Sunday - Sunday

I certainly agree with folks on here who say how hard it is for my MIL to give up driving. OMG, I can't imagine if it were me, but someday it will be me. It is another one of those milestones that everyone dreads and it makes life much more difficult for all involved.  I do feel badly for her. But she has had 3 accidents in the past few years, the last one being the worst and involving crashing into an on-coming car because of an illegal left hand turn. It was her wake up call and she needs to heed it.

Today my husband went to pick her up for church. Church is the hardest place to get her to. She goes to a church three towns away from where she lives and we live four towns away in the  opposite direction. My husband had an 80 mile round trip to take her to church.When he arrived there she came out of the house in an angry fury. She got into the car and proceed to yell at him all the way to the church criticizing his driving and insisting on taking the route she is accustomed to. My husband found that the route she has been taking went through a very dangerous high crime part of the city! HE was uncomfortable driving through it and was aghast that she had been driving that route alone.

He dropped her off at church and then she was getting ride with a friend to go to lunch where he would pick her up at 1:30 P.M. Because he had time to kill, he met me at my mom's house and we all had some lunch together. 

After my husband left to go pick up his mom, I had stayed and visited my mom for awhile. When I left her apartment and as I was walking down the hall, I got  choked up. I wanted things to be different. I wanted my dad alive, my parents living back at the house and our Sunday dinners.  I wanted my FIL alive and MIL able to drive. In the moment, I hated all of the changes that have been going on. I started to cry and then realized my mom would be standing at the window waving to me was I walked down to the parking lot. It breaks my heart every time I leave and see her standing at the window.

I could not let her see me cry (she is so worried about my health, she would think there was something I wasn't telling her) so I just put a smile on my face and waved to her as I walked by.  

Heart to Heart

It had been a few weeks since my husband  visited his 90 year old mother since she told him to "butt out" of her life. It was very hard for both of us to back off, but he felt he needed some space from her as he was feeling so upset and hurt about how she had been treating him. They were e-mailing a little bit and talked on the phone once, but the incident was never discussed. 

I aslo spent a great deal of time on the internet looking for more information about the subject with hopes that I would find a magical solution to the problem. 

I discovered a book called Elder Rage -How to Survive Caring For Aging Parents by Jacqueline Marcell. It was a riveting true story that I could not put down. I would read parts of it out loud to my husband and he couldn't wait for me to finish reading it so he could start it. It made us feel not so alone with our concerns (which do go beyond just the driving issue) and gave us some good  insight and resources. We were feeling more ready for a face to face with her.

One sibling lives only a couple hours away so he agreed to come down so we could all get together and try to talk to her once again to make her realize the consequences of her behaviors.

We planned how we would approach the subject with just plain love and support and no matter what she said we would not let her push any of our  buttons or say anything to her that would be taken as combative. We would stress how this is a time for our family to be connected not torn apart since it has been so hard the past few months since her husband passed away and my cancer treatment.

She was very happy to see us. I know she is very concerned about my health and immediately she wanted to know how my treatments were going and how I was. The night before my husband and I  had discussed that it seemed like she was two different women.  One the kind and caring mom and the other independent woman who would run over anyone who threatened her independence.

We told her if she didn't believe us about the legal issues than she needed to call her lawyer and find out for herself. She said she was going to. 

She excused herself for awhile and there the three of us sat feeling like this had gone better than we ever imagined. I was proud of the my husband and BIL. They did a great job.

In a little while she came back into the room and suggested that we all go out to get some Chinese food. I imagined all kinds of endings to the situation and none of them involved going out to eat! So we did and we had a great dinner and a very pleasant time.

We are making baby steps. She still has a car and could still drive if she felt like it. So we are taking it slow, hoping everything is sinking in and that we can have a weekly schedule for her using the town mini- bus as well as driving her ourselves. 

Update

Last week I went to the doctor and got a clean bill of health as far as my infection goes. After 2 weeks of some strong antibiotics taken 4x a day my radiation scars and infection sores are looking good and the culture was negative! I felt so relieved. It was nice to have good news, great to see how good my skin was looking, and happy that I didn't have to take more rounds of medicine.

I have been going to the radiation department every week since Dec. 7, my last treatment, to have the wound checked and now I am officailly discharged. I asked about going back to swimming at the physical therapy pool, but the doc said to wait a couple of weeks before I do that. Scar is still a bit pink and the chlorine so strong. I think I may even wait a bit beyond the two weeks to be sure.

My hair is coming in thick on the top of my head and wispy,long, and curly in the back. I stopped by to say hello to my hairdresser last week. She came over and hugged me and said that it had been so long which had made me cry. I think I will go in to see her in a couple of weeks and see if she can give this new growth some kind of style. It is now sticking out from under the wig so I think the back needs a trim.

The MIL continues to drive. We are planning a sit down with her this week. I hope it will make things better and I will concentrate on that thought.

Baby u can't drive your car

2011 ended in a family crisis that is going to be the focus of our new year. My  90 year old MIL who was in a serious accident this summer has refused to listen to not only her doctor's recommendation that she no longer drive, but has also ignored the report of an independent driving evaluation which  also recommended she not drive.  She is determined to "take back her independence" with such fire that she went out and bought herself a new car without telling any of her children. 

We believe that the doctor is legally responsible to report her to motor vesicles, but many doctors do not want to be the one to do so preferring to leave it up to the family to reason with their loved one. There is no reasoning with her. At this point she believes her children have "poisoned the minds" of her doctor and the driving evaluators.

Because she is so angry with her children, she has forbidden her doctor to communicate with them about any health issues.(The driving situation falls into this category). Due to privacy laws the doctor must comply and all communications have ceased between the adult children and her doctor. We have no idea what action he has taken if any.

She has told  us to butt out of her life. This coming from a woman who needed my husband to move into the house on at least two occasions to take care of her when she has come down with illnesses, and was her caregiver when she was in rehab for one month following her accident. 

I find dealing with elder issues so much more difficult than it ever was raising teens. Our hands are tied right now. We are scared out of our minds for her safety and for the safely of the public at large. This situation is causing us undue stress and heartache and it is the last thing we need considering all that we are coping with with my cancer treatments.