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Faceplams: I can see how he would think that was what I meant, but what I wanted was to just get the fuck away from him for a second and take a short walk.Originally Posted by allegro
tempus est umbra in mente
I can see how he would think that was what I meant, but what I wanted was to just get the fuck away from him for a second and take a short walk.
Trollhunter
I'm sorry that happened, @Jinsai. I also agree with what @allegro said. I care about you and @eversonpoe (and many others here). This year has been a dumpster fire. We have to find a way to stay up and in the fight. I've not been in a good place in a long time either and have also been trying to be an overall better person for a number of years now with mixed results. We just have to keep doing the best we can. It's cheesy and cliched but it's also true.
Last edited by Swykk; 12-10-2016 at 08:48 PM.
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So my grandma has had mild Alzheimer's for a couple years now. She was mainly just having trouble with relatively small things, but her condition has suddenly taken a really bad turn for the worse almost overnight.
About two weeks ago, she sort of snuck out of the house in the middle of the night with no warning and was nowhere to be found. My grandpa searched everywhere. He called the cops, who eventually tracked her down at a neighbor's house. When they attempted to bring her home, she refused because she said she didn't feel safe. She said that my grandpa was violent and trying to kill her, which couldn't be more wrong of course. My grandpa is an incredibly kind and gentle person, and he cares about my grandma's wellbeing more than anything. I don't think they've had even small arguments for many, many years now. Still, she refused to go home and stayed at a friend's house for the next two days.
I happened to be on break from work right now, so I was able to come out here (to Idaho) with my mom and I'm shocked by how severe her dementia has suddenly become and how rapidly she's declining. Just a couple weeks ago we were having relatively normal phone conversations about tv shows and the election and shopping and whatnot. Now she's confused about who I even am. When I first got here, she asked me if I've ever met my grandpa. I said "Of course I have, I've known both of you my whole life, remember? I even lived with you guys for a couple years when I was a teenager, back in your old house." And she just smiled and said, "Oh. That's nice." Then she proceeded to ask me if I've ever met my mom. Yesterday she told my mom (her oldest daughter), "You've always been such a kind person. Thank you for raising me." Its like she's forgetting who we are. And the repetition in conversations has gotten WAY more extreme. She will literally ask the same two or three questions for an hour and a half straight sometimes.
But by far, the worst part is the extreme paranoia and terror she has now. It's mostly about my grandpa, but sometimes shifting towards anyone who even subtly suggests that she might not be in her right mind. She's convinced that a) my grandpa wants to kill her, and b) there is some kind of conspiracy in the works to get her institutionalized. Her friend couldn't keep her at her house anymore because she had to get back to work, plus it was asking too much. So now my grandma's back to staying in her home, along with my grandpa, me, my mom and my cousin. To keep her from running away at night, I'm the one stays up all night and keeps an eye on her. She sleeps in the basement because she's terrified to be anywhere else at night. She barely sleeps because she's so afraid, and she continually tries to leave the house. Luckily I haven't had to physically stop her or anything like that, I just try to distract her and calm her down by changing the conversation, or maybe telling her partial lies about why she shouldn't go out (I.e, "your friends are coming over soon for a visit in the morning. Don't you think you should be here when they get here?") I can't stand the idea of having to get into some kind of physical confrontation with her. The problem is she's going several nights with almost no sleep. Sometimes I will read the bible to her, since she's pretty religious, and after a while she'll doze off for half an hour or so, but then she just wakes up again, back in the grip of the paranoia. I tell her she needs sleep for her health and she just says, "I can't. I want to live." She's not getting enough sleep at all, and she refuses to eat very much.
We took her to her doctor the other day, a neurologist who specializes in Alzheimer's. He really didn't have much help for us. She's on some medication called rivastigmine (or something like that), and he just suggested increasing the dose, which we're now doing, but it hasn't really made much of a difference so far. I was disappointed in him, but to be fair, what's he going to do for her? There is no cure for Alzheimer's disease, so I already know where this horrible nightmare is going to end.
