Hello Everyone - Issues with Trying to Care for my Dad

[Long-Suffering]

To be fair, if she does have signs of dementia then all those angry protestations of too much trouble are probably masking her fear of not understanding seemingly easy things anymore. Do you have anyone, anyone at all, maybe the solicitor who could retrieve the info if you tell him where to find it?

Hi Beate,

I can ask the solicitor to have a look. I've also just realised that as they already have the P&F LPA's, they must be on there too, in which case the solicitor will already have them.

I think you are right about her fear of not understanding things, and her bouts of anger are very similar to things people have mentioned on TP about dementia patients, but what I do not understand is that my mum has ALWAYS been like this. That was what I said to the doctor who suggested she had dementia - I said if so, she has had it since she was at least 30. She is pretty much the same now as she was when I was a little kid. Is it possible for someone to have some kind of dementia for at least 45 years and stay at a constant level?

LS

 

[Beate]

Sorry, but there are no NI numbers on LPAs. She needs it for CA, right?

 

[Long-Suffering]

Thinking more about it, I don't think she has dementia. You can't teach people with dementia new things, can you? Well last week, I taught mum over the phone how to switch on Skype from the Applications folder when it failed to open. It's happened again since, and she remembered perfectly how to do it. If she is forced into a corner, she will make the effort to do something new and difficult and she is usually successful. O think it is more generalised anxiety on her part than dementia.She refuses to see a psychiatrist though. After being sectioned 30 years ago, she refuses to see one. She claims that at the time the consultant told her she was cured and so she now firmly believes that she is in perfect mental health, despite the fact she is still on anti-psychotics. If you ask her why she is on anti-psychotics if she is supposed to be cured, she'll say it's just in case her illness comes back.

LS

 

[Long-Suffering]

No she needs the NI numbers for the H&W LPAs. I've just looked through the first draft the solicitor sent me and there are spaces for them. The solicitor did say the forms had recently been changed.

 

[Beate]

Oh that must be new then. There was no need for that on the old forms, which means if the financial LPA was done on the old form (and they were only changed this month) then you will not find the number there.

 

[Long-Suffering]

Bummer!

 

[Long-Suffering]

Sorry, but there are no NI numbers on LPAs. She needs it for CA, right?

Sorry, Beate, you were absolutely right. I just took another look at the LPAs and there are no spaces for NI numbers (the form is competely different to the old style one though). It was the CA form I need them for. Sorry if I confused anyone else about that. I'm confused - I've got forms coming out of my bloody earholes!

The good news is that mum was like a lamb today. Agreed to everything. Didn't even mention the fuss she kicked up yesterday. It was like it never happened. Thank god.

So I've read through the H&W form the solicitor sent me. It all looks good. The issue now is mum can't bring herself to make a decision for Section 5 "Life Sustaining Treatment" and she doesn't want to talk to dad about it to ask him what he wants, but I've told her that the solicitor will ask them to sign either A or B when he comes round so they need to make their decisions beforehand.

LS

 

[Beate]

A is giving the attorney the right to decide while B is not giving him the right. I've never much understood B because that leaves it in the hands of the medics - unless you don't trust your attorney but then why would you give them POA?

 

[nitram]

Is the solicitor using the new forms?

>>>THIS<<< is the 'Health and Care Decisions' one.

The forms are much clearer, see Page 6 for the A or B decision


(S)he can still use the old forms as long as they are signed off by 01/01/16

 

[Long-Suffering]

A is giving the attorney the right to decide while B is not giving him the right. I've never much understood B because that leaves it in the hands of the medics - unless you don't trust your attorney but then why would you give them POA?

Maybe it's not so much a matter of trusting the attorney but more not wanting to give them the weight of responsibility in an extreme case of saying yes or no to pulling the plug on life support.

LS

 

[Long-Suffering]

Is the solicitor using the new forms?

>>>THIS<<< is the 'Health and Care Decisions' one.

The forms are much clearer, see Page 6 for the A or B decision


(S)he can still use the old forms as long as they are signed off by 01/01/16

Yes, the solicitor is using the new forms. I've looked at page 6 and talked about it to mum. It isn't that she doesn't understand it - it's more that she doesn't want to have to think about it or make a decision. It's a head-in-the-sand situation.

LS

 

[Beate]

Well, you are supposed to talk to the donor to understand their wishes in those circumstances so you can act on their behalf. Another way of doing that is filling an Advance Directive out in which you detail the medical intervention you wish or don't wish to have. It's legally binding though somehow I can't see your Mum working up enthusiasm for this so forget I ever mentioned it!

 

[Long-Suffering]

Well, you are supposed to talk to the donor to understand their wishes in those circumstances so you can act on their behalf. Another way of doing that is filling an Advance Directive out in which you detail the medical intervention you wish or don't wish to have. It's legally binding though somehow I can't see your Mum working up enthusiasm for this so forget I ever mentioned it!

I think you are starting to understand her, Beate! She's made her feelings known to me. "I wouldn't pull the plug on you, so I hope you're not planning to do it to me!"

 

[Amy in the US]

LS,

I had the same problem with my mother, even before the dementia (or very early on if it's been going on for that many years, which is possible). She would get so upset even thinking about making decisions about wills and health care choices that she would just shut down and refuse to talk about it, let alone do anything.

