Parenting your parents

My dad had one of those, stopped wearing it. It ended up somewhere in the large amounts of hoarded stuff in his house.

He has ended up in a home on a waiting list for permanent care. I ended up with having to clear out his house.

Three 6 m³ skips sent off the to tip later, I get a call from the monitoring company asking what's going on as Dad hasn't charged it for a while. I let them know that their device is gone to the tip after a massive cleanup, they tell me they'll send dad a $300 or $400 bill for the device, and I agreed in resignation.

I've decided that it's his problem, not mine. It's the only way to stay sane.

My dad simply refuses to wear one of those. But apple watches are new and shiny, not a mark of Old. So he'll wear that.

It's not without its mishaps. When I was visiting last year, he let me know his watch had lost cellular service for a few weeks and he couldn't figure out why. I confirmed it was still on the plan, so I looked at the watch itself - which was a series 4. He had a series 8. At some point he mixed up his old watch and his new one, the 8 was sitting on a charger about 4 feet away.

I have a feeling he just chucked it in a drawer after one too many of his car-club buddies razzed him about it.

He does worry about looking old, so he won't wear a hearing aid. I find this hilarious because he also won't wear his dentures - nothing looks more young and virile than your chin nearly touching your nose! And saying "huh? Speak up, please!" every other sentence? Absolute young-person move.

Backstop said:

I have a feeling he just chucked it in a drawer after one too many of his car-club buddies razzed him about it.

He does worry about looking old, so he won't wear a hearing aid. I find this hilarious because he also won't wear his dentures - nothing looks more young and virile than your chin nearly touching your nose! And saying "huh? Speak up, please!" every other sentence? Absolute young-person move.

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My old man insisted that he was not hard of hearing, that we all just spoke too softly. I went off on him once, as my siblings are one of the noisiest bunch of miscreants out there, and I pointed this out to him. Still did not make a difference, until the day he almost got clipped crossing the street, because he did not hear the car coming. He now wears his hearing aid religiously, and all it took was near-tragedy to get him to address it.

Time to chime in.

Two weeks ago I accidentally wound up seeing deep into my parents investment portfolio (which they are now living off of). I'm no expert, but I was alarmed by what I saw. They went to an advisor 3 years ago and were told they could easily retire at the time. The advisor, as I've now learned, got my dad to take a lump-sum payout of his pension equal to about $300k. That, combined with his IRA and my mom's 403b totaled things for them up to about $960k

Their advisor told them that my Dad could retire at 62 and my mom at 63 and they could pull $4k/month out and not run out of money. Mom would start SS at 63 and Dad would wait till 67.

I have no fucking clue what this advisor did to come to that conclusion, but at the time it didn't pass my sniff test, but my parents insisted their advisor was "really well recommended."

Well, once I got into their investment portal I had a mild panic attack. They have roughly $640k left. Where'd that other $320k go? Well, their advisor put them in all of 4 funds. Three are hedge fund EFTs and are down ~18% since their money went in there. Then there's a bunch of money in a fucking crypto ETF... The cheapest fund they're in has a 1% expense ratio (not .01%, 1%). Their advisor is also charging the 2%/year in management fees... The Crypto fund is a 2% expense ratio...

I showed my parents what I have setup via Vanguard digital advisor, and the .15% fee I'm paying, plus none of my funds having more than a .05% expense ratio. I worked the math backward, and their advisor has made over $60k in fees off them in a bit over three years, excluding the expense ratio costs of the funds they're in... And I can't imagine how much commission he made when he converted the pension into an IRA.

Both of them essentially begged me to take over managing their finances...I flatly refused and said I'd get them hooked up w/Fidelity, Vanguard and someone local to them who is a CFP. My mom is terrified that she or my dad are going to have to go back to work. I worked up some Monte Carlo type projections for them, and I told her that if they need more than $5k/month to live off of (in addition to her $1300 in SS) then they need to figure out some additional income, from what I can see.

What's more is I learned that since retiring they've ran up $100k on a HELOC. Why? A bunch of reasons, none of which feel super clear to me and it feels like Mom is hiding something, but that's a separate problem. That HELOC is at like 7.4% now, so that's not great. She was baffled because when she opened it it was like 3.4%. Well yeah Mom, rates have gone up, that's why the bond ETF you were in lost a shitload of value initially in 2022. She let slip that she stayed on COBRA the year she retired. I went digging, and yeah, when she retired in May or 2022 she hadn't hit her $7400 deductible yet, and looking at some old records I still had, she spent almost $30k on health insurance premiums that first year she retired, and it looks like she paid all of that from the HELOC.

