The smell was acrid, toxic and disgusting. As my sister and I made our way down the steps to our mother's house, she offered us some freshly baked muffins. "No thanks, Mom, but what is that smell?"
"Oh, it's probably rat piss. They've been living under my oven." I never thought I'd see the day when my own mother would be living in a rat-filled, trash-strewn house.
I normally write about women in business. But very often, women's business also includes taking care of family, and especially those family members who are unable to take care of their own business. And as part of the tail end of the Baby Boom generation, I suspect that others are facing some of these same issues. The fabled work-life balance goes out the window in times of crisis.
My recent experiences with my own mother have left me in a state of deer-in-the-headlights bewilderment about just how quickly things can spiral out of control, and how few resources are available to help families deal with the problems of aging parents. After my mother's second stroke, brought on principally by her failure to take her meds as prescribed ("I forgot... and they didn't seem like they were doing any good anyway."), my siblings and I decided she could no longer live in her beloved home. Between the boxes of "important papers" (credit card receipts from the past 20 years), furniture in various states of (dis)repair, half-finished hobby projects and dust bunnies the size of Rottweilers, the environment posed a severe trip hazard. On top of that, friends and neighbors told us that she and her boyfriend of 30 years would often forget to turn the stove off, or would leave half-eaten food on the counter for days at a time, and then go back to nibble on it later, apparently not realizing that it had never made it back into the fridge. No wonder Mom complains constantly about stomach and digestive problems!
She was still in the hospital when my sister and I tried to gently tell her why she could not go home. It was like reasoning with a two-year old:
"But I like my home. I want to go home."
"Mom, you don't eat properly and you need someone capable who can remind you to take your medications."
"I can cook. I always have. Barrie [the boyfriend, who has terminal cancer] can help out."
"Barrie is very sick. He can't take care of you."
Our mother's domestic problems were only made worse by the fact that she had started a bedroom expansion project many months earlier and somehow neglected to apply for the requisite building permit. The city slapped her with a stop work order and code violations that had to be remedied within days. The police officer patiently pointed out to us all the offending items (old siding, paint buckets, miscellaneous building materials, parts of a garage door hanging in a tree and a collection of about 50 small furniture wheels) that had to be either tossed out or moved to an offsite storage location.
While our mother recuperated in a skilled nursing facility, my sister and I set off on a mad dash to find assisted living quarters for her near my sister's home. What a shock! Barely tolerable to truly depressing are words to describe these places. Some of them are so bad that I wouldn't even board my dog there! As we toured one facility, our host opened the door to a vacant apartment and exclaimed, "Oh, I guess we have a little mold problem." Yeah, like for the past 10 years. Add to that the phenomenal amount of rent that these places charge (from $2800 for the worst to over $6000 per month) and you face old-age sticker shock like never before. A few calculations and you realize just how fast your own mother could bankrupt you. Payback's a bitch... this is what I get for being a colicky baby.
In a carefully choreographed day, the nursing facility discharged Mom and her grocery bag full of medications to me. After a stop at the hospital where the boyfriend was dying, we boarded a plane to her new digs. Do not pass go, collect $200 or visit the old house. It sounds mean and it is. But kidnapping my mother was the only way to make sure that she would not cause further harm to herself. Now we just have to navigate the Medicare maze and figure out how to afford all the expensive care we've signed her up for. At least she can finally live rat-free and I can cancel the pest control service.
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Castigating the calamity of life pessimistically reduces the size of a future world. The question is what are you doing today to protect your world of tomorrow?
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It would be good to have a website for the elderly. I haven't been to Aarp lately. Do they have places on their website about dealing with the elderly? We could probably learn a lot from each other.
When my mother was 83 she said that she still had the same feelings she had when she was young except she was getting forgetful and wrinkled.
http://returntoworkmom.blogspot.com/
I need another operation so have prepared my bedroom for when I come home and will have to stay in bed awhile. I bought a laptop, a bed desk, padded mattress pads and things a person may need when they are in bed. I have put a tv and a comfortable recliner in the room where I can see the TV from bed or a recliner.
A good pest control company will take care of all the rodents and bugs. A half day a week house cleaner would work as far as keeping the house neat. We can hire to have the lawn mowed. We have grandchildren that can help.
Right now, we can get our own groceries and do our own shopping. When we get to where we can not drive, there are buses that take the elderly and drop them off at stores. They come to the door and pick you up and drop you off. Later on, there should be small businesses that pop up that will do shopping for the elderly at a reasonable price.
People need a safety deposit box for their papers and jewelry, etc.
All this may seem expensive, but it is not when compared with assisted living or a nursing home.
No matter how bad things get, America's young people will save this country, even though their elders seem determined to make it as difficult as possible.
Why the attitude, youngnation? Why do you think the elders are making it as difficult as possible?
Notice the baby boomer bulge that is climbing to the top of that graph. Each year Washington puts off dealing with the costs of our exploding elderly population, the pain for both elders and the young increases.
"attitude" comes from the realization that to get elected, pandering boomer politician's have promised unsustainable "entitlements" to their parents and themselves. A path their children cannot afford. Why? Because those same politician's allowed manufacturing jobs to be shipped overseas. Why? Because they received contributions from exploiting corporations who care more about short term profits and "personal" wealth over the prosperity of America's posterity. Who elected them over the past few decades? Acquiescent elders. Not today's young people. Isn't this making it more difficult for young American's? Not as difficult as possible? OK. Add incompetent or collusive or underfunded (your choice) elder regulators allowing our financial system to implode. Not difficult enough? How about an economy where young people's earning potential will be stunted for the rest of their lives. Still more? Add huge deficits to huge debt just as the largest generational cohort is reaching retirement age. Generational malfeasance.
This sad article is a glimpse into our future. A very sad future, where these current painful options may seem like luxuries of the past. Who is responsible for this? Not young people. Who will pay for it? Young people.
I think a better solution would be to find a caretaker who needs a place to live and who is still young enough to take care of a house. That is not easy either, but watching my mother deteriorate in a home was so depressing for me that I decided I will do everything to avoid that for myself.
We were able to provide her and her 3 daughter's with a free apartment in exchange for having someone with my father 24X7. It was a win-win-win . They brightened his final days and became part of the family, they had a safe place away from their abusive husband/father, my brothers and I had peace of mind knowing he was being looked after as we lived hours away and did not have the time to be there for him on a daily basis.
The majority of the poor in our nation are children.
Now, we can't 'afford' cost of living increases for those receiving social security.
It's those of us 'in between' that end up bearing this burden.
Some of us are ready to crack.
I do so wish you luck.