Nm

#304
#304
Well the last couple hours were exciting. JayBird got confused and somehow got keys and left in a van while mom and the sitter were not looking. Fortunately he wound up at my house. So I got home acted like he’d just come by for a visit and then took him and the stolen van back. Hung out there for a while and had my sons come over there for a visit then bring me home.

what a day.
 
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#305
#305
Orangeslice13 said:
Well the last couple hours were exciting. JayBird got confused and somehow got keys and left in a van while mom and the sitter were not looking. Fortunately he wound up at my house. So I got home acted like he’d just come by for a visit and then took him and the stolen van back. Hung out there for a while and had my sons come over there for a visit then bring me home.

what a day.
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Oh man, glad everything turned out okay.

15-0 for JayBird.
 
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#307
#307
Orangeslice13 said:
Well the last couple hours were exciting. JayBird got confused and somehow got keys and left in a van while mom and the sitter were not looking. Fortunately he wound up at my house. So I got home acted like he’d just come by for a visit and then took him and the stolen van back. Hung out there for a while and had my sons come over there for a visit then bring me home.

what a day.
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😞. I hate that for you and your family.
 
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#309
#309
Orangeslice13 said:
Thanks.
It’s going to happen more often as time goes on I’m afraid
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I know. Believe me I know. I stay afraid because it might mean a call that dad decided he wanted a ice cream from a local shop in Midtown and took off with the keys, or decided he wanted to pick items from the local Kroger, to just visit with “all the ones he knows” there.
 
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#314
#314
82_VOL_83 said:
It will. My mom kept driving until she got lost in Lawrenceburg on the way to my grandmother's house one morning. It got ugly with mom.
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Feel ya. My mother lived on a deep water creek of the Satilla River delta. Living there demanded independent vehicular transport. Her former doctor knew he should pull her ticket to drive when she started having pin strokes, but he also knew doing so would deny her living in her paradise. The old doc died of a heart attack. The new doc reviewed her history and declared her unfit to drive, a hazard to others on the road. If she had a pin stroke while behind the wheel, she could harm or kill others as well as herself. She was too stubborn. "Well, I just won't have a pin stroke while I'm driving." License? Insurance? No consideration to her. If she could get keys to a vehicle, she was driving wherever she wanted to go. Even when she got lost, it didn't matter to her. My siblings and I had an intervention. We relocated her to a residence in an assisted living community with chauffeured van service for shopping trips and excursions. We gave her car to one of her grandsons and praised her for her generosity. For years afterwards, she still tried to take off in others' vehicles. Despite this, her neighbors were all very fond of her. Finally, the impact of repeated pin strokes on her memory and cognition made it necessary to move her into memory care. Their controlled entrance and egress puts me at ease (I live ~270 miles away and make frequent trips to visit her).
 
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#315
#315
Tin Man said:
Feel ya. My mother lived on a deep water creek of the Satilla River delta. Living there demanded independent vehicular transport. Her former doctor knew he should pull her ticket to drive when she started having pin strokes, but he also knew doing so would deny her living in her paradise. The old doc died of a heart attack. The new doc reviewed her history and declared her unfit to drive, a hazard to others on the road. If she had a pin stroke while behind the wheel, she could harm of kill others as well as herself. She was too stubborn. "Well, I just won't have a pin stroke while I'm driving." License? Insurance? No consideration to her. If she could get keys to a vehicle, she was driving wherever she wanted to go. Even when she got lost, it didn't matter to her. My siblings and I had an intervention. We relocated her to a residence in an assisted living community with chauffeured van service for shopping trips and excursions. We gave her car to one of her grandsons and praised her for her generosity. For years afterwards, she still tried to take off in others' vehicles. Despite this, her neighbors were all very fond of her. Finally, the impact of repeated pin strokes on her memory and cognition made it necessary to move her into memory care. Their controlled entrance and egress puts me at ease (I live ~270 miles away and make frequent trips to visit her).
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My mom was diagnosed in 08 and passed in 14. She went downhill very quickly after about 2011. She stayed at home and at times got mean with my dad and my sister. It has differing effects on each person. I have had friends whose mothers we knew from as far as we could remember turn violent and strike their kids with heavy objects. It's a cruel disease/decline. Cancer takes people young and old but dementia steals from everyone involved and replaces a lifetime of good memories with those of struggle and sadness. I hate it and hate it for those on VN that are going through it. It takes years to be able to put that 6, 8 or 10 years behind you and to be able to grab the good memories back again. Some of the caretakers never recover fully.
 
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#316
#316
82_VOL_83 said:
My mom was diagnosed in 08 and passed in 14. She went downhill very quickly after about 2011. She stayed at home and at times got mean with my dad and my sister. It has differing effects on each person. I have had friends whose mothers we knew from as far as we could remember turn violent and strike their kids with heavy objects. It's a cruel disease/decline. Cancer takes people young and old but dementia steals from everyone involved and replaces a lifetime of good memories with those of struggle and sadness. I hate it and hate it for those on VN that are going through it. It takes years to be able to put that 6, 8 or 10 years behind you and to be able to grab the good memories back again. Some of the caretakers never recover fully.
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Hard truth, that.

My mother was independent since my sisters went off to college. For decades, she did just fine. She picked out the property on the South Georgia coast with a deep water creek at the back and a bass pond in the front. She picked out a house from an architectural magazine and a local contractor, made a few changes, and had it built. She got a job with the local school system and moved into her dream home, where she wanted to live out her days. She was many miles away from family (I was the closest at 330), but content in location, church, and community. She outlived her ability to stay there. She did plan well, financially. She doesn't want to live in any of her children's households. So, she's where she is, now. As her attorney in fact, I have my youngest sister's help in managing her affairs. The burdens are not too much for us as a pair, and the emotional toil is mollified by the arrangements for her residence and care.

I can still embrace and share good memories with my family. I can still have coherent conversations with my mother, though some may be brief or interrupted by shifts in her perception. She knows me. Our love is still shared. By this, I am blessed.
 
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#317
#317
My mother was determined to live out her days in her home. At the same time, she refused to have any kind of help, especially the idea of live-in help (e.g., at night.) Along with my kids, we’re her only family left, and none of us were moving to Memphis.

I was prepared to help her do this, but not if she wouldn’t give a bit as well. (She was always a bit of a princess, absolutely certain that things would turn out as she had planned.)

When she fell, which tipped her from mild cognitive impairment into dementia, the docs said that she needed to live in a “place” with 24-hour nursing. So now she’s here, house gone, most furnishings gone, friends gone (they don’t call or write). Memory gone.

Hubs and I plan (hope) to stay in our house and pay for care here if possible. We really don’t want to be in “a place”, even the nice one our moms are in. But we’ve written out (in our own handwriting, lol), that if our kids eventually say that it’s not working, we’ll suck it up and move. We’ve seen how the elderly lie to themselves and others out of false pride and sheer stubbornness. <- that’s said in love and sadness, not anger
 
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