Just Pass Me By

Do you have older parents? Have you ever noticed that they will try to minimize what they are going through? They simply do not want to admit to not being able to take care of the other ill spouse, and will try to do it even though it may make their sistuation so much worst. We are kind of facing this. Mom is having one of her stubborn streaks.

The doctors want my husband mom to be in a care facility for a month, after her surgery. She needs to have therapy to regain strength, she recently had a stroke which is affecting her left side. Yesterday she told the doctors with no uncertain terms was she going back to the home she was at last time, and that she could stay home because their neighbor would take care of her.

My husband mom is able to walk some, but her balance isn’t the best and she is still not strong. She really needs the added care, and their neighbor no matter how well intention probably can not take care of mom 24/7. What happens if she falls in the middle of the night, dad can’t pick her u, and what if their neighbors aren’t able to come to their aide.

I can not tell you how many times, my husband and I have had to tell the Nurses that dad not strong enough to pick up mom if she falls down. Mom has fallen many times at home since this summer, amazingly she has broken no bones, and hasn’t busted open her head yet. How much longer are we going to have before she finally injures her self so bad that she will not be able to go back home again.

Tonight we talked to mom nurse. The nurse seemed to know how to deal with mom and said that she would find out how the overnight goes. She said she had no trouble with mom but the overnight staff has had trouble and had to have a bed alarm on her to make sure she didn’t try to get up on her own. The nurse said if they have trouble then tomorrow she would talk to mom, and try to get her to agree to go to a facility for rehab. My husband and I were planning on having me talk to mom, to try to get her to see right now the safest place may not be at home for her, but in a month if she does rehab and tries hard she can go back home.

I really do not want to be the one to have the talk with his mom, I don’t want her or the rest of the family to think I am the evil daughter in law. I know my concerns do not make me evil, and I almost wonder if us standing idly by is being evil and not helpful. I do not want to his parents harmed or anything but at the same time I don’t want them angry with us neither.. This is such a hard place to be in.

My husband and I have been married for almost 17 months now. His parents are older a lot older then my mom. My mom is 53 years old, she has some health problems and a couple of scares but nothing to make me say I need to leave now and get to Oregon. I better knock on wood I think.

My husband parents are in their late 70′s and late 80′s I love them as if they where my own parents. Some days I wish they where. I do not have a very tight relationship with my own mother and my father is gone. Craig’s dad is like a father to me and his mom is like a mom to me. I find it so easy to call them mom and dad and sometimes this confuses people I work with, or talk to because I talk of them like they are my own. I believe they are my own, when Craig and I got married we became one what his is mine and what’s mine is his. I feel sometimes he got the raw end of the deal. My mom had a time with drug use, and not being very trust worthy. I am proud of my mom for her overcoming, she has come a long way.

Craig’s mom is again in the hospital, she was in for a stroke over the summer. We were all scared we would lose her, so we had to rush out. Last night we received a call from dad, telling us mom was in the hospital. He wasn’t very clear what was exactly wrong but we knew it had something to do with the heart. She went first to her local hospital then was transfered to a Hospital in Rochester.

Mom heart rate was down to 15 at one point, not good and she had been passing out which is not good. Her blood sugars where also high and needed to be dealt with. We found out that she has problems with her heart beating to slowly, and needs a pace maker in to regulate her heart beat. We talked to the nurses to find out more information, and share our concerns.

Over the last month dad has gotten him self into some trouble. He still drives. I feel like a evil Daughter in law, because I been feeling like mom and dad are not able to live at home to much longer because their safety could be in jeopardy if they did. Dad does not call for help right away when mom has fallen, and they wait for to many days before seeking medical attention which could cause them a lot of problems.

We have a neighbor who is like family to us, they have done so much work to allow mom and dad to live at home safely, but I don’t feel they are safe enough. Over New Years they had an other neighbor take dad out to pick up someone in dad van. It was very snowy and dangerous to be driving in, Craig and I decided to stay home because of the weather. This neighbor had dad out for over 17 hours, and refused to pull over, when dad had told them to do so. The girl drove dad car going well over 80 miles an hour, and got lost on the way. First off you do not drive an elderly man for that long in a car, this is not okay. Secondly you do not drive 80 in a damn snow storm, you go as fast as you can with out trying to kill everyone on the road. Dad did not call us till it was all over. He and mom have a cell phone which he didn’t bother to bring with him. Had he brought it he could have called for help.

I have it in my right mind next time I see this neighbor of theirs to tell them off in not a very polite way. They come over to cook meals and then eat mom and dad food. Mom and dad do not make enough money to feed what a Family of 5 counting the adults in the house. When we go over to mom and Dad, Craig and I buy stuff for them, and if they insist we let them provide a little bit to but not a whole meal.