I just don't understand how it got so extreme so fast. It's so upsetting to sit there with her for hours and hours through the night when she gets deep into that paranoid mode. Some of the stuff she says is just so extreme. She keeps saying over and over, "Please, why can't you just believe me? I'm not crazy. He wants to cut me into little pieces, he really does. He'll break the locks and kill me and you together. He's been doing it his whole life, killing all the people I love and cutting them up into really small pieces. Please believe me, we need to get to a safe place. Please, I just want to live."... And almost nothing I say will work. It's impossible for me to fully express how gut-wrenching it is to go through the night for hours and hours listening to someone you love go stark raving mad.
And my poor grandpa is just utterly heartbroken. He keeps saying that he can't believe after all these decades of happy marriage, that this is what its going to come to. The whole situation is just horrible. We're currently working on a plan to relocate her to Minnesota, where there's a more extensive family network for her and higher quality health care. I'm just praying this move goes smoothly (we leave Wednesday, supposedly).
Anyway, sorry about this really long post. I'm just sitting here all by myself, since she finally did fall asleep tonight (hopefully it'll last). I can't really do anything else right now but sit here on my stupid phone and vent to anyone who will listen.
Throbbing Member
I just wanted to point out that my fat fingers and Tapatalk made me like this, which was completely unintended. So, sorry about that.
Having followed your posts quite a bit through the years as a lurker, I'm sorry to hear that, man. Personal nightmare of mine right there...
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Administrator
I'm so sorry that your family is suffering so much because of this terrible disease.
Banned
That's really horrible, I can't imagine how your grandfather must feel hearing that. Hopefully the increased dosage makes some sort of difference.
Captain Rustleboots
No worries! I got hired on at a much better job on Halloween day!
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Thanks guys, I appreciate the words of support.
Btw, @allegro , I think you had a post I here yesterday (that seems to be gone now...?) where you asked about the doctor prescribing her something, at least for the trip. We asked her doctor about that, and he says that he's really leary of giving her any kind of sleeping pills, anti-anxiety meds, etc, because all of them have a chance of impairing her cognitive abilities even more. To be honest, I think the move will probably go okay. She does a lot better in the day time. Night is when the paranoia comes on real strong, which is why i thought some kind.of sedative for sleeping would maybe help, but what do I know. Plus, she actually really wants to move, which I wasn't expecting. I thought she'd be resistant to the idea, but she says she's tired of living far from most of her family and old friends. She and my grandpa will be travelling in separate vehicles and staying in separate hotel rooms, so I'm praying that she'll calm down a bit. She'll be with lots of people, too, so she won't be able to run away. I'm hoping that her condition will improve with the change of environment, the increased family interaction, better nutrition and sleep, better medical care, etc., but who knows. To be honest, the experience has been so mentally and physically exhausting that its been hard to think long term. Right now we're just trying to get through the week.
I think I recently mentioned on here about having a tendency for existential dread/fear of mortality, and holy shit, the last couple weeks have felt like a bit of a nightmare in that regard. Getting old is fucking SCARY. It's made me want to start getting a lot healthier and start planning for my own future years better, but then even that kind of bums me out. I mean, it's pretty fucking depressing to be like "welp, I'm finally in my thirties now, guess I better start saving up for a solid nursing home while I still can." I mean, fuck, might as well just jump in the grave right now, sheesh. So then I'm like "nope! I'm not even gonna go there! No way. I'm not thinking about ANY of that depressing stuff. I'm still young, and I'm just gonna enjoy my time." But then, its that very unwillingness to plan for the future that fucks so many people over. To be honest, that's part of why my grandma wound up like this, because of poor planning.
Really wish our country had an even better support system for the elderly so that getting old wouldn't be such a nightmare. Its like every American's got a sword hanging over their head.
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Oh also, allegro, your old post had a link to some kind of lojack device for wandering old people, or something like that? Do you still have that link? I was curious about that.
Bite me
Yes, link is here.
My stepmom got Alzheimer's in her 50s ... She was dead by 62. But she had early-onset, which is a particular (and hereditary) form of Alzheimer's. The movie "Still Alice" was based on that form.
