r/AgingParents

It gets to the point where you get sick of just seeing them sit/lie there. I have my own space in the house, so when I heard my mom in the washroom, I did what I had to do, and booted to my own space.. I still help with physical tasks, house maintenance, grocery runs, monitoring falls, etc, but I think pass on seeing her face, thanks, I'm doing everything I can to assist her and maintain the house...and she's just sitting there.

Hi, everyone. I just need to vent to people who know the deal. My extremely independent but perpetually self-doubting dad (77) fell out of bed and broke his hip two Saturdays ago. He had surgery that Monday (Tuesday?) to replace the ball and stem of his femur. He was hospital delirious! Then he was moved to a rehab place - still hospital delirious. He's there still, doing physical therapy and rolling around the place in his wheelchair. (Yes, he was checked for a brain bleed and a UTI.)

I'm the only child; my mom died five months ago and they were married for 50+ years. I've learned that I really have no understanding of what their relationship was like, and I've learned how little confidence my dad has in anything he does and how much support he needs. I was closer to my mom, and I have the kind of relationship with my dad where I listen to him and do stuff for him but there's no reciprocal ear. That's been difficult enough because in our circle of life, he's the only one who suffered a loss. Does that make sense?

So I've been helping out Dad since Mom died. Social Security, managing bills, managing other social services. And then it settles down and then he breaks his hip.

You guys. I visit nearly every day. I can't not; he must feel so lonesome. He had like no clothing and I bought him clothes to put in his rehab center closet. I snack him up (massive sweet tooth) and help do his nails and manage his crazy eyebrows. I am in touch with everyone who counts on his floor. The delirium is improving slowly. He thinks both that he didn't have surgery and that he's having another one. He can't make sense of messages on his phone.

And insurance. I am getting him on nursing home Medicaid. These are all things that I never thought I'd have to do. And I'm off for the summer (teacher) but am a single parent and have two kids at home. They're grown and grown-ish, but they still want me around. I still have to plan for next year. Dad will come home eventually, but he lives alone. His living with me is not an option. What will this look like? I have so many mixed feelings.

The point is that I'm tired. I can't un-tired. I feel like I'm smoldering constantly. Not angry, just something that I don't have words for. I don't want to bother my friends with this. My cousin, who last year lost both of her parents within eight months of each other, doesn't need to hear any of this.

I wish I had a kind sibling.

Thanks for reading.

Basically, I (43F) have 3 daughters and they are in their teens. They are awesome. My middle daughter's birthday was this weekend and we were going to go over to my parents (77F, 79M) house to celebrate with them. My oldest daughter could not get off work so she was not able to go. She couldn't find coverage and I told her, it is not a big deal. I texted my parents to get their takeout order (we were picking up dinner) and let them know that Oldest wasn't going to make it unfortunately. My dad texted paragraphs back "I am very very disappointed. We only see you a few times a year, etc. I know you are in charge of the scheduling for everyone, etc." We just saw them two weeks ago and see them about every month. So my mom calls and she's like, "I'm sorry about that, he's just very upset," and I was like, "You all know that I am not in charge of scheduling my daughter's work schedule, right? Like, I have nothing to do with that." She says she understands but then says, "We just feel boring and like we don't know the girls." and i just said, Yeah, they are getting busy. I thought that was a weird segue.

Fast forward to the birthday celebration. My parents are just sitting with me and my husband. They are not talking to my kids. At all. Then, they start telling me about the cousins and all this stuff about people in the family I haven't seen in 6 years or so. And then at one point, both of my parents are on their phones looking at photos of my kids when they are little and showing me. This looked like there was no end in sight so I was just like, "Well, guess it's time to go, now," and we left.

TL/DR: My parents complain about not knowing the kids, while my kids are sitting there in their living room just talking together, my parents are talking about the cousins, showing old photos of the kids to us, when they could be getting to know my kids.

This morning my mum was in her recliner, leaning over to pat my dog. She then said to me: "I think Dog might have peed in her bed or something - she smells pissy". I was getting my tea, so wasn't quite caffinated and at 100% brain function myself, and I laughed and said "It's not Dog"

Oops...

What did I mean? Did I mean that *she* smells pissy? She doesn't smell pissy! She regularly showers! She smells FINE!

*side note - she mostly does smell fine - the recliner, does not.