Here's the thing, neither of them can return to work.

Mom is declining, both mentally and physically, and seems to resent anytime someone trys to get her to improve herself physically. Mentally she's aging, but it feels worse than it should be, like significantly worse. I've asked her to get her hearing checked and to have a cognitive evaluation. I told her she needs the cognitive eval because her family has a history of dementia, and it'll either catch any issues early, or create a good baseline so they can better evaluate her going forward. She flatly refused to do either, and insisted that she's just fine. (she's not, everyone sees it, including my father).

My father can't go back to work because he's lost a ton of stamina in the last few years, and he has an issue with vestibular migraines that has become worse in the last five years. When the migrains flare up it'll force him to just stay in a dim room and sleep for 1-4 days.

I'm pretty sure that my wife and I are going to wind up buying their house from them. We have enough cash to pay off the heloc. When that's gone, we can then have them do a quit deed transaction and we'll pay them a nominal amount for the house. This could shore up their finances, and we'd give them a perpetual lease to occupy the home as long as they're capable. It also gets the asset off the books, which could be important, since I expect my mother to have very high end of life costs.

I'm meeting w/a lawyer with a specialty in elder law next week to discuss options. Need to figure out their house, the HELOC and look at an irrevocable trust to sheild their assets in the event of high end of life costs. Ugh.

Yeesh, that's why I'm always resisting going to a financial adviser that someone name-drops to my wife.

I think we need some advice, but I'm scared of getting got.

We have a very busy couple of months coming up, with a lot of pre-planned stuff gumming up our schedule. My dad and his wife (the one with cancer who isn't seeking treatment) seem to think we should just drop everything so we can come spend time with them. This is actually pretty hard as they live in another state; drive time is 4-7 hours depending, and because of where they live flying isn't going to save any time and actually be more inconvenient. They still haven't told anybody else, including my dad's sister or my brother, and seem to expect us to be their support during this time.

Dad is also suggesting we move so that we can accommodate him better in our house. He keeps sending us listings of houses without really understanding our locality - the last house was under a flight path right next to train tracks, and when I mentioned that his answer was "you should get used to sleeping with earplugs."

Did I mention he's kind of an asshole?

Backstop said:

Yeesh, that's why I'm always resisting going to a financial adviser that someone name-drops to my wife.

I think we need some advice, but I'm scared of getting got.

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Make a boardroom thread. Or pm me and I’m happy to chat.

Thegn said:

We have a very busy couple of months coming up, with a lot of pre-planned stuff gumming up our schedule. My dad and his wife (the one with cancer who isn't seeking treatment) seem to think we should just drop everything so we can come spend time with them. This is actually pretty hard as they live in another state; drive time is 4-7 hours depending, and because of where they live flying isn't going to save any time and actually be more inconvenient. They still haven't told anybody else, including my dad's sister or my brother, and seem to expect us to be their support during this time.

Dad is also suggesting we move so that we can accommodate him better in our house. He keeps sending us listings of houses without really understanding our locality - the last house was under a flight path right next to train tracks, and when I mentioned that his answer was "you should get used to sleeping with earplugs."

Did I mention he's kind of an asshole?

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That is just pants-on-the-head-crazy, but self-centered parents are like this. We moved to better take care of my in-laws who are a) dirt poor, their fixed income is not enough for them to live on, and b) dying, my MIL seems to pick up a new pre-cancerous mass every year, and my FIL is not able to breathe, literally. Even on oxygen, he is in the mid-80's oxygen saturation. But EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I talk to my mom and dad, they act put out because I am not there in Boise, to help them out, despite having three other offspring living there. To be fair, they have driven away my brother, their only other son, and my sisters are good for pretty much nothing but emotional support. The flip-side of which is that my folks are still pretty ambulatory (unlike my in-laws) and, barring a financial apocalypse that will impoverish literally everyone, are set with enough money for them to live out the rest of their days comfortably.

Last time I was in Boise, in April, I spent just enough time with them so they could not possibly feel slighted that I did not visit them. They still acted slighted, but truth be told I was there because I missed my brother and his lovely wife, and his boys, not to see my self-centered parents.