Dad is a very easy touch, he is very giving. This is a good quality to have, he very compassionate. If he  is asked for something he will do it even if it puts him into a bad place. Mom is kind of the same way but after her stroke she changed some.

I won’t even touch on Craig’s Sister…. That another issue in and of it self. For a few months now I been feeling like Mom and Dad need more of a assisted living sistuation they are unable to keep the house clean, grant it they have our good neighbor who helps. But our good neighbors are getting tired of having to clean up after this leeching family across the way. I am at lost of what to do because I don’t want to say this to my husband and I don’t want to have his parents thinking I just want to put them away. I am so scared that something very bad will happen to mom and dad and we can’t protect them.

To top everything off Craig and I are both with out work. My grandma also fall this week. Hopefully that all that will happen for a while maybe it’s the power of three taking effect. I don’t believe in superstition but some days I wonder.

Let me begin by saying I am not like most women. I do not like shopping at all, I don’t mind it if I am shopping for someone else to give them a present. I like giving things to people. Now when it comes to me, I want to do as little shopping as possible. I hate buying clothes, food and other things needed around the house. I will do it because it needs to be done, but I hate it. Today I went to Cubs, they are a good store to go to. I am used to having to read the ingredients for my allergies but one thing I haven’t have to do is pay attention to Sodium, so now I am looking at ingredients and sodium because we all know I can’t give my husband something that has a huge amount of Sodium.

There are lot of things my husband enjoys including lunch meat which is so high in sodium I feel wrong buying it for him. I don’t want to have to make his lunches to, I don’t have time for that I work full time, and soon will be going back to school to finish off my degree, so home cooking lunches just is not feasible. I love my husband, the best solution I can come up with is make extras for dinner and tell him bring that and eat it. He would probably enjoy it. I am a good cook. I guess that is a blessing for us. I know how to cook. I got my mom and grandma cookings abilities, they never taught me how to cook.

I have learned most of my cooking skills by experimenting. I have a couple of friends who told me they would like me to teach them. I told them I would be willing to do that if they would like. I like baking and cooking it is enjoyable.

Today at Cubs I went right away from work, it was busier then I expected. alright I said I don’t like shopping, I don’t like dealing with cowards of inpatient people. I try to be patient but lately I haven’t been very patient. I was about ready to cry at cubs because everything me and my hubby like for lunch was so high in sodium. I can’t help but feel more and more responsible for his health problems because I wasn’t cooking homemade, I wasn’t taking care of us correctly. It falls mostly on me because I am the one who cooks.

One of his favorite soups or chili sodium was 1140 mg, I like the soup to but after seeing that I bet I could make it and make a lot lower in Sodium. I know premade food has to to have some amount of sodium in order to keep good. I am just starting to find it frustrating that everything He looks is probably very unhealthy, at the same time I realize I can’t say we can’t have this or that, because when we say No to our selves sometimes we will crave it and give in and eat to much of it. So it is best to allow it once in a while and then not eat other thing that have a higher amount of sodium.

Yesterday my husband had a doctor appointment. He told me the doctor made sure he did everything he could to find out what was wrong with hubby and also check over everything. He took time to listen to my husband. I am sure my husband wasn’t kidding because he got home very late he was there for at least 2 hours but it was his first time with the clinic. It is my clinic, and i know they are good and pay attention to their patients.

My husband came home last night with a dozen of roses, I guess he was trying to say thank you. I ask him what they where for because I didn’t do anything to deserve them. Well Craig, my husband and I were talking about his appointment and everything the doctor did. You all should have heard him talk about it, he almost excited about it. Craig has high blood pressure, I don’t cook with a whole lot of salts, and try to watch my sodium intake anyways. When Craig and I first got married he complained about Veggies and said he wouldn’t eat them so I didn’t make as many home made meals as I should have. We all know premade meals have a lot of hidden sodium. Which is my fault I should have not told him what things were made with and just bought what was needed to keep us both healthy.

Well Craig was talking about the Medication he was put on it a water pill. I have never heard of a water pill lowering blood pressure. The doctor told Craig this was the first med he tried with all of his patients, if there was 100 people who came to him with high blood pressure he would treat them first with this, and usually that would resolve their blood pressure problems.

Interesting we will have to see if a water pill is going to work for this with diet and exercise. I love my husband and try to give him what he wants but I think that sometimes he needs to have what is the best for him and if that means me cooking real food and not using a box then that what i need to do. I prefer cooking everything on my own, with all my food allergies I don’t have to worry about do they have something in it that will cause me a reaction.