My mum has mild urinary incontinence. She really should be wearing Depends most of the time, but she claims she gets UTIs from them (I believe it), so I don't nag her to wear them. I only suggest it when we are going out. At home she *usually* makes it to the toilet in time, but there are frequent drips along the way. We have tile floors, so it cleans up easily. It's not a battle worth having. But... her recliner REALLY smells of pee. She gets drops on it, she gets drops on her clothing and then sits on it. I clean it with my little steam cleaner and oxyclean weekly, and it is mostly kept to a minimum.

When my mum leaned down to pat the dog, she got closer to the chair and really got a whiff of it, and OF COURSE, it couldn't be her - had to be the dog! She has always hated how her parent's house smelled towards their end, and is super sensitive about it.

She's been stomping around all morning (as much as a 95 year old with a rollator can stomp), she's being short and curt with me, and super grouchy. I get that she's embarrassed and doesn't know how to deal with it, but man... This is going to be one of those things I will laugh about later. Actually, I'm already laughing about it now, so all is good. She'll get over it, untill the next pee-pocalypse

As the title says.

My grandma is 98, I went to visit this morning to check in and see how she's been doing with her health as it is slowly declining.

I sat there and talked with her for almost an hour and at the end she asked if I was friends with her daughter, I advised she was my aunty. Thats when I realised she didnt recognize me.

I told her gently who's daughter i was and she told me I was far too old to be her granddaughter.

I don't know how to feel.

A few days after my last post of screaming into the void about my dad’s self-neglect, I found him down for the first time. He’s hidden his falls from me to this point but not this time. He was confused and said he shot himself in the head, and then that someone had some in and shot him from the back and robbed him. He’s been in the hospital since then doing various tests, which he of course is resistant to but I and the staff have managed to get him to comply so far.

His main doc says that he is still awake and oriented so he can make his own decisions. But I still asked to speak to a social worker to voice my concerns, because he’s still making statements not based in reality. In a bright sunny room, he thought it was 10pm. And he’s worried squatters are going to break into his house and stay there which is obviously unfounded. He’s very angry and confused and paranoid. OH, and I have a report in with DCF, but they can’t accept it until he’s discharged. So I’m trying to fast track speaking to social workers, but it seems like he’ll be there overnight for more testing and monitoring, so that bought me some hours.

I appreciated yall for reading and everyone that offered advice. The saga continues

** EDIT: Just left the hospital, his nurse let me know negative for UTI, his head scans all looked fine, AND psych cleared him yesterday!!! She was shocked about that when I told her the reality of the situation. She’s getting psych in there again and maybe we can get an update that.

I love this community so much. You’ve all been so helpful over the past 2.5 years as I moved my Mom from CA to my town in assisted living. I have a therapist and so does my Mom but today I just want to briefly vent and hear your thoughts. Me 56f only child. Apologies for length!

My Mom (84) is a medically obsessed hypochondriac (always. Was sick as a kid and has embraced this as part of her identity). She keeps detailed daily records of her meds and every other aspect of how she is feeling. Has a whole ritual for taking her blood pressure and recording it. Has easily 11 doctors and specialists. Has IBS, gerd, osteoporosis. Is taking meds for anxiety.

This is a recent example but it won’t be the last, so I really need some perspective. She’s had diarrhea and GI distress for like 10 days now. We’ve gotten all the tests and are awaiting results. Friday afternoon she decides she is feeling worse, we go to urgent care who can’t do anything and to the ER. Rehydration. No new meds. Dr. Is clear to take immodium and await results. We were there from 4pm-12am.

But for this whole time—day after day—I am waking up to a string of texts saying she’s not doing well etc (it’s the same symptoms). Same thing today with a voice mail, she thinks she feels worse etc. Nothing can be done about any of this because we don’t have test results.

Every day I am hearing updates and being asked questions her doctors have responded to. It’s like this weird, medical co-dependence or something where her role is to flip out and then she gets attended to in the ER or hospital and seems happy as a clam (all things considered) and people to tests and so on. It’s attention-seeking behavior, because I have been to EVERY one of her doctors with her and I know where things stand. She’s in great shape for the shape she is in and no one is worried about her imminent demise except her.

This weekend in particularly resentful because this has been hours and hours and it’s an effing holiday weekend. I need a break. I’m a college prof who is working (teaching a class now) and launching my own business. I have basically three “jobs” at the moment. I need all the time I can get and it just gets absorbed. Husband is mildly helpful (dude the dishes are there. You have eyes).

