has no other relatives; she divorced in the 1970s and never remarried.

I married her only son and cancer got him in 2020. She and her dad hated that I dated her son and hated that we married and actively worked to get us to divorce until the old man died.

Since moving in to assisted living, she’s told me that she really misjudged me and regrets it. None of it changes that she’s stubborn as hell.

And since starting this thread, she’s told me she wants assisted suicide (not available in her state and she’s not terminal anyway), then that she’s interested in being treated but scared of running out of money. All this is via text because she won’t answer the phone. That could be because she just doesn’t want to talk or because she borked the phone and won’t ask for help.

The ongoing saga of the diabetic MIL who hoards.

TLDR: MIL is in end of life and is passively suicidal; old dogs are old. Emotional labor is exhausting.

I got her into assisted living on NYE 2025. She pissed and moaned for a few months, then decided it was wonderful. She started looking & sounding a lot better too, with regular meals, enforced movement, regular bathing with water and clean laundry.

We sold her house on 19 June. That was emotional. She kept asking what her life was for, all her hopes and dreams shot. I get this. I wanted to retire with her son/my husband, but cancer. Shit happens. I’ve been an existentialist most my life but I cannot explain to people that you have to create your own meaning and values.

Anyway.

She went radio silent after the house sold. Wasn’t responding to the phone or to texts. I know the home will contact me if there’s something wrong, so I wasn’t panicking, just annoyed.

I called the home after a week to talk to her. She kept complaining about stomach pain from the insulin. The home boss told me they’d tried to get her to go to hospital, but she refused.

Thursday the home calls to say they’re sending her to the hospital. I agree.

Friday—when I had plans to unfuck my habitat—MIL calls. She sounds really out of breath but more alert. Says the doc said she has 10% heart function. Says she’s refusing treatment and wants to die. Ok.

The case worker calls, says she’ll call back after the doc calls.

Doc calls. She has had a psyche eval and has significant fluid around her lungs that’s making it hard for her to breathe. Could be managed, but she’s refusing to take pills for the rest of her life. She wants to be comfortable. He’s confused because her last cardiac ultra sound in Dec 2025 was really good, his only thought is she’s had a silent heart attack. I explain what’s happened since and the whole thing with her house. He agrees this could be a grief thing similar to broken heart syndrome.

Assisted living home owner calls. She doesn’t understand what’s going on. I explain.

Hospice calls. They don’t understand why she’s not doing meds because congestive heart failure is manageable. I’m getting tired of explaining that my MIL is a stubborn woman.

Case worker calls back. More discussion of same.

Assisted living owner calls back. She wants to clarify with my MIL that if she cannot walk, then she cannot stay at the home. I agree. MIL is horrified by nursing homes, and she’d have to go to a Medicare supported one: those are really fucking bleak.

I get the will questionnaire completed and sent to the lawyer with request that they do the upcharge to visit her on site.

I locate a crematorium that will do direct cremation.

Now it’s been 5 hours of phone calls and crap. No house cleaning done and the house-cleaners are coming on Thursday so I have crap ton to do. At the same time, I have two aging dogs (16 and 15), the elder of whom is not eating and has CKD and has been having diarrhoea for the last few days. During the vet visit before the phone calls started, I learned older dog has a corneal abrasion and needs to have eye drops (and hes’ not cooperative). I’ve not slept a full night for 2 days now because dogs needing to go out. I fell asleep at about 4:30 PM.

The good:
- All things end.
- I have carpet cleaners on both floors.
- I’m on good meds so I’m not spiralling when I get emotionally disregulated.
- MIL is in supervised situation so I’ll be notified on status.

The bad:
- House is a wreck and I have to get it resolved today.
- None of my usual chores are done.
- I am disregulated and I just wanna self-soothe which means wasting time that I need to spend cleaning (self-soothing isn’t wasting time, but I resent the self-care [IYKYK]).

MIL’s house closed last week. She’s in assisted living and enjoying being there.

Now I’m getting all the auto pays for utilities cancelled.

Bought a new-to-me walnut Eclipse and have been effing in love with the overtones.

It’s the only harp I have with Camac levers. I’ve had to buy a set of Robinson bits to address a buzz because one of the levers was a bit loose (buzz only on that string and only when the lever was lifted). Today I had to use that bit to center a lever because the the string plonked into the groove when the level was lifted (different string/lever).

Feeling accomplished from doing that.

But also! My 3-1-2-1 broken chords are slowly becoming automatic. My teacher told me they were easier than 3-2-1 broken chords, and she’s right.