AGING PARENTS

all the best neando, to you and your family: this has been sad and difficult reading but your care and patience and love have been admirable throughout

We're here if you need to vent.

Condolences to you and your fam, N.

Condolences and hugs to you and your fam, N.

My sympathies to you. We're all here for you.

Xxxposts No need to feel bad j.lu. it's what the thread is for and I'm so glad to hear your mom was receptive to the more suitable location <3.

Thank you all above, this thread has been a constant well of support for me. We have donated dad's body to a tissue network and they will take care of the cremation costs.

Job is giving me ten paid days of bereavement. My brother gets a week. We're so very lucky.

Sending you lots of love Neando, my thoughts are with you and your family today.

(Feel bad that I hadn't checked this thread in a few weeks and thus missed recent developments until today.)

My sincere condolences, Neanderthal.

Adding to everyone here. Much love and care.

Adding to the condolences, and I just want to say that your dedication to trying to do the best for your dad through such a long series of painful situations and challenges has been remarkable and what love looks like in action. It's been instructive for me as I contemplate my own aging parents and whatever lies ahead for them.

As it happens I'm at the airport now having made a very short trip up to accompany my mom to a doctor's appointment where she received an expected but still sobering diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment. We've all noticed increasing issues with her memory over the past year and she was kind of in denial about it for a while but things sort of came to a head this summer and she has settled into more-or-less acceptance that something's going on. We don't know much yet — MCI is a broad category that doesn't automatically mean any one thing, although it very much can be a precursor to more serious cognitive decline. We'll see, tests and scans have been ordered. The good thing is that me and my siblings and parents are all on board and in sync in how we're approaching it, and we're working to show Mom as much love as we can at every step. So again, thanks for the model of that, N.

My deepest sympathies, Neando. <3

ilu neanderthal!!! <3

The sense that many of us sit while a darkness gathers over the hill when it comes to our parents' cognitive abilities sobers me.

very sorry to hear about your mother, tipsy. "showing as much love as you can at every step" is really the best foot forward. make sure to be patient with yourself through her journey as well. hoping for the best for her and you and your family!

<3

Been thinking of you, Neanderthal. Love and condolences to you & family <3

sorry to read this news man

The sense that many of us sit while a darkness gathers over the hill when it comes to our parents' cognitive abilities sobers me.

Neanderthal, very sorry to hear the news, was thinking about you and your family the last few days. Best to all of you going forward.

Neanderthal - much care and kind thoughts to you. Grieving can be hard, but also insightful. Where there’s shadows there’s also light. Take care of yourself and family as best as you’re able.

My mother-in-law was getting pretty daffy and we took her in for an evaluation. Turns out she's just getting older but no signs of alzheimers or anything. Still, the doc prescribed a low dosage of meds for dementia and it sharpened her up pretty good. It's like a fog lifted.

The sense that many of us sit while a darkness gathers over the hill when it comes to our parents' cognitive abilities sobers me.

My fondest hope for my mother, and I mean this sincerely, is that when it is her time she will be swinging a golf club.

word has reached me that my mom, who turned 80 last month and also is leaving her current home to move 300 miles east in a couple weeks, has a boyfriend!?!?

― mookieproof, Tuesday, September 12, 2023 12:44 AM (two weeks ago)

so everything was packed up and carted off for the move and earlier this week my aunt came to drive her to eastern PA, and . . . my mom refused to go. didn't want to leave her friends or Joe the Boyfriend, with whom she is in love

fortunately her existing place hadn't yet reassigned her room. it's not terrible; the facilities at her current place are perfectly fine. many thousands of dollars were spent reserving her place eastward, but so it goes

mostly it is lol -- i'm glad she has friends, i'm totally fine with her having a bf (although it kind of sounds like they both have memory issues). but also v. sad

I get it. In a way, part of letting go. Enjoy what's still good.

dang smh -- never ever underestimate the stubbornness of an elderly person. glad she has suitable accommodations at least.

And companionship. My mother in law has a sort of boyfriend at the assisted living facility. My feeling is, she's nearing the end of her life, she should enjoy herself.

Aside from the occasional married couple, my mom's memory care ward has been pretty consistently 90+% female since she moved in four years ago.

Is that mostly because of women living longer, or is there another reason for women being more likely to be in memory care?

It's because women live longer.

Dad's memorial is going to be in November. I think my brother and I are going to emcee a lot of it.

Already had one 'friend' last out at me for picking a date they specifically couldn't attend. Idk why people enjoy kicking me when I'm down but I'm not letting this bullshit stop me.

I've taken an outsized amount of space itt so I want to let everyone else have the space going forward. I'm glad to offer lessons learned for anybody going through similar things in the future. Just email me (ILX email works)

*lash out

Good news: my mother and I are about to make an offer on the condo that seemed to be a reasonable compromise. In theory purchasing this place should be reasonably straightforward; but buying real estate has got to top the list of "positive strssors."

it sure does, good luck and take deep breaths as needed

glad to hear that j.lu! hoping for a bump-less process for you all, and that you can finally have that weight off of your shoulders

I own my current condo, but I bought it nearly 30 years ago. I do not doubt the changes this time around are intended to minimize fraud and do things remotely when possible. But I have to keep telling myself to not hyperventilate.

My mom has ended up in the hospital with low sodium. Anyone have any experience with that? It has likely been a contributing factor in her cognitive issues, but not necessarily the underlying cause. They won't be able to tell until they get her sodium back up. This has been a bit of a known problem for a while, she had a really bad sodium depletion incident after a hip surgery last year and her levels have periodically dipped since. But it really crashed over the last few weeks, apparently. The last blood test she took, her doctor called my parents at home at 11:30 at night this past weekend and told my dad he had to take her to the ER. She was very disoriented by the time she got there. She sounded much better on the phone today, but she still isn't allowed any actual food until the sodium gets back to a good level.