What saved me, was the attorney (solicitor) who, when the time came and the form was in front of her, calmly talked her through the entire process. On an earlier occasion, the hospital staff were able to convince her to do one of the health care advance directive forms; in that case, it was a nurse, social worker, and chaplain who managed it so well.

What I'm saying is, is that it's possible you don't need to get your mum to make a decision right this minute, and that the solicitor can talk her through it when he comes round. (If it doesn't work that way in the UK, my apologies for not understanding and giving you false hope.)

I am rooting for you, regardless!

 

[Long-Suffering]

LS,

I had the same problem with my mother, even before the dementia (or very early on if it's been going on for that many years, which is possible). She would get so upset even thinking about making decisions about wills and health care choices that she would just shut down and refuse to talk about it, let alone do anything.

What saved me, was the attorney (solicitor) who, when the time came and the form was in front of her, calmly talked her through the entire process. On an earlier occasion, the hospital staff were able to convince her to do one of the health care advance directive forms; in that case, it was a nurse, social worker, and chaplain who managed it so well.

What I'm saying is, is that it's possible you don't need to get your mum to make a decision right this minute, and that the solicitor can talk her through it when he comes round. (If it doesn't work that way in the UK, my apologies for not understanding and giving you false hope.)

I am rooting for you, regardless!

Hi Amy,

Thanks for rooting for me

Yes, your mum sounds like my mum. With my mum it extends beyond just making legal decisions: she just wants the whole world to stay the same in every way as any kind of change requires a decision, and she doesn't want to have to make them.

The reason I want to make sure she thinks about it before the solicitor comes round is that when dad last went into hospital, the nurse asked her routine questions, one of which was if dad had expressed his wishes on life-sustaining treatment. Mum didn't understand what she meant at first, but when she finally got it she became really upset and angry that the nurse had asked her. She thought the question was cruel and shocking. I tried to explain that the nurse had to ask, but she would have none of it and went on about it for a long time after. She even complained to the GP and the hospital about the nurse asking her.

With that incident in mind, I didn't want the same thing to happen with the solicitor when he went round to get her to fill in the form. He's actually already been to talk to them about the LPA, but I think mum must have not understood that part of the form (she said to me that she'd just nodded while he was explaining certain bits, but had no clue what he was talking about) so that's why I wanted to go through it all in detail again before his next visit, at which time she and dad will actually be signing. I just want to make sure that she really does understand what it all means and that she will be prepared for the solicitor to ask her the dreaded Section 5 question without her exploding.

Oh well. Fingers crossed and good luck to him. I have emailed him to warn him to tiptoe through that part. I hope he gets out alive!

LS

 

[Long-Suffering]

On a happier note, Dad was in a good mood today, had eaten something, and was relatively lucid. He asked me to play him an Elvis track and he burbled along to it and listened to the whole thing without getting bored. A good day!

LS

 

[Long-Suffering]

It's days like today when I can honestly say I hate my mother.

I connected to Skype as usual, and the way it works is that it automatically connects to them, so I can hear what is being said at their end when they are still in the next room and not aware I am online.

The elasticated trousers I ordered for dad had arrived. (Remember that I showed them the pictures and asked them if they wanted cotton or denim, and they said denim because they wanted a material that wouldn't be too thin). I could hear mum saying negative things about them and then complaining that she was damned if she was going to pack them up and send them back, so from that I gathered they must be the wrong size.

She then comes on Skype and tells me that dad has been very stressed this morning and has been crying. The trousers arrived, but they are too heavy, and he is very upset about it, etc. etc. At the end of this she lets slip that he hasn't even tried them on. So I said to her, well maybe he can try them on first and then see how they feel. There's no rush. Don't worry about it.

She then goes into the other room to get dad and I heard her say to him "She's really angry with you because you haven't tried the trousers on!", which was a complete lie. At this point I hear my dad start to cry. (I wanted to punch her in the head. I was so angry !)

So dad comes on looking really miserable and I give him a big smile and don't mention the trousers. But he says he can't breathe properly because his chest is tight. I said to him not to worry about anything, it was all okay. He started apologising about the trousers and I just laughed it off and said oh don't worry it's just a pair of trousers. He then said bye bye because he was too upset to talk and went off to the other room where I can hear him start to cry again.

Mum comes back on and I am trying to ask her about dad's chest (he has COPD, emphysema and also asthma so his breathing is always our #1 health concern) but I can't get a word in edgeways. She is off on a rant about the trousers being too heavy. I had to shout to get her to listen and I said that dad had said his chest was tight and had he had his asthma inhaler? She was furious: "He never mentioned that to ME! He never said anything to ME about his chest!" and she was off on one again, the gist this time being that I had made him ill because I had sent him a pair of trousers that were not suitable and this had given him an asthma attack.

This is a classic example of how she plays me off against my dad. The real story is that the trousers arrived, he picked them up and remarked "Oh, they are heavy", and from there she has made a mountain out of a molehill, upsetting dad and then blaming me for it when in fact it's her causing such a commotion about nothing that has upset him.

People ask me why I don't go home more. It's because when I do, I have this 24/7. My dream is to have my mum put into a home and then I could go and look after dad. God. I hate her sometimes.

Sorry for the rant.

LS

 

[Emmy_83]

Ah LS I feel for you. I've been in this position so many times.

Again I must say I believe our mothers must be related!

Have you managed to get the LPA sorted?