Hi! I want to take my 77-year-old mom out of the nursing home, but I have no other options for her. She is very depressed and seems to have just given up on life, and it's breaking my heart. I love her very much. She didn't raise me, but she raised my sister who does nothing for her and doesn't even go see her. This is my mom's birthday weekend, so I hope my sister goes this weekend.
My mom had a stroke 11 years ago and is confined to a wheelchair. She can stand with assistance but not for long, and she can't walk more than a step or two. She is also incontinent. She can't use her left arm, either.
My stepfather was her primary caregiver, but he passed away in Aug. 2021. I tried private in-home care for as long as I could. I discovered that her last caregiver was putting CBD oil in her food. Before that, I discovered so many of her belongings had been stolen from her apartment. I just couldn't protect her the way she need to be protected with private care.
I work a lot, of course, and have worked to build my career over the last 40 years. In addition, my mom has cursed my husband so many times that there is a little bad blood there. My husband is a wonderful forgiving person, but he is frightened that if we bring my mom into our home, she will try to split us up, and I know he is exactly right. That is the kind of stuff my mom does, which is probably why my sister doesn't even to visit her.
Nonetheless, I just can't stand to see her so miserable. I don't want to go back to private care, and I've talked to my mom about finding someone for her to live with, but she wants her own apartment so she can do whatever she wants to do.
We suspect she has breast cancer as well because she has a large lump in her left breast and a lump under her arm. The lumps have begun to deform the skin.
Any ideas on how to get through something like this?
I pay two women to go visit her twice a day for two hours each. It's costing me about $800 a month to do that, but I want to ensure she can go outside to smoke as much as possible. The facility has scheduled smoking times, but the residents are limited to two cigarettes each time, and my mom is not a fast smoker.
My mom keeps telling me the facility is killing her, but I wonder what effect the lumps she has are having on her health. Yesterday was her birthday, and she just didn't look well. She was very dark under her eyes. She says she has no appetite, but is that the lumps or is that depression?
I'm very concerned about her but not sure how to get her out of that home safely because I have nowhere for her to go.
Thank you for your help!!
Becky
Some people cannot be happy. They can't appreciate what they have. And you, I think your looking for Moms approval you never had. May never come.
You want to ensure that she can go out and smoke, does that really make any sense to you? Doesn't to me.
If you want your marriage to end, sure have her move in with you.
The way to get through this is for you to seek some help. You will not change your mother, yet you do not have to support her bad habit.
Do not take her in to your house!!! This will affect you in ways you’re not seeing right now.
-Your marriage will suffer. Your husband doesn’t deserve this.
-She wants her own apartment. Moving her in with you won’t feel like home to her. Having only a bathroom and bedroom to yourself is not the same as an apartment.
-Any sort of schedule you have now will be out the window.
-Will she smoke in the house, even if you tell her not to?
-Can you lift her every day?
-You may need an aide. Are you okay with workers (strangers) in your house?
-Can you handle multiple toilet visits, butt wiping, diarrhea, bed urine, and getting her undressed/dressed? Multiple times a day, and night too?
-Are you able to help with bathing daily?
-Are your toilets, bathtubs, etc handicap-ready? Will her bed have safety rails? Are meds stored safely?
-There will be no more dinners out, no vacations. Friends and family will say to call if you need anything, but you'll find almost none will volunteer to stay with her if you want or need time out.
-When do you plan to get things like errands and grocery shopping done? She cannot be left alone.
-If she worsens, how will you handle the medical needs?
- If she keeps you up at night, how do you plan to handle work the next day? Same goes for working from home.
- If you get sick or injured, what plan do you have for her care?
- If you are no longer able to care for her, how will you get her into memory care or a nursing home?
I've said before that people think they can "love their way" through caregiving. That love will be enough to sustain their energy and will. It isn't. Most on here loved their elder dearly and wanted to care for them. They had to place their elder to save both of their lives.
It appears the smoking is the one joy she has left in her life.
If you can continue to afford it (I'm assuming you are paying personally and not out of Mom's funds) I'd continue to fund the two aids to get her outside twice a day. This gets Mom outside
in the sunshine twice a day and one thing I've noticed is that smokers are very social.
That and stop paying so much money to support a habit that is likely killing her.
Will this save her?
Cure her?
Make her live longer?
Make her live forever?
I suggest getting therapy to deal with your feelings, now, as Mom declines & later on as grief support too.
Learning to differentiate between what you can control & what you can't is such an important step.
"She won't have the lump in her breast checked; she says she doesn't want to know".
Her level of avoidance is sad. But it is her choice. I have seen this before. When finally hospitalised for something else, the fungating breast lump was diagnosed as CA stage 4. Palliative care was provided as too late for active curative treament.
The woman was relieved to be told & at peace with her situation.
I hope you & your Mom can accept what cannot be changed too (whatever that is).
The facility isn't killing her, she is killing herself primarily due to smoking but also due to her lack of desire to make a change. If she has been a smoking her entire adult life, chances are she is there because of it and continuing to do so will just hasten her death.
The bottom line is this: you can't and shouldn't care more about mom's life than she does. She's an adult who's purposely making bad choices which you're enabling and now wanting to CONTINUE enabling by taking her out of the one place she's getting care at. Stop causing your mother more harm than good, okay?
If you boil it down, these two situations can work at the same time. You can be concerned, visit her, make sure she is safe, encourage her to make good choices. That said, it doesn't mean you have to move her out. It sounds like she needs to be exactly where she is. Moving her out won't fix anything. Take a breath, make sure you're not considering doing this just to feel better about things. You don't want to jump from frying pan into the fire.