While I’m hesitant to contribute more to this thread I find it’s necessary. Also, I wanted to thank everyone who’s shared their ongoing experiences. There’s ample wisdom to be gleaned from the collective struggles here for anyone caring enough to look into the misfortune and planning, evasive maneuvers of others, etc. and to come away far more informed than they were beforehand.

Some time back in ’22 I think it was, my mother turned as green as a witch from acute jaundicing. Perhaps I shared part of the story, I believe so but I’m too lazy to go back and look. It was hell. I had to wrest my mother away from a goddamned naturopath who was literally killing my mom with promises of snake oil while emoting her checking account, and we thankfully got her over to a real hospital system for emergency stent placement. That stopped her own body from poisoning itself long enough for the next phase:

The real work in buying her time after the emergency procedure was killing her pancreatic/biliary cancer. The pathology is intertwined and treated as a single disease. She was around Stage 3b at the time of her Whipple procedure, and endured a short four months of chemo derived on latest advances, with an unfortunate lack of any targetable mutations to increase efficacy. Mom had about eight months of remission. Now the cancer has thoroughly exploded into a Stage IV presentation and we are rushing her back for followup evaluation. Her cancer returned with hitherto unforeseen aggression (it is not even charted) heading from undetectable to metastases all throughout both lungs and down her spine in just three months between screenings. It’s likely present in adjacent bones of the pelvis and legs based on symptoms. The extent of the imaging didn’t cover extremities or head. Regardless, this is the home run battle.

What’s terrible beyond this scenario is that my health has been challenged for years now. We have a cancer cluster in my immediate family, some known mutations, some currently tracked but yet emerging data on correlations. My body is badly hurt and I’ve only had my first surgery of the year and just this month began returning to basic function such as thumbing an iPad. Dad has two types of cancers and is forgetting everything. I’ve had to educate every adult member of the family about primary cancer metastases because they kept sending Mom all manner of false hope narratives—a brutal setup for a terrible fall where clear knowledge helps guide realistic expectations and begin the grieving process towards acceptance.

But some good has arisen from these emergencies. We’ve now organized as a family unit with plans overlapping after some backend IT work on my part, and thankfully, very little pushback. We’re also looking at something realistic for in-home hospice and continued retirement for Dad while all of this is going on. Perhaps @papadage could learn me a thing or two about shared living spaces, tho I feel it’s smartest with both myself and my wife being well medically educated. It’s time to solve this problem.

It’s not easy. It’s also not impossible. If you’re stumbling across my scribble here for similar reasons get yourself up to speed on caregiving. Learn everything that you can about any diseases involved with the health of your family members. Work together. Have open conversations about EOL planning, legal powers, etc.

Fingers crossed we will see that Mom at least receives a tolerable cocktail this coming week as she could potentially endure some chronic care in order to see some family milestones obtained such as kids’ graduations in the near-term and beyond.

Sidenote: it’s absolutely draining to be a caregiver. Let any others in your support circle know what you are dealing with. You’ll have bad days. You’ll be exhausted. It’s feasible to endure it and carry a normal life but during hospice you may want to consider PTO or leave, and rest assured that your efforts will be appreciated after initial resistance is overcome. If you’re the most capable in your family then step up and organize the whole affair as a business model, as that helps everyone else with varied skills or resources fill in the gaps and to have comfort that there is a template to follow for the grand plan ahead.

Final thought: ironically, many cancer trials will not accept patients until they’re terminally ill. This happened to us when looking for bleeding edge trials for Mom. Now she’ll qualify for advanced cancer trials so the calculus of traditional x number of years/months prognoses and a typical disease trajectory are constantly in flux. Advocate. Don’t stop advocating for better care. I have helped a Stage IV patient endure through her troubles long enough for a new chemo to make it to trial. She’s in remission now twelve years after she was supposed to die. Also, be realistic. Some times it’s the end and palliative care is where to focus your efforts.

Thanks, getting old sure has some lessons packed within it, eh? They should teach this in school as part of an estate and family course. People fuck this up so badly and see their parents in ruinous scenarios because if a lack of education aside from the logistical problems that geographically dispersed loved ones I parts. Anyhow, I’ve rambled long enough for now. I’ll update if we get any good news from our next round of focus on Mom.

Tom the Melaniephile said:

Which subset of pancreatic cancer does she have?