Aaaaaaarrrgh!!! Breathe. I feel guilty being pissed at her but It’s just exhausting. 🪷

I was already planning to visit my parents in AL (dad 85 & failing physically, denial of dementia symptoms; mom 76 & unbothered by cognitive decline and physically well; separate apartments across the hall because they can’t get along) today when dad called and reported that neither of their TVs nor his laptop nor his cell (8th in 9 months) are working and asked me to please bring a new laptop this afternoon.

I think the TVs are probably a cable company issue and fixable. This is the second laptop he’s crashed this year. I still have his previous flip phone that worked just fine. I’ve looked at senior friendly phones and computers and it seems highly unlikely that anything will work long term; I think the issue is dad’s anosognosia and lack of dexterity more than the tech itself. This seems like a great time to place some limits around the number of expensive things he can continue to break and also to curb his impulsive online shopping. (I’m pretty sure he bought some sketchy software that crashed the laptop) Problem is, he doesn’t want to believe he’s the problem and that he’s risking these devices and sometimes their money by his misuse.

I’d love to hear if anyone has had this conversation, successfully limited device access, had landlines installed, etc and how you approached it. And yes, I should have placed limits on some of this sooner, so I appreciate advice on what’s the move now

A year ago, I helped my mom move to my state to live near me. She was living near my brother, but her incessant requests that he drop everything for her were driving him crazy and he needed her to go. I had her move here to give his mental health a break.

She lives in an independent living facility about four blocks from my house. The location is perfect because I can get to her quickly and more frequently than I'd otherwise be able to, and I can stop at the store for her on the way over.

But she keeps pushing to live with me and my husband, which is not a good idea. It's mostly because she doesn't like the food there. (Her apartment has a kitchen and she cooks her own stuff most of the time.)

My mother is intrusive and oblivious. She doesn't understand basic human interaction rules (it's like she fits the definition of autism in this respect), which means she is constantly saying inappropriate things -- insulting us, or hurting my feelings. If she isn't getting her way, she can get nasty very quickly to where it feels like it's coming out of left field.

Her own mother drove her crazy (and her mother was a nice person). She refused to let my grandmother live with her and my dad because she knew she wouldn't be able to stand it. And she swore up and down she would never be a burden to me or my brother. Now, here she is, wanting to live with me.

The biggest problem here is that my mom is incapable of being happy. Everything is always terrible where she lives. Any house she's ever lived in is "always falling apart." When I was growing up, it was always my dad's fault for buying the wrong house or not repairing something fast enough. After my dad died, it was my brother's fault for living 3.5 hours away and not being able to come over and change a light bulb instantly. It's like the woman has no concept of how to locate and book with a service provider of any kind. When you suggest she call a handyman, she gets pissed off because she thinks we should do everything for her; that she shouldn't have to pay a handyman. Never mind the fact that she always told us that we "owe her nothing." I lost count of the number of times she complained about her own parents keeping score, swearing that anything she did for my brother and I came without strings attached. I believed her.

She moved closer to my brother so he could help her more, but it wasn't enough for her. She complained constantly about the house she bought and how she'd "overpaid" for it. She had the backyard relandscaped and then killed half of it because she couldn't be bothered to water it (even though she had a programmable system and I had created a custom instruction manual for her). Every time something happened at the house -- AC out, broken water heater, roof repairs needed -- my brother had to handle it all for her. She acts like she's completely helpless. And every one of those incidents was the end of the world -- her crying and asking "Why does this always happen to me?" as though no other homeowner in the history of the universe has to deal with repairs.

So we all decided that she couldn't handle owning a home; that independent living was the way to go because she could just pay one bill and not have to worry about anything. She's had that for a year now, and all I hear are complaints. Texas was better; her house was better -- she's forgotten all the complaints she had about it. That's how it's always been with her, though. She hates a place until she leaves it. Then, the old place was heavenly and the new place sucks.

I don't want her living with me because not only will she annoy the crap out of me, she will be unhappy! I don't want to have to listen to, "I should have stayed where I was. At least I had X and Y." (And I don't want to help her move yet again! The woman's a hoarder, for one thing.)

Also, I love my house and planned to stay here. It's not big enough for her to move into, though. We'd have to move to a bigger place, which costs money, and it would mean that someday, I'd be old and stuck with more house than I can handle and NO ONE to help me deal with it. I've told her that, and she doesn't seem to care.