Well so the prior post turned out to be a bit more involved. My mom had a rough week and I ended up flying up to help out. She's out now, sodium levels seem stable but wow she was completely confused and out of it at the hospital. She woke up from a nap by herself, because Dad had come to get me at the airport, and she had no idea where she was or why she was there. She thought she was at the gym and packed up her stuff to go home. The nurses at the station stopped her and asked where she was going and when she said she needed to drive home one of them said, "Really? Well, where are your car keys?" That kind of snapped her out of it (well done, nurse) but she was still only kind of tenuous when they discharged her. (Her mental state being not so much their concern once the sodium levels were addressed.) Since then she's been up and down, definitely fades into some cloudiness in the evenings. So we still have the cognitive issues to wrestle with, once she's rested up a bit.

One thing that came out, she's barely been eating. She's always been super skinny but I noticed that she seemed even smaller, and at the Dr's office for the follow-up she weighed in at 96 pounds fully clothed. One of the doctor's big recommendation was EAT MORE! Especially protein. So anyway, quite a time. I'm also the family liaison with my brother and sister and assorted other relatives. Everybody's really concerned of course so they're all calling and texting, which is really sweet, but a lot of times they have more questions than we have answers.

Tipsy, I don't know anything about sodium depletion, but another thing that can cause sudden disorientation is a urinary tract infection; assume they checked for that at some point.

My mom also < 100 pounds, got as low as 85 just before we moved her to the care facility ('dinner' at home was a few crackers and a couple spoonfuls of yogurt). They've gotten her stabilized around 95 now. . .

My mom has also been losing weigh but it’s because she has a permanent ileostomy and can literally house pounds and pounds of food and it just comes out a few hours later. No weigh gain. Once saw her eat an entire party plate of nachos to herself. It’s kind of shocking.

Tipsy, I don't know anything about sodium depletion, but another thing that can cause sudden disorientation is a urinary tract infection; assume they checked for that at some point.

Yep, UTIs themselves are a prime cause of sodium depletion apparently. There was no particular sign of that with my mom, but they put her on antibiotics anyway just in case she had an underlying infection.

Oh! That’s why I commented previously— my mom gets UTIs all the time, has often made me worry about memory loss with her. The ileostomy means that she has a hard time getting proper electrolytes.

Yeah with my mom it's tricky because there are definitely underlying cognitive issues going on, but then the sodium crash sent it totally off a cliff. So now she's more or less returning to the more mild fog that was there before.

The sodium drop — not to get all wonky, but of course I've read a lot about it in the last week — is generally because of retaining too much water in the blood, which dilutes your sodium levels. So kidney or urinary problems that lead to reduced processing of water and reduced urination can cause sodium levels to drop. And I can definitely attest to just how much that messes with cognition, whoo boy.

It's funny, if there's a problem with salt and water you'd tend to think it would be too much of the former and too little of the latter, but the reverse is also bad it turns out.

tipsy this all feels very familiar - dad had similar issues due to UTI/urine retention.

Glad they have her on an antibiotic, hope if there is an underlying infection it zaps it out and the sodium returns to normal and cognition stabilizes.

Hoping for the best for your mom!

Many thanks!

Yes, for sure. I'm glad you can be there for your folks, I just hope you're getting support and care also.

Decided to extend my stay for another week because my mom woke up last night super disoriented and anxious and unable to form coherent sentences. She was trying to tell me something but she was using the wrong words, it was like a total brain malfunction. She was awake, it wasn't sleepwalking or anything like that — she remembered the episode when she woke up this morning and remembered that she was very confused but wasn't sure why. Alarming. But today has been probably her best day of the week. So my hope is that I'll see some kind of real stabilization over the next week. Just wasn't quite ready to go off and leave them alone here. (They live in a somewhat remote place, which has been a point of some contention over the years because we've all known it would eventually pose challenges.)

Did manage to get out today for a drink with an old friend, the first person I've seen in a week who wasn't my parents or a medical professional. I talked about my parents, she talked about her struggles with her teenage son, good times good times. :) Probably I don't really need to be here for another whole week, but they were glad when I said I was staying and I'm more conscious than ever of how little actual time I have left to spend with them. Fortunately I can work remotely.

Well this has been quite the cold-water plunge into the aging parents experience. I've been here for two weeks and have to fly home tomorrow, but basically my mom was in the hospital when I arrived, I was able to help bring her home and get her stabilized and see things improve for about 4-5 days, only to have them turn south over the last three days and now she's being readmitted to the hospital for the exact same thing she was in for when I first got here (low sodium) — with still no known or identified underlying cause. Been quite the rollercoaster. My dad is handling it all OK, but he's of course super stressed and exhausted and sort of overwhelmed by the circumstances. My brother showed up yesterday and can stay into next week, so at least I'm not leaving them alone. But it's not really sustainable for any of us kids to be here full time, we all have homes and jobs in other cities. Ai yi.

They have friends here who will check on them, but you can only ask so much. As I said to my brother last night when we were cleaning up her vomit at 2 a.m., it's not like anyone else is gonna come do that.

Ahh geez tipsy, I'm so sorry. :(

Do doctors have any working theories yet, even if they still haven't settled on one?

Thx. I guess the next step will be to call in an endocrinologist, once they get her more stable. My mom keeps saying, "Whatever it is, it's because I'm old" — obviously true.