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I’m not sure and I will not be there to pull up her files for the first round of follow ups. The initial genetic testing of biopsies was rather rigorous, and unfortunately as noted above we didn’t find a targetable mutation. This may have changed over the past two years and I’ve included a list of Qs for her lead oncologist to review that status (insisting, or just double-checking that they’ll cover all bases) of available tools.

Carhole said:

Final thought: ironically, many cancer trials will not accept patients until they’re terminally ill. This happened to us when looking for bleeding edge trials for Mom. Now she’ll qualify for advanced cancer trials so the calculus of traditional x number of years/months prognoses and a typical disease trajectory are constantly in flux. Advocate. Don’t stop advocating for better care. I have helped a Stage IV patient endure through her troubles long enough for a new chemo to make it to trial. She’s in remission now twelve years after she was supposed to die. Also, be realistic. Some times it’s the end and palliative care is where to focus your efforts.

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It also depends on what you have tried before, too. When Dad's glioblastoma returned after it stopped responding to Temodar, they tried getting him into a study, but all the studies for glioblastoma treatments required patients to not have been treated with Temodar.

Telwar said:

It also depends on what you have tried before, too. When Dad's glioblastoma returned after it stopped responding to Temodar, they tried getting him into a study, but all the studies for glioblastoma treatments required patients to not have been treated with Temodar.

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Yeah. That’s a bastard though the logic in eliminating interference is sound for gathering data on new protocols. Sorry to read that this happened to your family as I’d imagine the result was not a gain for your father.

Speaking of shots to fathers, my mother has chosen to vilify my father’s every effort to help I believe mainly due to his hearing loss (this is genuinely confusing to experience). It’s a huge strain on our little caregiving group. I need to find a better resource on that psychology in order to bring in the correct tool(s) for maintaining healthy mental space at their home, and to ease some of aftershocks of mediating. I’m fairly sure that she’s lashing out as a grieving and fear reaction but holy Christ it’s an evil side we’d never imagined existed in that little woman.

For the trials, and if you find yourself scouring for yourself or a loved one bookmark clinicaltrials.gov and drill down with as much data as your medical team has provided. Enrollments are always being added. Keep looking.

Every year for father's day I get my dad tickets to the NHRA drag races when the tour comes through Ohio. I don't want to do that this year, but I don't really know how to break it to him.

Not to go off into ranty anecdotes... Last year attending the race was difficult, even with his mobility scooter. This past spring I took him to a car show in Detroit and it was very difficult as well. This year would be worse than last because not only would I be shepherding him at the venue I'd need to drive the extra 75 minutes to pick him up, then again to take him home.

Mrs B says we should just avoid mentioning it; he's deteriorated to the point that he'll probably forget the races are in town. I think that's underhanded and akin to a lie - we already have the tickets. Just to not say anything and hope he's addled enough that it works?

Then again if I DO bring it up, I'm saying to his face that he's too old and busted for me to make the extra effort.

Furthermore, she could be right and he doesn't remember, and I'm bringing it up for no reason.

I FINALLY got Dad's taxes filed for the last two years. Ever since my step mother got really sick and passed away, he just neglected that (honestly has real attention/memory issues now - not dementia, just loses track of what he was doing and forgets to start again for days).

Listening to the stories here, I'm very fortunate that I've had no emotionally abusive parents. Mom and Dad divorced when I was 3 (brother was 6 months), but both were good parents - at least in the emotional sense. Dad was mostly absent (we saw him one week a year), but it was more of a distant relationship. Mom passed a long time ago from complications from a Whipple surgery - she was 69. Dad is 89 now and he and his wife had zero expectations that we would take care of them, but we did. Had the foresight to get all the legal/trust stuff squared away a mere six months before she passed.

The ONLY gripe I have is that his way to get into his accounts is to reset the password (every.single.time). My brother has setup his medical apps with face id and locked him out of changing his password. I've locked him out of changing his financial passwords.

He called me the other day wanting to get into his Wells Fargo checking account - I told him nope, it won't work anyway because the 2FA is a text to my mobile. I listed off the balances and asked him what he wanted (to move money from one account to another) - so I did. He still gets the statements so he knows I'm not pilfering (and although I have full financial PoA and my brother medical - I still require my brother to "audit" me).

Bottom line - the IT stuff can be a real PITA, but it is NOTHING compared to some of what y'all are dealing with. So my utmost sympathies to each and everyone of you.