I can't figure out how to get her to understand this and stop asking for it. Just when I think we're all clear on how our relationship works, she gets clingy again and starts crying and saying she wants to live with me. I'm going to school full time right now. I'm almost 60 and will be starting a new career, and not by choice. And I have relationship problems as well. I can't handle her b.s. on top of all of this.

I love the mother she was when I was growing up, but I don't like the person she is now. If I worked with her, she would be someone I would avoid. But I don't want her to get all dramatic and start crying and saying she's moving back to Texas. She can't afford the move, and Texas is NOT big enough for both her and my brother to live there. We looked into independent living places there, and none of them had kitchens. That was a no-go. She can't buy another home. So WTF can she do but stay where she is?

I'm just so sick of the crying and her being miserable. Yes, she's on antidepressants and sees a counselor. I've told her she's the common denominator everywhere she goes, and that she has to figure out why she can't be happy before she can even think about moving anywhere else. Aside from that advice, I don't know what else to do or offer her.

Hosting a very small dinner for the 4th. Invited my mom (80), I hadn’t seen her since Monday evening. She arrives and immediately I notice her forehead is bruised and has been covered with makeup. “Oh I tripped on my door jamb and fell”. I don’t need to ask her why she didn’t tell me. She rarely does. And as our other dinner guests are pulling up to the house she tells me she had a CT scan (that I didn’t know about) that showed at mass on her kidney. I’m absorbing this info as I am answering my door and putting on a desperate fake smile so I can get through dinner.
My father died of lung cancer 11 years ago. It was the most difficult and stressful time of everyone’s life. I am not ready to do this again. But she’s 80, it’s not out of the ordinary. I’m having so many emotions and this is the only place I can share the at the moment. I worry my husband won’t support me in my stress and anxiety. I’m an only child. I’m her only family. I’m numb.

My mother is having bad anxieties and some depression. She moved recently to a safer place and the change set this off. I'd like to get her into a Telehealth therapy. Does anyone have good recommendations? I think she'd rather do a phone call than a video call, but not sure that is out there. Many thanks and all the best to people taking care of Aging Parents.

My grandparents are definitely starting to show their age. I have been living with them because I am disabled as well for the past 15 years.

They own their home. They have no mortgage no debt. Their house is worth a million

But they absolutely refuse to sell their house

They let the place go. They have money in the bank, but choose not to renovate it even living with visible mold , broken fixings, broken appliances they are first generation immigrants from Europe, so they really don’t care to be honest

If something breaks, they either ignore and live with it or I step up and fix it if i can

They are unable to do shopping. They are unable to go to the doctor without assistance.
They speak little English

I am not their power of attorney but I was wondering as the grandson only been alive (myself) do I have any legal procedure and how exactly would that work in Canada?

I feel like they are not capable of making their own decisions and need someone to live with them at all times such as myself obviously but I’m not gonna live with them forever either

How exactly would getting a power of attorney even work especially if technically they’re not my parents , they are my grandparents….
No one else is alive

My mom (this would he her parents) is not alive

At what point do I have the ability to put a power of attorney into execution if I was able to get one legally in the first place?

Overall, it’s getting to a point where they need so much assistance and I suspect they’re both experiencing stage one Alzheimer’s and they’re neglecting their quality of life and even mine

Thank you, everyone btw im 30

Edit ***

Some edits*

We recently put my father in law in a nursing home. Leading up to this he would spend 24/7 in a recliner watching tv, sleeping in that recliner EVERY night because it was too hard for him to get out of a bed. He also constantly drank alcohol all day, probably out of boredom. His physical condition was terrible and he could barely walk anywhere on his own. Simple things like going to the restroom, bathing, and feeding himself were extremely difficult. We didn’t know he was THIS bad until he got stuck IN the toilet for hours and his roommate had to call 911 to get him out.

That was 2-3 weeks ago and we got him into a very nice VA nursing home. Its very new, he has his own room, 3 hot meals a day, plenty of activities, and opportunity to socialize. But I get it’s not the same as home and having the freedom to do and go as you please. We hope that this place will improve his quality of life and not just have him rot away in a recliner watching fox news ALL day. That he will do PT to strengthen his body, get out and socialize with other guys, and just get out of his room.

Has a nursing home actually help your parents quality of life?

I had a nice 3-hour visit w mom today.

