Dealing with Your Elderly Parents

Time is like a vapor and before we know it, we are taking care of our parents.

My sweet loving in-laws took us on every corner and dead end you can imagine. We went through it all with them. You name it, it happened. We loved them and we had to put our lives on hold, and this was while both of us were working full time. It was tough. My mother in-law had 5 strokes. We hired care takers to come in so she could stay at home for as long as she could. They made it difficult for the caretakers. Usually, caretakers would last about 6 months if that. Then we had to go through the whole process of finding another one. We had to be thorough yet, many ripped them off. One gal, we believe took $4000.00 when my father in-law set it down on his desk. Then he had quadruple bi-pass surgery. He was very stubborn and made things difficult.

For some reason, if one was to fall ill, then the other one seemed to want more attention. It was like we were dealing with children. Of course, my husband had to run their errands. We did their grocery shopping, ran them to their doctor appointments, we would bring over their daily medicines and paid their bills. That was just a few of the many things we did.

That is nothing as the lists gets bigger.

One night, my father in law hallucinated on some old medicine he took and the caretaker woke up at 2 a.m. with a gun pointed at her head. She calmly approached the situation and everything worked out well. Then it was time to take the guns away. He was mad as a hornet. We also, went through all their old medicines and threw them out.

Both have passed away, we miss them dearly. My grandparents lived to be in their early 90's and they did well, as my father did. Recently, we celebrated my mother's 80th birthday. It was a surprise, then as we were cutting the cake, she passed out. She came to and passed out again, and when the paramedics arrived she passed out again. What a way to end her surprise party. She is doing OK, but she lives in a huge two-story house. We cannot get her to sleep in the downstairs bedroom. She is also very stubborn and does not want to be told what to do.

Many of my friends and family members are going through the same thing with their parents. I know they can drive you crazy, make things difficult and so on. They don't mean it. Their minds are not working like they used to. It takes a lot of patience, common sense, and educating yourself on their needs physically, emotionally and mentally, and most of all, love and support.

Remember -

They love us unconditionally