difficult elderly parents...

[pandus13]

Originally Posted By: PeterPolyol
Originally Posted By: pandus13
bbhero,

I'm not strange to older people/sick/bed ridden.
Dad died(57) when I was 16. I helped my mom care for him for about 4 years. The thin, yellow/earthy men in the coffin was nothing like him.
Helped my step-dad care for an uncle (86) for about 1/2 year. Former nazi camps survivor. He kept calling them.
Stepdad went at 71. his mind was gone from the hospital antibiotic-resistant infection.
My wifes grandparents went at 92 and 96.

They leave, and at some point all the bad things also leave from memory and you remember just the good/joy things...

Thank you for your caring. Thank you.


*allergies*

Remind me when I visit Niagara Falls again to buy you a Tim Horton's....

 

[pandus13]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Seems to me like you, OP, as the in-law, can't really be involved. Won't end well. This is your wife's issue (other than that t causes you both money and stress).

Not sure how he's 5000 miles from Chicago, unless in Hawaii, south, South America, etc. Is foreign travel
Involved? Is he CONUS?

72 isn't that old. My grandfather was driving and everything right up until he passed in his 90s. People can do stuff. It's tougher to assess though if you're far away, that's for sure.

Seems to me that if there's no closer competent family, your wife will have to push that he will have to move closer to you if/when the time comes. Start reinforcing that.

To a great extent though, a 72yo is a competent adult who can make decisions. They need to be treated that way and held to that standard.

Not CONUS. Eastern Europe.

 

[pandus13]

Originally Posted By: ecotourist
An addition to my earlier comments:

Very early in my practice I had a (new to me) older patient come in for a medical; he had a history of 3 heart attacks, 2 strokes, and poorly controlled high blood pressure. Wow I thought, this guy is a walking time bomb. "So how do you feel?" I asked. "Just great!" he replied with a big smile.

I took care of him, sort of, for the whole time I was in family practice. He was poorly compliant (never really listened or did what I said), but he was still alive and still feeling great when I left family practice for specialty training 10 years later. So who can predict the outcome? Not me for sure.

When I took on a new older patient, the first thing I'd do is ask them to bring me all of their medicines. There were sometimes 2 shopping bags full, usually at least one. There were multiple prescriptions, each mostly still full, for similar conditions as well as a few random medicines for this and that. I could generally get that lot down to 1 or 2 prescriptions they really needed to take regularly, and occasionally none at all. I'd see them frequently for a while to make sure they were still fine. Sometimes we had to add something back, but usually not. The point is that many older people have been prescribed many medicines by many different physicians (and if they were taking them all they would have likely been in big trouble). But they often didn't take them. So not taking prescriptions and not following medical advice is common, more common than not, in my experience.

I could go on and on with similar experiences. The point is that people have the right to make their own decisions as long as they're not hurting anyone. It's called the "dignity of risk". And though it can be a trial for the family, in my opinion, they're best left to live the way they want.

When I get old, I will resist anyone telling me how I should live or what I should do.

DR. Ecotourist, Thank you for both your posts.

 

[pandus13]

Originally Posted By: Smokescreen
Your family obviously has great love for him despite his treatment of you and your family before any humanity that know and any higher being (if you happen to believe in one). Do you really want the last years with him to be confrontational and filled with stress and anxiety for all involved?

You can't force care upon a person if they don't want it. It would be the equivalent to have a person with cleanliness OCD try to make you conform to their standards. If he doesn't want to take his meds isn't that taking away his freedom to choose or his choice to care?

He is accountable unto himself and his own actions until he is mentally/physically unfit. I would say just let him live the remainder of his days on his own terms and in his own way, that way he retains his dignity and independence. He isn't a child. He has had a lifetime of living, let him go out with his boots on.

Thank you.

 

[Mr Nice]

Yeah, great post.