I still can't bring myself to watch that movie, because my family lived it.
Then there's LBD which is really fucking scary.
I do know that doctors give Alzheimer's patients anti psychotic drugs when needed.
You are doing the right thing by not arguing with her; it feels weird to lie ("your friends are coming over") but you're doing the right thing. My brother had AIDS-related dementia and he'd do things like ask for us to order a case of Ensure while he was in the hospital. We'd just say, "Okay, we'll do that right away." They had him on Depakote.
See Stages of Alzheimer's here. We weren't able to put my stepmom into a nursing home until she reached late-stage. Until that point, there was NO help, doctors provided little help, my Dad was pretty much on his own with daily care up until the point where she was incontinent and could barely walk (they lose their motor skills, they WANT their body to do things like lift a leg to walk up a step but the brain doesn't cooperate, etc.). THANKFULLY, my stepmom wasn't a runner, she couldn't figure out how to undo the locks on the doors, so my Dad could sneak out for a short time to get groceries but that was about it; he was more worried about her falling down the stairs or burning down the house via the stove, etc. Which also happens. It was heartbreaking; me, my Dad and my stepmom were sitting at the kitchen table, and she grimaced like she was in pain. My Dad asked her where it hurt, and she pointed to the kitchen table. Because she had completely lost the ability to point in the direction she wanted.
Last edited by allegro; 01-03-2017 at 11:17 PM.
Active Member
I had to work a three to midnight on my birthday. That's about the extent of fuckery I had to deal with today.
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That's so incredibly sad. I'm really sorry to hear about all that. I have always felt bad for anyone who had to watch a loved one go through dementia, Alzheimer's, etc, but so far I had very little first hand experience with it myself. It truly is a terrible disease, and I wouldn't wish this experience on my worst enemy. My grandpa keeps saying, "It's like a living death," and I think that really is the best way to describe it. The person is still alive, they're still here, talking and moving around, but their mind is slowly breaking down. And the thing is, the mind is what makes a person who they are. It's the source of their personality, their memories, their shared relationship with you. So if that part of them is going away, it does seem like a kind of inner death.
I'm definitely scared about all those late-stage symptoms you mentioned that I just know are coming sooner or later. I guess we'll cross that horrible bridge when we come to it. Everything I read and everyone I talk to who has any experience with this says that there inevitably comes a point where it gets too difficult to keep the person home, but that's going to be complicated for us, for a couple reasons. For one thing, almost every person in my family is fairly poor. Very little college or high paying jobs, no real savings. So paying for a good nursing home out of pocket isn't really an option. It's basically Medicare or nothing, and i have some concern about the quality of care she'll get like that. I regularly work with nursing students at the college i work at, many of whom work in nursing homes while they're in school, and I've heard so many horror stories. The other thing is that there's a very strong aversion to that type of thing in my family. It's almost like a cultural thing, where they think of most Americans as kind of cold and unloving for putting their seniors in nursing homes. One of my great aunts is talked about almost like she's a hero because she kept her husband home with his Parkinson's right until the end. In general, I suppose I too share that value system, but I think it depends on the severity of the situation. Sure, I think it's kind of ridiculous to be tossing old people unto nursing homes over minor things, but it's a different situation when the person needs round the clock medical care, they can hardly move, they're incontinent, etc. I'm very worried about what's coming.
And thanks for the links. The LBD stuff is super interesting. I have been suspecting that she is misdiagnosed, mainly because I feel like her meds do almost nothing for her. Not all of the symptoms listed on that site perfectly match up with her, but some do, and I'm sure each person's case is unique. At the very least, its something to look into. I'm really looking forward to getting her to MN and finding her a really top notch doctor that really knows what he's doing.
And man, that "Still Alice" movie is probably really great, but yeah, I'm definitely gonna have to hold off on watching that for a bit. Still, i actually am really glad to see that there are movies out there about this subject matter. There's a movie called "Wit" with Emma Thompson about an English teacher who goes through chemo, and even though it's probably the most brutal cinematic depiction of cancer ever made, I still really loved it and found it strangely life affirming in a weird way. I'm sure I will watch Still Alice sooner or later.