Hap said:

I FINALLY got Dad's taxes filed for the last two years. Ever since my step mother got really sick and passed away, he just neglected that (honestly has real attention/memory issues now - not dementia, just loses track of what he was doing and forgets to start again for days).

Listening to the stories here, I'm very fortunate that I've had no emotionally abusive parents. Mom and Dad divorced when I was 3 (brother was 6 months), but both were good parents - at least in the emotional sense. Dad was mostly absent (we saw him one week a year), but it was more of a distant relationship. Mom passed a long time ago from complications from a Whipple surgery - she was 69. Dad is 89 now and he and his wife had zero expectations that we would take care of them, but we did. Had the foresight to get all the legal/trust stuff squared away a mere six months before she passed.

The ONLY gripe I have is that his way to get into his accounts is to reset the password (every.single.time). My brother has setup his medical apps with face id and locked him out of changing his password. I've locked him out of changing his financial passwords.

He called me the other day wanting to get into his Wells Fargo checking account - I told him nope, it won't work anyway because the 2FA is a text to my mobile. I listed off the balances and asked him what he wanted (to move money from one account to another) - so I did. He still gets the statements so he knows I'm not pilfering (and although I have full financial PoA and my brother medical - I still require my brother to "audit" me).

Bottom line - the IT stuff can be a real PITA, but it is NOTHING compared to some of what y'all are dealing with. So my utmost sympathies to each and everyone of you.

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This isn’t to be taken lightly. My mother went through two years of estate wrangling from her mother‘s passing and was neatly setup as executor prior to grandma’s death. I recall having to do similar hacking away at the financial blockades with her. Two years of effort for Mom—mostly waiting for transferrance of ownership, stupid shit like months of errors in getting her own checkbook issued in order to clean up grandma’s last bills as the home was sold, etc. She went on a little vacation when finished and ranted about the process the entire time. Pro tip: The more that one is able to talk about these things ahead of time with their loved ones the better. Do not plan on having instant access to assets unless those are transferred prior to passing, and when dealing with siblings choose amongst you who will handle this job responsibly and stick it out—and importantly, make the time to do the work.

Good job, Hap.

Helping parents with their finances is about like having a part time job, except there's no training and no pay. And a lot of times no thanks.

Tom the Melaniephile said:

When my Dad died in March it took me several days to outwardly express my grief and loss - and it came out as overwhelming, ugly crying.

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Man, I identify with this so much. Same thing. It was about two or three days later and the realization came into my head that he wouldn't be there for my kids' next birthdays ... or any of their next birthdays (they were 4 years old and ~4 months old at the time). It hit me really hard knowing my kids wouldn't get to know their grandpa. Starting to tear up again thinking about it right now writing this. Was good to finally get it out, though. Now it's been years since he passed and while I still get sad occasionally thinking about what might have been, they're nothing like that first one. That was a visceral, full-body breakdown, everything-I-had cry that I had never experienced before (or since).

Reading though the thread and trying to think of the same pre-planning for my mom and her husband, who are both upper-60s, still working, and mentally sharp and aware, but trying to get ahead of what will inevitably come.

Having gone through my dad's accident and passing was very hard, but when mom goes and I'm the oldest one of the family left (physically and/or mentally) that's going to be quite a hard thing for me to process. I'm no spring chicken, but I still see myself as a kid in the family, even though my oldest child is almost old enough to drive now. It's weird.

My father is falling apart mentally. My brother is married with a family, and I don't live anywhere near him. He really needs in home care at the minimum, and it may end up better to move him into a home.

For me to move would require tens of thousands in breaking a lease, as well as the cost of moving, but I have no where to move to, and I'd have to quit my job in the process. I'm not moving in with him because I'd lose everything I own, and while it's technically stuff, it's my stuff. I wouldn't be around anyway because I'd still need a job.

Ulf said:

it may end up better to move him into a home

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Do this. My parents had a similar situation with my grandparents; they lived two states away and it made far more sense to move the grandparents to assisted living near my folks.

DrWebster said:

Do this. My parents had a similar situation with my grandparents; they lived two states away and it made far more sense to move the grandparents to assisted living near my folks.

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Seconded.

DrWebster said:

Do this. My parents had a similar situation with my grandparents; they lived two states away and it made far more sense to move the grandparents to assisted living near my folks.

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I know that. I knew that from the moment I saw him. Convincing everyone else is the hard part.

Ulf said:

I know that. I knew that from the moment I saw him. Convincing everyone else is the hard part.

