Long-Distance Care Giving Sucks

Guardianship of a Parent

Here’s the next chapter in the ongoing saga of becoming my mother’s guardian—if not in legal fact, in actions. A typical conversation starts like this: she had the symptom of burning and couldn’t find the medicine for a yeast infection my brother had picked up for her.

            “Mom, did you find the medicine?”

            “What medicine?”

            “The suppository for the yeast infection.”

            “What do you do with that?”

            “Uh, insert it.”

            “In the anus, you mean?”

            “No, Mom. You don’t get a yeast infection in the anus. In the vagina.”

            Complete silence for several moments. “Oh, I forgot I had one of those.”

In November, she wound up in the hospital with congestive heart failure and nearly twenty pounds of excess fluid her laboring heart could not get rid of. It also failed to regulate its own beat, as did medicine, and she required a pacemaker to help. After two weeks in the hospital and several more in a rehabilitation center, she finally admitted that she’s unable to care for herself.

So, down to Georgia I go again, dragging my son along to help with the packing and driving back to Massachusetts. I’m returning to pack the house and put it up for sale. Changing her mind is not an option. Hate to be harsh but we three kids are rapidly reaching the upper limits of tolerance.

Long-Distance Care Giving Sucks

My sister—our mother’s medical proxy—has medical expertise and tries to handle that end. Being at work during business hours, she plays telephone tag with those who bother to answer the messages left asking for updates on our mom’s needs and condition. We still haven’t found out what new medicines the hospital may have prescribed for her heart.

Poor brother-brat has my mom’s house as his residence and came home for four days when she was released from rehab. He’s a long-distance truck driver who gets there maybe four times a year. After two days he called, ready to run, clueless in trying to figure out her medications and what was wrong as our mother’s health deteriorated and she became more confused, angry, and abusive. Scared or annoyed elders can be mean.

The rehab erred in sending her home with the pills she needed but no insulin. She went three days without it, hence the confusion and a yeast infection—too much sugar in her system. Her doctor told her to go to the ER, which she refused to do. Fearing her collapse, we called Emergency Services twice and twice she refused to be taken to the hospital. She answered whatever questions they asked to their satisfaction, and they couldn’t force her to go. Really? They obviously failed to ask her to describe her medication schedule or what day it was for that matter.

I call her every day, twice a day to remind her and she often doesn’t remember the schedule without the calls. The visiting nurse will have to deal with the yeast infection, and I’ll have to pray my mom stays sufficiently healthy until I can get there and we can make the trip to Massachusetts where my sister and I hope we can keep her out of a nursing home as long as possible.

No posts till I return. There is a way to write them ahead and program them to post according to your schedule—something else to eventually figure out.