Aquatic Money Pit and the book of Proverbs

Sorry I have not posted in a while but I have been super busy. At church we have been studying the book of Proverbs which is an excellent read. And maybe because I have been reading it, I was really hurt when my Dad did something very foolish. See my mom and I have a joint mutual fund and he took money out of it to buy an Aqautic Money Pit aka boat without telling me. Mom is incompetent due to the advanced stage of Dementia. Needless to say we had one hellatious fight over it. He did eventually do the right thing and gave the money back. I explained that I was holding on to the money in case he should die before mom and she would need immediate nursing home care. We sat down and talked about how it was simply unethical in my mind and he agreed that he had acted wrongly. Now about Mom. She is getting to the point where is she not eating very much at all and we've had to invite Hospice into the home to help take care of her. This was not an easy decision but was totally necessary as the part-time home health aide quit to take on a full time job. This way she will be allowed to die at home with dignity. They even provide chaplain services as well as volunteers to relieve Dad when he needs to get away for a few hours. Have to go back to work now.

Trail of Tears

My Mom has Dementia. She's had it for several years. About a year ago she started to forget who I was and who my brothers are. Our most recent part-time care giver decided she needed a full time job and called my mother's doctor to express her concerns about the general care of my mom. His Nurse, KP, paid a home visit and called me very concerned. The doctor referred us to Hospice, which at first my father refused to cooperate. Two weeks ago we had a COME TO JESUS meeting and we all decided that Mom needed more care than what Dad can provide and that Hospice is the way to go as she can die at home with dignity. This past Saturday we met with the Hospice team and learned about what they have to offer. They will provide part-time Home Health Aide care 4-5 days a week during the mornings. They informed us that Mom's not eating is part of the dying process and that she is in the end stage of Dementia and will die in a few weeks or months. They also provide nursing care and volunteer services. Since she will be a client of Hospice, no agency or person can declare neglect against my family. That is very reassuring to me. We convinced Dad that this is what Mom would want as she was a 22 year Hospice Volunteer. She would go sit with the patients while the caretaker went out for a while. My mom will die very soon. I don't know quite how my family and I will handle this. Then there is the concern that my 85 yr. old father plans to die at home. I'm not sure that he will be able to live in the home alone and may have to go to assisted living or something like that. People refer to Dementia as the ``Long Goodbye'' as it is a terminal disease that takes its time. I call it ``The Trail of Tears'' because I have been doing alot of crying over the years that she has been afflicted with this disease. I am sure Groucho would agree with me on that count. My mom and I have always had a very close relationship until the damned disease took over her mind. Now I will be losing her for a second time, but I will surely meet her in heaven one day along with her brothers(my uncles), a cousin, and my grandparents.

Come to Jesus meeting

Here's the update on my mom: She had fallen outside a few weeks ago and the part time home health aide reported the incident to my mother's doctor. He then sent his head nurse to do a home check. KP had known my mom from mom's 20 yrs. of volunteer work with Hospice. KP called me at work last week and said that the doctor and she think that mom will need Hospice care at this point. I called my middle brother, P, and suggested we have a come to Jesus meeting with the other two brothers and Dad as he was resisting the doctor's suggestion. We all met on Saturday and decided that Hospice would be the best solution as Medicare pays 100% of the cost and mom would get to remain at home and die with dignity. The meeting actually went very well (I was worried that it wouldn't). While there I bathed mom and cleaned up the bedroom and upstairs bathroom as she had peed all over the place. I was also able to get her to eat breakfast and drink fluids as she usually won't eat. Since I stayed until Sunday afternoon, I went down to the lake to swim one last time for the year. Groucho went with me and went into the woods and came out in camoflage! He was covered from head to paw in green prickers! That tooks some time to get all of those tiny prickers out! They were even in his ears! It still amazes me that while mom can't remember our names, she knows my dog's name!