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What convincing is there to do? If your brother is incapable of taking care of him (as is implied by your post) then that puts the burden on you, which means it's your choice to make.

You don't necessarily have to move him closer to you if he's going into a care facility anyway. He might be just fine at a place that has the same weather and local TV channels that he's used to. If you're in a metro area and he's in a rural area the price difference might be more than just a little significant as well.

rain shadow said:

You don't necessarily have to move him closer to you if he's going into a care facility anyway. He might be just fine at a place that has the same weather and local TV channels that he's used to. If you're in a metro area and he's in a rural area the price difference might be more than just a little significant as well.

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In my experience, someone needs to be close. My brother has to go see my dad every Sunday to unscrew something. Dad tries, but just doesn't have the capacity any more.

Backstop said:

Yeesh, that's why I'm always resisting going to a financial adviser that someone name-drops to my wife.

I think we need some advice, but I'm scared of getting got.

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Its a lot simpler than what you think - the Boardroom is a good starting point. Seeing Carhole's post makes me feel physically ill.

yd said:

Its a lot simpler than what you think - the Boardroom is a good starting point. Seeing Carhole's post makes me feel physically ill.

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Which portion?

Update on Mom:

We managed to get priority care for her at Stanford where their team ran advanced imaging and genetic screenings again, and in addition to those approaches her bony lesions were biopsied. The latter is somewhat of a formality though it’s possible to have a secondary disease, but her oncologists of course wanted to pin the pathology down as a metastases of the primary cancer. We’re still awaiting the latest genetic screening results to learn whether or not a targetable vector will be added though today her base cocktail is officially ordered and infusions begin in one or two weeks—this is a touch variable due to the insurance process and the infusion center’s lag on imports.

Mom’s doing very well all things considered. My sister really stepped up this round and spent a lot of time with her in CA and that team effort in getting seen at a top-tier facility again should buy her a chance at giving it a good fight.

No fat lady yet, and Dad has come around quite well as a team member (thank god) and is harnessing his old systems engineering skills to collate (this is pretty important with multiple doctors and facilities involved). I then distill and recap across our shared notes for referencing treatment protocols, calendaring, etc.

Got Ma a new iMac on the way as her intel-based unit is bricking itself and she’s excited to have a little gift for keeping her mind going with regular activities. She’s doing surprisngly well all things considered. A glance at her and you’d think That she was a decade younger and disease free. Cancer is an insidous bastard in that regard. Anyhow, we have the ship afloat and have every logical process covered and/or pending results for adjusting treatment protocols.

Oui

Edit: derps

The naturopath part - snake oil sales people taking advantage of people when they are most desperate and willing to try any kooky yet unproven treatment that they will charge a more than pretty penny for.

yd said:

The naturopath part - snake oil sales people taking advantage of people when they are most desperate and willing to try any kooky yet unproven treatment that they will charge a more than pretty penny for.

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I will be likely filing a wrongful death (or whichever is befitting) motion in order to have said person’s license to practice “medicine” revoked. ‘I can cure cancer with vitamin C infusions!’ How about no, you have a change of careers? Anyhow, not the place to talk about it but that cult scamming of someone’s hopes into avoiding modern medicine deserves a fitting action. Remaining vigilant up against this front is harder than it would seem as they simply don’t stop trying to induct patients into more lunacy. Yeah, this is sickening—quite literally.

DrWebster said:

What convincing is there to do? If your brother is incapable of taking care of him (as is implied by your post) then that puts the burden on you, which means it's your choice to make.

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Well it turns out that my brother has arranged for someone to visit him, they're starting next week. He didn't tell me, because, well, we don't talk all that much. I'm not sure if that's enough by itself, but we'll find out.

rain shadow said:

You don't necessarily have to move him closer to you if he's going into a care facility anyway. He might be just fine at a place that has the same weather and local TV channels that he's used to. If you're in a metro area and he's in a rural area the price difference might be more than just a little significant as well.

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He lives in New York City, so, yeah. (In fairness, he's lived in the same apartment for 60+ years now...)

Ulf said:

Well it turns out that my brother has arranged for someone to visit him, they're starting next week. He didn't tell me, because, well, we don't talk all that much. I'm not sure if that's enough by itself, but we'll find out.

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Person has not shown up yet, there have been cancellations. Hopefully today. My father seems to be totally against the idea of someone other than my brother or I being there but it's too much of a personal sacrifice for either of us to take care of him full time. If we can't get him to change his mind about the help, well, it's going to get ugly.

