Anyone else dread it? When I actually have something to say it's fine, I'm happy to call her & tell her whatever. At best, it's a bit frustrating because she has a hard time following complex subjects and remembering details from one day to another so conversation subjects are limited. Or, she catches wind that there's a story I can tell her and she wants me to talk; to tell her, to relieve her boredom and loneliness. I want to deliver and be kind, so I have to figure out what parts she doesn't remember and artfully tell or retell it. It takes a lot of brain power.
I have to feel it out each time. I feel guilty with just about every call because I think, one day I'm going to want to call & she won't be on this earth anymore. But to sit there, after a long day of work, other people I have to direct for work, household things I am charge of and just a busy life, I'm tired. Sometimes, I have nothing to contribute. On those, "I've got nothing days" all I want to say is, "Are you ok? Ok great, we're fine too. Maybe we will talk tomorrow," and hang up. I want to, but don't and I get so agitated. Occasionally I do keep it real short and tell her I have a headache or whatever and I've had a long day; but if I do it too much she tells me I work too much and that I am too busy and to me that just sounds like criticism. So I force myself to try and make conversation & it's excruciating.
Usually after I hang up I'm relieved because, I did it! it's done for today! She says she very much appreciates that I check in and can call every day. Not shopping for tips or advice, just looking for commadere and needed to vent, thank you for reading.
I will use that some day with my siblings. After mom died, they turned on me, threatened me with a lawyer if I didn’t execute her will “exactly nothing more nothing less”. Brought up how they had concerns about my competency as a care giver and old childhood grievances.
I had a triple death as the two of them started the attacks 4 days after she died. They both lived far away and have no idea what 24/7 was like.
I”m worst than a bag of garbage in a landfill to them.
my Mom at 91 was hanging on to Independent senior living apt by her finger nails….refusing services and ugly abusive language when I tried to help. At times, I too wished her dead. She would at least be happy so I thought.
In one sudden weekend, she went from independent to memory care on hospice and lasted 4 months in what she called “a nightmare”.
Im an old RN that still works in AL and Memory care part time and take care of moms and dads and watch the sons and daughters struggles. All the same struggles on both sides. The suffering and the joys are all out of sight and under appreciated.
No one knows until they get there what it’s like. I pray for comfort and strength for all of us
You can end the call any time you want. You don't have to call every day if you don't want to. Also read some of the posts from the members of this forum. You'll see that daily phone call in a whole new light.
Like the folks here who are scrubbing piss and crap off of their furniture and rugs daily along with their "loved one" who lives with them. Don't forget the refusal to shower or even change a soiled pull-up or diaper until it's literally falling apart and sometimes not even then. Or the ones who are actual care slaves that have no life whatsoever because 24/7 it's the elder's needs only to be met with stubbornness, nastiness, and bullying. Let's not forget those who have to spend hour after miserable hour in a filthy, stinking, hoard of a house caregiving because the senior won't allow anything to be cleaned up or thrown away. Last but not least and God save them all, the ones who move into that home so mom or dad can be kept out of a care facility even when they should be in one for their own good. Did I mention that so many of those care slaves get treated with less respect than a bag of garbage in a landfill?
Think of all this that you don't have to deal with and you'll probably feel a lot better about the phone call.
Or you could cut the phone call down to every other day. Or once a week.
She has her life, I have mine, we roll on a different plain as I am 22 years younger than her and we lived our lives in a totally different way,
She is still alive, in AL age 98. I do not talk to her at all now, as she is a "B" on wheels, however, if I did it wouldn't be everyday and if I did it wouldn't change how I will feel when she dies, if she ever does!
I did the best I could for her, so I have no remorse today and will not when she passes.
I wish I could have been more conversational, more comforting. These days I come home and say… “Hi Mom, it’s Mary Margaret, I’m home. How was your day”. I remember her telling me “oh Scott’s Topic Talk was so good today and I won at bingo twice.”
I have no children so I can’t ask for a daily call. I realize now how alone she felt if I didn’t call. So hang on to your physical calls even thought your mom or dad “live in the moment” and will not remember any of it when they hang up.
It’s a gift to them now. And it’s a gift to you In the end when all you call out daily spiritually and re-live the moments when you get home safely
Jeez the F Christ, I've been sitting at home recovering, he sits at home all day, what the F does he need to hear from me every day except to satisfy the bottomless bag of worry about everything. What the F is there to talk about on the best days?
And I'm not interesting either.
I would kill for him to be able to text.
