I find it almost impossible to hold a conversation with my Mum (90 next birthday) on the phone any more. She lives in Southampton and I'm in Portsmouth; 3/4 hr drive away, but I had to sell my car back in June so now have to use public transport (buses and trains) to go anywhere, Mum is, amongst other things, as deaf as a post and has to be constantly reminded to put her hearing aids in, to the extent that she rarely does wear them now anyway.
Because of her deafness she has the TV on LOUD, so much so that it can be heard clearly out in the street, and thus she can't hear the phone ring plus she forgets to check her answerphone messages.
Because of the covid restrictions and her mobility problems she can't get out to dpo her grocery shopping every week and relies on a friend living locally who has transport to take her grocery shopping every other week. Last week I had a phone call from Mum demanding that I drop whatever I may be doing at the moment and get to Southampton so I could do her shopping for her - and she became very irate when I said that it's not possible for me to travel to hers every week because I have to use public transport. Her response was that she has to use public transport so why can't I? - not appreciating that public transport for her is a short bus ride into the centre of town whereas for me to visit her the journey involves 15 minute walk to the bus stop, 15 minutes wait for the bus, 15 minutes bus journey to the train station, train journey to Southampton and from the train station a taxi to her home as she lives at the top of a very long and very steep hill and the walk wouldn't do my angina any good. With the same in reverse to get back home again at the end of the day.
I can't check up on Mum on a daily basis by e-mail or text message as she doesn't have the internet or a mobile phone - she says they're not necessary. Mum has had a desktop computer with internet ca[pability for twwenty year but because she doesn't believe in the internet she's only ever used it as a glorified word processor at best.
She has numerous regular hospital appointments - incnveniently right over the other side of town so extremely difficult for her to get to - and because she also has Mild Cognitive Impairment she loses the appointment letters from the hospital informing her of appointments so she misses a lot of her medical checkups. She's given her GP surgery permission to discuss her medical records with me, as her NOK, but the various hospital clinics won't talk to me direct without a lot of information given first (Data Protction, which I quite understand) - Mum's full name, date of birth, home address, and her NHS number , the latter of which I haven't the foggiest idea. When I tried to ask Mu,m for this information she had great difficulty in understanding why I needed the information; in the end I had to write her a letter to explain in detail why, the reason being that pne of the hospital clinics had texted me about pne pof Mum's appointments as I'm the NOK, but without all this information they refused point blank to discuss Mum's records wioth me.
If there was a POA in existence I could insist the hospital talk direct to me about Mum, but to the best of my knowledge there isn't either POA set up as I've not been asked to sign any sort of official documentation.
What makes everything so difficult between myself and my Mum is not only her deafness but also her refusal over many years to consider the internet or a mobile phone, and now it's too latr to try to explain thesse things to her because she doesn't understand modern technology and she can't her you when you try to explain or discuss anythng with her.