Defenestrar said:

So my parents in-law just asked if they could move into our basement and pay for part of the remodel that would be necessary to convert it to their needs. I don't think we can remodel for their needs (one is a quadriplegic and the other needs a walker and is seriously declining in his own mobility) and they are already up to 12 hours of professional assisted care per day (wake up, morning routine, feeding, PT, etc… transfer to bed). They want to move in with us because they're realizing that the free assistance they've gotten from one of their other daughters is now unavailable that she just had to have brain surgery for a terminal tumor (glioma). My wife's father is in absolute denial about how much care they need (and how impractical it is to convert our basement). This is tearing up my wife because she knows how impractical the situation is and how much financial and emotional drain it would put on our family (e.g. bye bye retirement and college savings and that's light compared to the psychological stress on our daughter whose got empathy through the roof and anxiety to match) - but the alternative is letting her parents go to a home they can only temporarily pay for (they didn't properly save) and then be at the mercy of those state institutions where even walking inside sucks the soul out of a person.

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Update:

In the category of good news, my in-laws have decided to move (the first day my sister-in-law was able to come out into family communal space following her brain surgery her dad asked her to start doing work). Moving out of my sister-in-law's place is a very good thing. Not moving into our basement is also a very good thing.

In the category of What the ?!?!??!?! My in-laws just decided to blow their money on a doublewide about a mile from our place (i.e. my father-in-law making all the decisions, as usual). Not only that, but entirely site unseen as near as we can tell. The vetting process of whether it would meet their rather extensive needs for in home care was a description that it had a ramp to the front door. They're also moving to a new state which quite possibly means new case manager(s) etc… and a giant chance for my mother-in-law to get lost in the system.

Probably the only good news on the "lost in the system" front is that I'm a mandatory reporter - so if I walk into this new place and see that it can't handle a Hoyer lift, quadriplegic showering needs, etc… I have to call adult protective services. But hey, we probably already didn't have a shot at maintaining any sort of relationship here after we very clearly explained that we cannot be their 24-hour medical service and then they went and bought that doublewide so close without taking us up on any of our offers to keep scouting assisted living situations (including minimal expense independent bungalows with help on call if they really wanted to keep trying to manage their own care).

Backstop said:

Every year for father's day I get my dad tickets to the NHRA drag races when the tour comes through Ohio. I don't want to do that this year, but I don't really know how to break it to him.

Not to go off into ranty anecdotes... Last year attending the race was difficult, even with his mobility scooter. This past spring I took him to a car show in Detroit and it was very difficult as well. This year would be worse than last because not only would I be shepherding him at the venue I'd need to drive the extra 75 minutes to pick him up, then again to take him home.

Mrs B says we should just avoid mentioning it; he's deteriorated to the point that he'll probably forget the races are in town. I think that's underhanded and akin to a lie - we already have the tickets. Just to not say anything and hope he's addled enough that it works?

Then again if I DO bring it up, I'm saying to his face that he's too old and busted for me to make the extra effort.

Furthermore, she could be right and he doesn't remember, and I'm bringing it up for no reason.

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So here's the update.

The local TV station my dad watches is running ads for the drag races like every hour to drum up sales for this weekend. So I knew he wasn't "just going to forget" any more than her family would forget Ohio State vs Michigan.

Yesterday when I made my near-daily call to check up on him he brought it up, wondering if I'd forgotten or had something else planned. I hesitated for a second, then was straight with him; just said due to the trouble last year and in Detroit I thought it best not to go. I could tell he was disappointed but then he said those were difficult days and he understands it's probably for the best. I could not tell if he was speaking truly or Saying The Right Thing.

I am annoyed with myself for going along with this "pretend it's not there" strategy. There was no way he was going to just forget one of the highlights of his year, I should not have let myself get talked into that.

Forgive me in advance for this novel:

Okay, so we've gotten back from our recent trip to Canada with m'darling, our son and his lovely lady. We did a bunch of touristy things like Niagara Falls etc & caught up with a lot of family I haven't seen since Mum's funeral back in 2019

So we went to stay with my Dad as a major reason for this trip, as he's been diagnosed with dementia and we wanted to see him ASAP and in particular for him to meet our son's partner. I call Dad every week so I have been keeping abreast with his dementia and how it's affecting him.

Or so I thought.