Bite me
Okay, here's the thing (I know a lot about this having had to put quite a few people into nursing homes at various points in my life):
Medicare does not pay for nursing home care. It only pays for 100 days of nursing home care, and that's usually for rehab, like if you had surgery and you need to stay at a nursing home's rehab section.
Once your 100 days are up and if you are "long term," you automatically get switched to MEDICAID.
The cost of nursing homes is so high that pretty much NOBODY can afford them, so nearly everybody except really rich people pay for them and they don't, they have in-home care. Nursing homes are pretty much paid entirely by Medicaid.
Speciality facilities like fancy "Memory Care" facilities are paid for out-of-pocket because Medicare doesn't pay for that, either.
I CAN give you this advise, which will become invaluable at some point:
The U.S. Government now has a WEB SITE where you can locate and compare nursing home facilities that are Medicare and Medicaid certified.
That site also has a ton of information as to how to choose a nursing home when you are at that point. When we had to choose one for my stepmother, she was in the hospital and they wanted to discharge her to a home and they gave us a list of a few homes and told us they wanted her out of the hospital THE NEXT DAY. Which is pretty typical. If that happens to you, tell them to fuck off and buy a few more days if you can.
Thank God I was in Detroit visiting my Dad, otherwise he would have been totally overwhelmed. I did a bunch of online research and we visited three nursing homes. Two of them separated the Alzheimer's patients from the remainder of the residents, and we didn't get a very good vibe from those places. The third home didn't, they integrated the Alzheimer's patients in with the others, and the home's administrator explained that that they felt this was much better for the patients because they got more interaction this way, plus the activities like music in the social room was something that Alzheimer's patients REALLY enjoy.
(That's true, btw, if you haven't noticed that, yet; play some music for them, and it TOTALLY calms them, they'll often sing along even if they can barely remember anything, they'll remember songs. The nursing homes will often play music during eating time because it's so hard to get advanced-stage patients to concentrate on eating, but play some music and wow, different story.)
Anyway, my Dad had to retire early at 62 to stay home and take care of her, so he got squat for Social Security, and my stepmom wasn't even ELIGIBLE for Social Security because she was in her 50s when this started so they had to apply for SSDI (disability) and she was rejected (as is always the norm the first go-around) and then she finally got around $900 per month for SSDI which was SHIT, really.
Yes, there can be horror stories re nursing homes, but there are horror stories re hospitals, too. Look for a high-rated home, and then you pretty much have to visit your relative every day and be your relative's "advocate." Same when your relative is in the hospital, there is SHIT care in hospitals these days, too. It's our healthcare system, in general.
I can tell you that at some point, it will be too difficult for you and your family to care for your grandma at home due to incontinence, inability to get in and out of the tub, walking difficulties, and swallowing difficulties. Eventually, the decision has to be made as to whether or not to put the patient on a feeding tube because Alzheimer's patients eventually can no longer swallow. So, yeah, the ride gets pretty rough.
Last edited by allegro; 01-04-2017 at 02:25 AM.
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@allegro , wow thanks a lot for all that info. Really helpful and informative. I took a look at that website for a few minutes and looked at some of the nursing homes near my mom's house. I like the way the site tells you things like percentage of falls, number of minutes spent with the resident per day, etc. One of them in particular looks really good, and it's only 5 minutes from my mom's place. I'll have to look at it more closely when I get home and I can view it on a proper computer monitor instead of my dumb phone.
One other thing that bugs me is that my grandpa actually has been able to save up a small amount of savings, I think about 20k, over the last 14 years. I'm assuming Medicaid is gonna want him to pay down before they'll pitch in, which is too bad. I think he was hoping to leave that to his three kids. It's not much, especially divided three ways, but as I said, we're not the richest family around and every bit helps. I guess it just bugs me that all his frugality and saving over the years will be for nothing. But then again, money comes and money goes. The most important thing is that my grandma gets good help. I definitely do not want to see some situation where my grandma is left at home and not receiving adequate care, simply because some people are hoping to preserve his small savings. That said, my family isn't money greedy at all, so I don't really think that would happen. I'm just hoping that when the time finally comes, I won't be the only one saying that she needs to go in a nursing home. Maybe if the situation is severe enough, the others will agree. I don't love the idea either, but I also don't know if home care is realistic with the really advanced stages of Alzheimers (or whatever she has). But who knows, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. My family members aren't idiots, and they're good people. We can deal with that stuff when the time comes.