She was asleep when I arrived. I went to the dining room for water and ice. When I returned, she opened her eyes.

She looked at me with warmth and love in her eyes. Then immediately asked ‘how long?’. I said at least a couple of hours. She smiled. She looked her hand for a moment, turned back to me and again asked ‘how long?’. Two more rounds of that and she was convinced I was staying.

I’m guessing she’s getting more pain meds because she barely complained about pain. Once she said her belly hurt.

She was in bed and said she had been for days. I asked her if it was her choice or theirs. She said they give her the choice and she has chosen bed.

I told her that her birthday is 7 weeks from today. She likes that it’s on a Saturday. Weekends are still important to her.

I asked her how old she’s gonna be. After a few moments of thought, she said 75. She was quite surprised to hear that she’s turning 90.

She laughed in disbelief. We both laughed because neither of us thought she’d even get this close to 90.

She knows she’s dying. She has said ‘I’m dying’ at least once in each of my more recent longer visits. I’m relieved that she’s accepting it and sad because I’ll miss her.

❤️🧡❤️

47f with a busy job and my own family that I love very much. My parents are 82 and 88, dad has advanced but undiagnosed dementia. Mom is his caretaker and broke her hip a week ago. They live in the huge house I grew up in, which has more and more deferred maintenance and insurance costs. My sister and I live 500 miles away, a third sister lives locally but travels about half the time for work.

For the last week, my sisters and I have been scrambling to be in town to caretake for my dad while my mom is in the hospital with a broken hip.

My mom is so sweet but my dad is a narcissist, I’ve always had a very challenged and distant relationship with him, and while for a few years dementia make him sweeter and less angry to the point where I didn’t actively dislike him, at his current stage it’s just full dementia plus his full classic narcissism — behaviors that were always were there but used to have more of a veneer of social graces that have been removed. He throws a temper tantrum if my mom is talking on the phone to someone. He is really sweet to me when I am pouring whole and adoring and undivided attention on him and listening to the same stories about him on a loop, but gets agitated and has outbursts and paranoia if we’re not focused on him. He has major anosognosia and will never admit that anything is wrong. He still can bathe himself, use the toilet, dress himself, turn on the TV, pour a bowl of cereal, have a conversation about things from the last century. He mostly recognizes his family through he’s started not being sure which daughter each of us are.

Caretaking for him for 6 days was only mentally possible because I’m very even keeled, know that I’m a grownup with a wonderful spouse and kids I love, and know that it’s time limited. I can take a little more time off work but not endless. It’s virtually impossible to work while caring for him because he demands so much attention.

When my mom gets out of the hospital, she’s going to need a lot of extra care. We’ve talked to her about needing home health aides. The hospital social workers are taking to her about it. Other friends and family members are talking to her about it. However, she seems to think that my dad plus a weekly housekeeper will be enough. We’ve done a lot of things to make sure my dad isn’t driving, and had endless conversations with my mom to make sure she knows my dad can’t drive, but I am almost positive that if she can’t drive and we’re not there to prevent it, my dad will drive unless we remove all vehicles from the house.

While we were there, the house had a major plumbing emergency that I was coordinating, and it’s still not fixed (though there are enough working bathrooms that the house is still livable). But there’s a lot more major repairs that are deferred, and I’ve been coordinating minor repairs for the last couple years because my mom has been struggling with the executive function to do it (between the exhaustion of caring for my dad and her own declining executive function and memory loss).

They REFUSE to leave their house, for years have refused to entertain the conversation first of downsizing and then of any sort of assisted living, and I think they’re going to refuse in home health aides.

And at some point, I feel like I have to let them choose their choice and fail on their own? I am going back next week to care for my dad for a few more days until my mom is discharged, but after that, I have to be tending to my own family.

I’m most worried about the driving because that could kill other people, but if I can figure out a way to prevent that from happening, is it so wrong to let them fail if they’re refusing help?

ETA for clarity: she had surgery last weekend and is in a rehab facility now; she’ll probably be there for another week or two doing OT and PT before getting discharged home.

She was unsafe where she was living (it was a low income neighborhood. She lived by herself and worked. She’s past retirement so I offered her room in my home and my husband agreed. She has now retired.

I can tell she’s depressed and she calls my estranged sister and my brother in law a lot (the one that doesn’t want her to live with them) yesterday she sent pics of our group picture (my husband, baby and i) on our picnic to my estranged sister and brother in laws group chat and said she missed them. She also told me my husband had a come up on his career and I had a come down. Yes i sacrificed a lot for my husband’s success but he has since then taken care of me financially so i can focus on our baby.