Yes all of this aging stuff sucks. I just left helping my mother with her bedtime ritual and I started having heart palpitations in the room and had to sit down. It's so ironic I'm supposedly super healthy and she has CHF ...and I'm the one who feels like I'm dying. I don't know whether it was too much caffeine or the realization/ fear I developed that she's going to live much longer than expected (she's in hospice and supposedly was going to be gone in 6 months and she's going strong after 7 at age 99... Ugh)....
I come to this forum to know I'm not alone. You're not alone. I get it, 100%. Taking care of an elderly person is generally joyless and filled with grief, resentment and physical and emotional fatigue beyond what anybody experiences unless they've been there.
I am an only and advocated for her with the AL facility, medical providers, a home she still owned, etc... I took over responsibility for her life, basically. It sometimes felt like a burden, but I would do it again.
She got so she could no longer call me on her cell phone due to macular degeneration and she also could not remember how to call especially when we had to start dialing the area code for all local calls. I called her and when she had not let the battery run down or left the phone in another room where she could not hear it ring we could chat for a while. She complained about the caregivers, the food etc... but I understood. A facility is not the same as how you want to live in your own home, cook your favorite foods and so on. It took a lot of effort sometimes to make those calls and visits but I knew her hours passed slowly. She could not do much once the eyesight was so limited. I knew the calls helped pass the time. As many facilities are understaffed, hers was as well and I used these calls to gauge how well her needs were being met. No situation is perfect and I had to keep reminding myself she was safe, fed, had people around etc... She passed a year ago in May and I miss talking to her more than I can say. Mother's Day was rough as is this week. Next weekend will be the anniversary of her death. I try to look at it as a welcome end to the ever expanding list of medical issues her life had become. I remember she often voiced that she had no purpose and had lived too long, that she was a burden, lonely etc... She said "Old age is not for sissies". I believe she is with our Lord in the most wonderful and amazing place of unconditional love and peace. But, I still miss those dreaded calls and visits.
That’s too bad your mom can’t read. FIL still reads books. He used to do crossword puzzles too, but I don’t think he can anymore , we haven’t had to buy more crossword books in quite some time now. FIL hearing is getting worse even with hearing aids , makes phone calls difficult. Maybe we can try Siri, but his speech is not totally clear ( like that for years, they think old undiagnosed stroke ) so not sure Siri will work . He refuses speech therapy .
I'm glad your FIL uses his tablet - we could never get Mom interested in an iPad.
Actually my FIL recently had DH get him a new IPhone . He couldn’t use his wife’s old IPhone nor his own Android phone anymore . He barely could make a call on either one a year ago . DH humored him with the new IPhone and tried to teach him to use it including text. FIL says he has not used it since . He uses his landline . He also has a laptop and printer in his room he doesn’t use . But he thinks he needs them . He plays a few games on his tablet still .
These days she can't follow conversations well enough on phone calls. She's happy with a daily text, even if it just tells her about the weather. I try to find something to add pictures for variety. She used to love shopping and still enjoys pictures of things I've purchased.
On the flip side. I have a long distance friend in her mid 70’s calling me often, not realizing she called recently. Same questions , she definitely is having significant memory problems. She told me her son makes her send a picture of her dinner to him every night so he knows she ate and he calls her each night .
Granted, it is easier since mom had a seizure and is more chilled out and now treats me like everyone else ( I was apparently head of her endless complaints department ) There’s some sense of relief that these calls aren’t nearly so awful any more and are much shorter. Still, there’s this sense of Groundhog’s Day insanity going on in my head! 7 years and counting of this situation….who am I where am I where am I going??
Thanks for posting this, once again I’m grateful to read about others having similar feelings! It really helps.
Best to you!
When I visit, Mom cannot follow a conversation. Doesn’t remember any family members, so no filling her in.
She refuses to look at pictures.
No interest in magazines.
Can’t follow television.
Won’t look at videos.
I get your frustration.
It was only years later that I realized that making this call from a pay phone was my mother's way of setting a boundary. When the dime dropped, she would say "bye, Moth, gotta go". She would not have been able to do this from our home phone.
I found that when visiting my mom in her NH, I needed to go with "material" like a stand up comic. If you don't have a real story to tell her, can you find something amusing in your local paper or on FB to chat (mindlessly) about? I found that having something pre-planned derailed my anxiety.
An exercise in patience for certain.
I was so relieved when he was too sick to talk anymore. I felt that the calls were eventually like torture for him.
Advice: Stop calling when there’s no longer any point in it. Ask the caregiver if you’re not sure.
When do u call? I would think after you and her have had dinner and she is back in her room and your getting ready to sit down and watch TV for the night. It does not need to be a long conversation.