And thanks for the tip about music. I've heard that before. My grandparents have always loved Broadway musicals, and we've watched a few over the last few days, and she has definitely enjoyed them a lot. For some weird reason, they don't have a good stereo or cd player set up around here, but we're leaving anyway, so once we get back to MN, we'll get something set up.
Bite me
@Mantra , You're welcome.
Your grandpa may not have to pay anything if the savings is in his name, alone. If it's joint, then SEE THIS; it looks like your state actually has a daily home assistant option, paid by Medicaid for low-income seniors so you may qualify for that pretty soon, before your grandma is eligible for a nursing home. Take advantage of whatever bennies you can get. If your grandma is getting Social Security, that will go to a nursing home until your grandma passes away, so your grandpa will most likely lose that income. If they owned a home, Medicaid would lien it but they would never take it while the patient is alive; if the house was sold, then the lien must be paid. No, I don't think you will be the only one in favor of a nursing home at that time, really. When it gets that bad, it's overwhelming and a full-time job that requires skilled care and heavy lifting etc. My Dad visited his wife as often as two times per day so that eased his guilt of her living in a home; but the truth was that she was getting far better care, there.
When / if it gets to that point, go visit each home, do a tour, look out for things like cleanliness, urine smell, people sitting around everywhere in wheelchairs unattended, etc. and do an interview with the administrator of admissions. You'll have to call first just to find out about availability (beds open) and see if they accept Alzheimer's patients, then when you see them, talk with them about how they deal with Alzheimer's patients, their philosophy of care, if they have therapists for them.
It's good to start networking with Alzheimer's community advocates at this phase, before it gets bad; for emotional support, for information, for resources, etc.
Last edited by allegro; 01-04-2017 at 11:57 AM.
Stubby Member
We left Australia a little more than a year ago, and moved back to eastern Canada after 23 years away, because my wife's mother was losing her battle with leukemia. This was the right thing to do: we had 6 good months with her before she passed away. My wife spent a lot of time with her mom, our son got to spend time with his gran, and we're now firmly embedded back into both our extended families.
And then last week my mom got diagnosed: she's got cancer of the blood, too. Not leukemia: multiple myeloma. Her prognosis is likely to be much better than my mother-in-law's was, but it's still incurable cancer. She starts chemo tomorrow, which will of course be hard on her.
It's tough, coming only months after my wife's mother died. But this is why we moved back to Canada, so we could be closer to our families when things like this happen.
But fuck.
Bite me
Sorry to hear that. My father-in-law died of multiple myeloma. They gave him Phthalimide and radiation for areas where he had broken bones from the MM. The Phthalimide was weird because nobody of childbearing age could TOUCH it with bare hands. It had photos of Phthalimide babies on the front of it. He wasn't eligible for a bone marrow transplant due to his age (he was in his early-70s). The worst part is how it affects the bones, and he had rib fractures and stuff and then he got pneumonia because I guess it compromises the immune system.
Like you said, though, it really is good that you are home with your family, now.
I savor every moment, now, especially after my Dad died last year; he went into the hospital on Jan 3 and never came home. I'm usually pretty cognizant of mortality, already, but it made me even more aware of savoring each day with family, and not take any of it for granted, and to have patience when they drive me totally nuts.
Last edited by allegro; 01-04-2017 at 01:42 PM.
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Thanks a lot. I really appreciate all the advice. To be honest, your posts have been more informative and helpful than the majority of people I've talked to so far. I don't know how you know so much stuff about so many subjects, but it's nice being able to read your perspective on things.