That cancer, not just the lump in her arm but the one under her arm probably means that the lymph nodes are now involved. If so, the cancer has probably spread. I would at least see if a portable mammogram can be brought in just to see how its spread. Your Mom maybe depressed because she knows and it means her life will be ending and she could be in pain. Nurses can check that by checking her b/p. I know what my sister went thru at 43 with breast cancer. Testing, scans, horrible chemo and it still spread. Mom doesn't seem to be a fighter. Thats OK if she wants no intervention, maybe time for Hospice. They can use morphine to help with pain.
I would wonder if paying someone to sit with her is all that pleasant for them. Is it just rolling her out to have a smoke? An aide can do that. At my Moms LTC there were aides just for the common area who wheeled residents outside.
As for the lumps that you describe is already in her lymph system. The armpit may be stage 4. The lumps ready to open the skin points to the same. Loss of appetite may mean that she has a couple of months or just weeks. I have seen cancers erupt through the skin before. There really is no treatment and she is refusing.
Can you ask for a hospice doctor to eval in her residence? Just the visual exam may be all that she needs. You can ask the hospice doc about your concern of depression as that screaning can be done during the evaluation. I worry that without hospice support, she may experience pain and anxiety soon. It is best to get her support now. Without hospice and the specialy they have with prescribing certain meds at appropriate times will avoid needless further suffering. As an added benefit, hospice provides support to family in the bereivement process. Have you given any thought that you may be in the bargaining phase of watching your mom decline?
Less than a month after my 3 month check, I saw a picture of myself shot from behind and I saw the enormous lump that had just sprung up out of nowhere. I RAN to the dr and begged him to give me one minute of his time. He came in the room and saw the lump and went totally pale. He began palpating it and I thought he was going to cry! I said "It's cancer, isn't it?" He said "Pretty sure. You go straight from here to the hospital..NOW!"
Within a month I was actively treating NHL. If I had lollygagged around with this lump (it was the biggest and most noticeable) and ignored it for 4-6 months, I would have died.
Your mom is playing with fire. Perhaps she knows it and doesn't care. IDK. But until she minimally has a scan, you won't know where to go.
Point being--my PCP knew what cancer looked and felt like. I didn't play around.
If I were 77, maybe I wouldn't choose to treat it, but at age 63, I did. She should at least do it for the sake of you & your sisters so you can know if you, too, are at risk.
She won't have the lump in her breast checked; she says she doesn't want to know. My sister and I have begged her to have it checked, if not for herself, at least for us, and she refuses. She says we can just get mammograms.
She really doesn't do anything to help herself.
There are people at the nursing home who really care about her, but she says they're not her friends and that she doesn't want friends. She says she wants her family. It's as if she wants to be miserable. I don't understand it at all.
For the in-home care, I was working with what my stepdad and mom had managed to save, which was $13,500. It lasted 8 months. That's a miracle, I think. I began paying at $10 an hour but had to bargain that down to try to make that savings last as long as possible. Agencies were just too expensive. The caregivers I could find would call in sick at the last minute, just not show up, or quit with no notice. It was so horrible, and I don't want to go back to that.
That alone should tell you everything you need to know about your mom and how uncaring she is.
Like others have said, she will never be happy, so quit busting your butt to try and make her.
At this point she has now made her bed, so you my dear must let her lie in it.
And let this be a lesson for you and your sister as to how not to be.
For you the first thing I think you need to do is have those lumps checked, make sure she has medical care that could lead to a better attitude. Just my humble opinion. Good Luck fellow caregiver
As for the possible breast cancer, when was the last time your Mom had any blood work done? Last time she had a mammogram? Those lumps need to be checked.
It is not unusual for someone living in a nursing home to say they want to go home. Too bad the caregivers didn't work out. Did you use an Agency where the caregivers are vetted, licensed, bonded, and insured? I had such an Agency for my Dad and we had zero problems with 3 shifts daily. Only downside was the cost, very expensive.
Your Mom needs a complete physical. Her depression could be a side effect of some prescription meds she is taking. Only a doctor can figure that out.
You're not neglecting her, you're doing a lot for her, to make her happy. Paying 'helpers' who basically take her outside so she can smoke and paying $800 a month for that 'privilege' for her kind of blows my mind. Does she get $800 worth of joy from those 8 cigarettes she smokes? That $800 could go a long ways to taking her for rides, out to eat, even to a movie, if she so desired. How about trying nicotine patches and having her take walks or rides with these companions? I do understand that committed smokers really, really enjoy their cigarettes...so that make not work.
You have every right to be very concerned about the lumps. She needs those looked at by a Dr, like, yesterday. She's likely in pain.
I would say that taking her into your home when your DH is not 100% on board would be a terrible idea. She's not going to get better as she ages. But you know that, don't you?
First off, a complete physical, a mammogram and whatever other tests the doc wants. She'll get told to quit smoking b/c that is a known cancer causing agent-but again, you know that.
Have her evaluated for depression at the same time. An antidepressant could help her. IF she does have cancer, she might need AD's as part of the care plan--if she chooses to treat.
You don't have to take her 'out' of anything. She is cared for, she just needs attention at this moment to get a baseline as to why she looks and feels bad.
We aren't drs. You need to help her help herself.
She thinks she can stand up by herself now, and I'll see today, but I'm far from convinced that she can. It might break her heart to see that she can't, but she keeps insisting. We will see.
The caregivers don't just take her out to smoke; they visit with her, etc. Part of that is going out back of the facility where it's actually very pretty. She does smoke while she's out there, but they also visit, watch deer, etc.
I love the help I've found on this board. Thank you all so much!!!