He's gone way downhill, to the point where mid-conversation he'll forget that I'm his son and he wanted to go out to the pool as he thought we were in Barbados. It's heartbreaking, we've had an initial assessor in and he's got a Personal Support worker from the VON coming over three nights/week to help him out, socialise and collecting data. Dad gets the full cognitive assessment in a fortnight but according to the assessor it's unlikely he'll pass and frankly I agree. It's heartbreaking to see this strong, decisive man getting confused over how to pour a glass of milk, but my wife, son and his partner were so supportive and helpful.

My brother and sister and all their grown-up kids came down on the Saturday and we had a BBQ family gathering, the first time all of Dad's descendants have been in one place for - over a decade and he had a marvellous time, as did we all.

Since the COVID lockdowns the lady across the street has been coming over to visit Dad every day. She goes grocery shopping with him, takes him to his physio appointments and in short has been an absolute godsend.

Or so we thought.

It didn't take long after we arrived that we got a better picture - the cupboards were empty, there was rancid butter in a serving tray, many of the home appliances don't work, the cuffs and collars of his shirts are worn and threadbare. This man is worth a fortune, there is no way he should be living like this. We found out that she has possession of both his credit and debit cards (and has the PINs!), has been spending ~ $1,000/month of food when he eats like a rabbit, has been spending $600/month on booze. He's restricted to a single small rum&coke/day but we started monitoring the bottle and she's been filling her thermos from it. The level on a 1.75l rum bottle dropped 6cm/day and we found 8 empty bottles the same size in his recycle bin, which gets cleared every fortnight!

I looked through his office and I found that the internet bill hadn't been paid, that his credit card had been suspended because nothing had been paid for more than 3 months - the list goes on. She's been claiming that she's been helping him pay the bills but clearly that's BS.

He lost his license when he got the dementia diagnosis so he had to get rid of his car - so she sold his 4 year old top of the line Cadillac to her husband for $5,000!

We've reported her for elder abuse, and she's still fighting to control him further. She kicked out the health-department-mandated Personal Support worked claiming that Dad didn't need anyone else just her! She had no right to do so and so the next time the nurse showed up he brought along a cop....

Anyway, what was supposed to be a sweet catchup with my father turned into a nightmare. My sister lives about an hour away and she's arranged for the locks to be changed and the nurses have informed the police department, but this woman is a real worry - hopefully all will as expected at the cognitive test as there's a lovely care home less than a 2-minute walk from my sister's that specialises in dementia patients - he needs full-time professional care not the money-grabbing completely untrained woman from across the road!

Sorry for the novel I'm just venting, it's so frustrating and infuriating to see someone taking advantage of a man with dementia, much less that it's my father!

Things are on the path to a better way forward but I'm touching base with my siblings pretty much daily as there's too much of a potential for trouble - she's got him convinced that she's the only one he can trust so it's not going to be easy getting him out of her grasp.

Oh, and just to be clear there's no way she could get him to change his will - his latest was updated/notarised by the family lawyer about a month before he got the diagnosis and so now he legally can't change it without approval from us. At least one thing we don't have to worry about.

I'm sorry to hear that there are sub-humans out there that have taken advantage of your father's condition. There are times when they should throw the book at a person, but there are rare occasions when instead they should take that book and just bludgeon them with it.

Bardon said:

He's gone way downhill, to the point where mid-conversation he'll forget that I'm his son

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Not sure if this might help, but my MiL's neighbour has been in a home for almost a year, and they were preparing to sell his home. It ends up his sister was "helping" him, and left him so malnourished that he had a B12 deficiency that presented as advanced dementia. Once he got into the home with a proper diet he actually recovered. I don't know if knowing that could help with your father, but this man is moving back home and has just lost the last year when he was neglected by the sister. Who is also now locked away from the home, and who no longer has power of attorney.

crombie said:

Not sure if this might help, but my MiL's neighbour has been in a home for almost a year, and they were preparing to sell his home. It ends up his sister was "helping" him, and left him so malnourished that he had a B12 deficiency that presented as advanced dementia. Once he got into the home with a proper diet he actually recovered. I don't know if knowing that could help with your father, but this man is moving back home and has just lost the last year when he was neglected by the sister. Who is also now locked away from the home, and who no longer has power of attorney.

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Part of the new setup is that he's getting a medical check every week until the cognitive assessment and they're actively looking at whether that's a contributing factor.