My sister refuses to have people live with her so i just felt this responsibility when my dad passed to take in my mom. I thought we would become closer and be best friends and heal some trauma. To be fair my mom is open to having honest conversations but i feel like I have to tell her everyday to be mindful of the things she does or says to make our home feel like a safe environment. I don’t want to feel this regret and building resentment towards her.
What to do?

Hi, my (49 f) mom, (69) has been a widow for 7 years. She did everything you’re not supposed to do right after a spouse dies: retired early, sold her house and moved 4 hours away. Now she lives outside a town where she doesn’t know anyone except a handful of people and doesn’t go out of her way to try to meet people. Her choice, no problem with that. She’s also a hermit and rarely leaves her home.

The problem is she has turned toward animals and her house is kind of gross. She started with one stray cat and now has 20+ in her barn at any given time. She has a handicapped dog that she can’t bathe properly and has 3 cats in the house as well. It reeks. I was fine with the smell when it was just the dog. I’m allergic to cats and am getting sick every time I visit her. My sister and her kids don’t want to come over because of the smell. We’ve very politely try to help her, whenever I’m there, I wash the dog, the dog beds, shampoo the carpet, etc.

No one wants to go to her house for holidays anymore and we don’t want our young (2-3 year old) grandkids here. How do we tell her nicely that this is why no one wants to be at her house? I’m used to come once a month and now i find myself dreading it more and more.

Hello all, I think it is unfortunately past time that my parents need to be moved into a nursing home. My parents are 68/F and 72/M with many chronic conditions, both having diabetes, hypertension, and depression. My parents had 3 children, my brother and sister who were born in the 1980s, then me late in life in the 2001. My sister sadly passed away in her 20s and then my brother recently passed away a couple years ago. Since my brothers passing my parents health has been on an even sharper decline than before.

My mother's mobility has declined to where she can only walk short distances with a walker a few times a day and she has incontinence problems as well (she has had multiple back surgeries and needs another one atm). Then my father has just had his third stroke in the last 4 years last month, which has definitely left him with more deficits than his previous strokes. He is weaker in general to where he can barely walk by himself and he unable to speak clear words most of the time. He spent almost a month in a pretty aggressive rehab which seemed to help but was released this past week to come back to my parents apartment with home health and a hospital bed. I told case management at the rehab that I knew he would be happier at home but I didn't think it would be realistic for him to go home because overnight my mom couldn't manage his care safely. Well my mom wanted him to come home and now here we are.

Last night my dad's hospital bed deflated around 1 in the morning so my husband and I went to their apartment to fix it. We found my dad's foley bag hanging above the level of his bladder so it was not draining, which I have explained to my mom numerous times that it has to stay lower than his bladder or it will not drain. My mom had also had soiled her chair and had not changed it for who knows how long. Then after we had gotten them both taken care of my mom just casually says that she will call me if my dad has an accident that needs to be cleaned in a few hours. I explained to her that this is why I didn't think he should come home once again and that if she couldn't keep him clean overnight that we have to get him or both of them in a facility. I told her multiple times prior to him getting out that she would have to be able to make sure he stays clean overnight which she never truly responded to but still wanted him to go home. After I explained that again last night she broke down and started crying, which I know she feels overwhelmed and It hurts me to see her like that but this has pretty much been the constant cycle of this year. I have tried convincing them to go into a facility prior but I think she is finally starting to realize this is past the breaking point.

I love my parents and I know that they struggle so much with the loss of my siblings but this is not a healthy situation. It is such a mix of emotions because my heart hurts to see them like this but I have also begged and pushed them to take their health more seriously. My husband and I both work overnight shifts and unfortunately cannot be there for them at the drop of a hat. I feel like the last few years just has been a constant state of anxiety with us both getting calls and texts throughout the day/night for what they need. I feel that my mom always expects me to fix every problem when at the same time I'm still trying to figure out my life. My mother is also a big time emotional manipulator and both of them have made terrible financial decisions that I have had to lose money over to somewhat correct. They both have home health but it is just not enough.