Re: Medicaid and the financial side of things... I'll have to look into it more when we get there. There are aspects of my grandparents financial situation that I don't know about (ie: How much they get from social security, exactly how much savings they have in their account, etc). Everybody has been so preoccupied with taking care of my grandma and just getting through the day/week that I don't think we've thought about all the practical/financial stuff nearly enough. For example, my grandparents own a small house that's completely paid for, which is going to be sold in a couple months. They're not planning to by a new house in MN. Instead they'll be living with my mom, and POSSIBLY using the money from the house sale to build a small "granny flat" on her property. They haven't totally decided for sure, because we first just want to see how things go when we get there. But those types of things will probably affect their assets a lot Like if they decide to just stay living with my mom, they'll have a lot of cash from the sale of their house (which I believe is worth around 125k or so).
I've seen that MN Medicaid website you linked to, and that's what made me wonder about whether they'll have to spend down. It says...
"To qualify for Minnesota's Medical Assistance, unmarried individuals over 65 may have no more than $3,000 in assets, subject to certain exclusions. If both members of a married couple are applying for Medical Assistance, total assets may not exceed $6,000. "
And it also says...
"Even if your income exceeds the applicable threshold, you may still qualify for Medical Assistance with a "spenddown," which operates similar to an insurance deductible. With a spenddown, you must pay a specified portion of your income toward medical expenses before Medical Assistance will provide coverage."
Now maybe I'm not understanding it right, but it sounds like they can't have more than 6k in assets ( which they do) and so they might have to pay what they can out of pocket first before they'll be eligible. That said, the site says they require meeting with someone at the DHS before any if this can happen anyway, so maybe when we do that they can explain it to us more clearly. I'm probably getting way ahead of myself since her condition is not quite that severe just yet, so we'll see. Still, its good to know this info now, so I can be thinking about things early and plan ahead.
Captain Rustleboots
I was going to hang a picture in my office at work and totally forgot my mighty hook for it at home. These are dark times.
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Really sorry to hear that. Talk about bad luck. That's great that you're by your family though. It makes such a huge difference to be around family when you're having to go through difficult times like that. Like everyone, I've had my difficulties and conflicts with my family over the years, but I'm learning that, for better or worse, they're my main support network. I'm grateful for all of them.
Stubby Member
It's rare for women to get MM, I hear. She did have a bad break early this year, and that make more sense now. But she's had more scans and there don't seem to be any other breaks. She's younger (mid-60s) and the doctor says he feels she's still transplant-eligible. We'll see how the chemo goes.
Thanks.
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Yeah, you're right, we do need to be more proactive. It's hard, because I'm hearing contradictory things from my grandpa right now, since he's upset and emotional about all of this. Sometimes he acts like their savings are really important because he wants to be able to leave something for his kids. He has a lot of regret about the fact that they were always working class and sometimes struggled to get by. They were never able to do things like send their kids to college, and certain people gave him a lot of shit about it back in the day. He's always felt insecure about not being a good enough "provider." So I think that's why he sometimes says stuff about their savings being important, so that he could finally pass something on. On the other hand, this stuff with my grandma getting way worse and running away has scared the living shit out of him, so he mostly acts like he doesn't care about anything else now. He says stuff like "I don't care about the house, the money, the furniture, none of it. All that matters is that she's okay and taken care of." I think right now he's just sort of reeling, so it's probably not the best time to talk about this stuff. Plus there's that strong aversion that everyone had about any suggestion of a nursing home, which also makes it hard to discuss this subject. But yeah, as soon as we get home, I will have to bite the bullet and start trying to discuss this stuff.
And actually, I don't think we'll have trouble getting my grandma to sign the papers. She is 100% on board with the idea of moving to Minnesota because she thinks she'll be safer there. Sometimes she forgets about the whole plan, but as soon as someone brings it up again, she's always very enthusiastic about it. I think they want to sell the house because they don't want to be paying utilities or property tax on a house that they're not even living in anymore.
Either way, we all need to start having a lot more open conversations about this stuff.
Bite me
@Mantra , I'm from a generation where friggin' NONE of my friends went to college full time, and none of our parents paid for it, things were different back then. You guys need to convince him that it's okay, your grandma is the highest priority.