My father is a veteran and there is a veterans home an hour away so I am hoping maybe I can get them in there somehow because it seems like they would be taken care of better there than most of the nursing homes where we live but I just don't really even know where to start. My husband and I don’t make enough to pay for a facility. My parents have no assets to sell and since my siblings are gone there is no other family to help. I just feel so overwhelmed and naive. I'm sorry if my post is all over the place, I feel that I can't even think straight my nerves are just so fried. If anyone has any helpful advice or has a resources to recommend I would be grateful. Both of my parents have medicaid and medicare.

My dad (+60 M) has a couple of health conditions, some of which are chronic. Cardiac insufficiency/failure, sleep apnea, obesity being some of them.

Started him some months ago on Tirzepatide, after discussing it at length with our GP. First 2 months on 2.5mg, 3 months now on 5mg.

He obviously started to feel better, inflammation came down, his joints ache lesser. His VERY sedentary lifestyle became slightly less sedentary in the sense that he actually started sporadically going to a swimming pool (he swam in his teenage years). Last time he did any kind of physical activity until now I think it was 12-15 years ago. He obviously subconsciously started to eat less and even managed to lose 8 kgs (17lbs) in this time without having any nutrition and food knowledge or will to learn. He actually thinks “fruit juices are healthy because they’re fruit” ffs. So he gulps store bought “100% orange juice” like its water. Absolutely no point in debating these kind of things with him.

Now at the point of this lengthy post. He refuses to acknowledge the merit and the efficacy of the drug I’m paying out of pocket for him and personally administer every week when I go visit my parents. He just thinks he managed to lose that weight, feel less painful, sleep better, feel slightly more joyful and actually swim on his own. He just told me he could just refuse a second portion of food without the drug. He obviously cannot, he’s been obese for the last 30 years.

A lot of times when we have an argue, he threatens to stop the medication like it’s something that will hurt me instead of him. He’d back and above where he started in no time because of his absolutely zero self control when it comes to food. But what scares me is that all the cardiac benefits will stop and that’s bad in his condition.

How do I reason with him on this matter? Anyone with a similar situation where you genuinely want to help one of your parents but they’re just ungrateful and don’t see the benefits of it?

Hi all my mom is 78 and lost my dad abut 18 months ago. Her hearing is almost gone. She has a hearing aid for one ear so can hear in that one but still struggles with some conversations. The other ear is deaf. She’s always been very isolated and social anxiety but now that my dad is gone she’s very lonely.

Over the past 6 months I’ve noticed her memory is really failing. Like she forgets talking to someone the day before. Tells the same story over and over. Can’t remember what she did earlier in day. Has trouble sort of reasoning things out. A year ago she asked her doc to do I guess the short form cognitive test because she’s paranoid anyone would suggest she’s got memory issues. A year ago she was good and passed with flying colors. But in the last 6 months things have taken a turn.

She’s becoming increasing irritable and angry. She lashes out at various family members and sort of targeting one or two she doesn’t like as much. Like this weekend she completely flipped on one of them. Screaming yelling hands flying in the air upset all because she didn’t really follow the conversation and paranoid people are sort of poking fun she assumes this often. It’s like she’s so defensive that anyone suggest she’s not understanding or something. We tried to redirect her like you would a kid. I felt bad but it was extremely embarrassing at a family event with some new partners there etc. she argues with her dogs lately as well. It’s odd. Calls them profane names and really never swore much. I don’t know if it’s loneliness but more like she isn’t really rational about what dogs can and can’t understand. Probably not explaining this part well.

I am her primary help and even though out of state I see her more than my sister who rarely calls her or sees her. This weekend my sister was around and gave me an earful about how bad she feels for my mom how she’s just lashing out because of how hard her life was and how no one is being compassionate etc.

So two questions - how do I know when it’s time to try to talk to doc with my mom? She’s so defensive about memory and competency I have no idea how to brouch the subject.

And two - how do I deal with a sibling who pops into the situation once and awhile and thinks they know what is going on. I do have compassion for my mom and feel terrible for her but I don’t think it’s fair for my sister to jump in like she understands the whole picture. I’m the one that talks to her daily supports her financially helps keep up with health stuff listens when she needs to talk anytime etc. my sister even called my mom aside this weekend to see how she’s doing in private and afterwards told me that it’s all just sad and she doesn’t blame my mom for how she’s acting and we all need to be understanding and deal with the behavior. And that my mom is justified based on aging since none of us know what that is like. But….its not this sibling dealing with the day to day.

Thanks all. Just sort of venting but would love some input.