He still may be able to protect his assets, you don't know. You need to meet with experts. But this is what happens in life.
Signing papers isn't the problem. It's the fact that she already has dementia and the document isn't legal if she signs it if she isn't totally in her "right mind." People not of their right mind cannot legally sign legal documents. You may have to get a guardianship declared. A notary has to notarize that the people signing the document were who they said they were and knew what they were signing.
If she's not THAT bad yet and can understand what she is signing, you may have to get her to sign a Power of Attorney to your Grandfather so that HE can sign a Deed for a sale closing because selling a house right now could take some time.
Last edited by allegro; 01-04-2017 at 10:59 PM.
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Ugh, yeah, I was somewhat worried about this. The thing is, even though her memory is bad and she goes through these intense paranoia phases, its not like she's 100% gone. Sometimes she forgets who I even am, but that comes and goes. And she does understand what it means to move and sell their house. It's not like she wouldn't be comprehending the decision she's making. So I was hoping that would mean she was considered competent enough in that specific instance.
To be honest, it'll be significantly more challenging to get her to sign something making my grandpa her power of attorney, or anyone else for that matter. Her paranoia against him sort of comes and goes throughout the day, but I have a feeling that asking her to sign something like that would trigger her delusions about him trying hurt her. Plus she's very defensive about her autonomy. She sometimes accuses others of conspiring to have her committed, so asking her to sign a power of attorney document probably wouldn't sit well with her at all.
I guess there's the while guardianship/conservatorship route, but it sounds like that's a fairly lengthy, expensive legal process. If we have to do it, oh well, but I was hoping we could avoid all that. She 100% wants to move and sell their house, and I don't think its a stretch at all to claim that she is fully comprehending the nature of this decision. I guess the question is whether they would claim that her condition means that she is totally incapable of making ANY kind of decision like that at all. We definitely wouldn't want to be doing anything illegal.
Bite me
My Dad had less dementia than the mental state of your grandma, and I asked his doc if he was competent enough to sign a POA and the doc said absolutely not. For what it's worth. The arbiter isn't you; it's her doctors. Guardianship isn't that hard, you can do it without attorneys and fairly quickly. She would have to be interviewed by the Court, though, because she can oppose it, then there is a hearing. It's not costly if you do it yourself, advocates through your grandma's doctor's office can help, or I can help you do research.
The POA would only be for the sale of the house, have your MOM be her POA. There are a SHIT TON of docs to sign in a real estate closing and she won't understand a single one. Her delusions make it pretty clear that she's far past the point of being in her right mind, sorry to say. She isn't even eligible to sign a POA, most likely.
You may have to wait until she's in a more advanced stage to accomplish this, sorry to say. Leave the house for now and just deal with what is at hand; things tend to move quicker at middle stage and you guys are gonna have your hands totally full. You won't have time to deal with things like selling that house or moving all their stuff; she will take too much time to be able to juggle that, too. The Alzheimer's caregiver motto becomes "one day at a time" (armed with info).
I feel bad for you and your family, it's a hard and sad road. You're in my thoughts and prayers.
Last edited by allegro; 01-05-2017 at 08:27 AM.
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Thanks @allegro ...well I guess the guardianship thing is what we'll have to do, at some point. In reading more about this issue, I really wish they had signed one of those "springing" power of attorneys, where it only goes into effect after a person becomes incapacitated. The problem is we never know about these things until we need them and it's too late.
And yeah, you're definitely right about the one day at a time thing. We're gonna hit the road in about an hour and begin the drive back to MN. I'm hoping the trip goes smoothly. We can deal with the house/money at a later time.
Again, I greatly appreciate all your thought and advice.
Flaccid Member
I can't find my pen. Someone here in the office took my damn pen. Sonofabitch!
Active Member
One of my best friends died in his sleep last night. I'm completely devastated right now.
I was nobody. Nothing.
goddamn i'm sorry
she/her/hers
stay strong, dude. i'm so sorry. know that there are plenty of people here who care about you if you need to talk.
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