Helping Mother

[M&P15T]

Good God, but I think I am going to suggest something I really, really don't want to do, but need to do.

My Mother had a stroke a few months ago, and is actually recovery rather well.

However.....

Describing another person's personality in a thread like this is extremely difficult....there are so many nuances and easily miss-understood descriptions one could use, that it's pretty much an exercise in futility. But I will try.

She's a rather emotional person. She's quite the hypochondriac, and rather submissive to authority figures like Doctors and therapists and such. The damage to her brain has exacerbated these and other personality traits.

So, in a nut shell, she is living in a retirement home for a month, despite her rehab specialists and doctors telling her she was free to return to her condo, her home. She is also uselessly moving forward with MRIs and further meetings with Neurologists, because she can't stop obsessing about having had a stroke. She's also talking about staying, just one more month, at the retirement facility. And I'm worrying she will never leave it.

What she really needs is a strict regime of excercise and daily activities, which she is no longer getting as she is no long getting any intense post-stroke rehab, just some basic crapola, for the 5k a month she is paying to stay at this retirement facility.

Well, I think I need to get a two bedroom apartment and move her in temporarily, to get her focused and motivated. At 72, she is far to young to be acting the way she is. Vigorous working out, harder than she has ever done in her life, is what she really needs. But she is not going to push herself, and the facility she is living in is not going to push her either. She needs to go to bed at the same time every night, get up the same time every morning, and not lay in bed during the day. These sorts of things are not going to happen unless someone stays on her about them.

I'm thinking we could get into a routine for a month or two of hitting the gym together 5 days a week, to regain her strength and help her brain to re-wires itself just the little bit better that it needs, so she can return to living on her own.

I'm torn though...it would be really hard on both of us. We normally have a rather cantankerous relationship. We are very much not alike in personality, so we struggle to get along well together.

Still, I think that living together, helping her get into some healthy routines, would be massively positive for her rehabilitation.

I just don't want to do it, but I know I need to. Still, I have to get her to agree, but I imagine she will go for it if I present the idea properly.

So, wish me luck. Thanks for letting me vent my anxieties.

[UtahIrishman]

I have a feeling that 'hitting the gym' will not go over well. I would suggest talking to a trainer first.

I'd take a step back and really assess your situation. Talk with her physician and other current care-givers before going ahead with this. You both might end up regretting it.

[M&P15T]

I have a feeling that 'hitting the gym' will not go over well. I would suggest talking to a trainer first.

I'd take a step back and really assess your situation. Talk with her physician and other current care-givers before going ahead with this. You both might end up regretting it.

I've been intimately involved in every decision concerning her health for the last few months. I have spoken with every doctor and rehab specialist she has seen....in depth, at length. I gave the ER docs legal permission for every procedure during her coma, and the weeks afterwards. I have been with her during quite a few of her physical therapy sessions.

I have all the information I need, and she was a 3-4 day a week, 72 year old gym rat before her stroke. Which is why she has recovered so well. She herself has already mentioned us living together at some point.

It won't be easy, but in the end it will be worth the effort.

[Calico Jack]

Just wanted to drop in and wish you well no matter what you and your mother decide to do. I am sure that it's a tough situation and I hope that I have at least another decade or two before I am faced with the same decisions.

[FullClip]

Hey M&P! Sorry to hear about your mom and hope she springs back to her old self soon. Sounds like she's got a lot of support from you, but there is a saying that "you can lead a horse to water, but can't make it drink".
People are all different and how they respond after an incident like a stroke are hard to predict. The more work she puts in will most likely be rewarded, but some people just don't try and it's very hard to change them.

My mother had a stroke back in 1998 and thanks to my older sister and brother in law made it to hospital quickly and there wasn't too much damage done. After she was "outa' the woods" so to speak and able to take visitors, I brought her a crossword puzzle book. She always did the daily newspaper crossword with her morning coffee. When she opened it up, she started to cry and said she couldn't read anymore because of the stroke. She's an RN, so knows the symptoms. Being the loving son that I am, I pointed out that the crossword book was Italian!:supergrin: GOTCHA MOM!!:rofl:

She came back about 99% of her old self after the stroke and now she just celebrated her 91st birthday. She uses a walker to get around, due to a fall that broke her hip and not the stroke. She still does the crossword puzzle every morning and we still laugh at my trick.

[M&P15T]

Hey M&P! Sorry to hear about your mom and hope she springs back to her old self soon. Sounds like she's got a lot of support from you, but there is a saying that "you can lead a horse to water, but can't make it drink".
People are all different and how they respond after an incident like a stroke are hard to predict. The more work she puts in will most likely be rewarded, but some people just don't try and it's very hard to change them.

My mother had a stroke back in 1998 and thanks to my older sister and brother in law made it to hospital quickly and there wasn't too much damage done. After she was "outa' the woods" so to speak and able to take visitors, I brought her a crossword puzzle book. She always did the daily newspaper crossword with her morning coffee. When she opened it up, she started to cry and said she couldn't read anymore because of the stroke. She's an RN, so knows the symptoms. Being the loving son that I am, I pointed out that the crossword book was Italian!:supergrin: GOTCHA MOM!!:rofl:

She came back about 99% of her old self after the stroke and now she just celebrated her 91st birthday. She uses a walker to get around, due to a fall that broke her hip and not the stroke. She still does the crossword puzzle every morning and we still laugh at my trick.

Glad to hear things turned out so well for your Mother.

I'm hoping for the same types of results, it's just gonna take a lot of patience and work.

It might not be obvious, but patience is not my strong suit.:rofl::rofl:

Oh, and my Mom is (was) an RN too. In fact she was taken to the hospital that she originally started her Nursing career at, stayed there about a month.

[M&P15T]

Just wanted to drop in and wish you well no matter what you and your mother decide to do. I am sure that it's a tough situation and I hope that I have at least another decade or two before I am faced with the same decisions.

Yeah, I debated whether or not to discuss this here, but it's something that almost everyone is going to have to go through at some point in their lives.

[UtahIrishman]

I've been intimately involved in every decision concerning her health for the last few months. I have spoken with every doctor and rehab specialist she has seen....in depth, at length. I gave the ER docs legal permission for every procedure during her coma, and the weeks afterwards. I have been with her during quite a few of her physical therapy sessions.

I have all the information I need, and she was a 3-4 day a week, 72 year old gym rat before her stroke. Which is why she has recovered so well. She herself has already mentioned us living together at some point.

It won't be easy, but in the end it will be worth the effort.

Knowing she was a gym rat before her stroke puts a different perspective on things.

Good luck

[M&P15T]

Knowing she was a gym rat before her stroke puts a different perspective on things.

Good luck

She has her own membership and trainer, she just needs her butt kicked for motivation. The damage the stroke did is really causing hell with the parts of her personality that kept her working out.

I am the designated butt kicker, she will be the kickee.:rofl::rofl:

[Bruce M]

Good luck - I agree that her staying in a nursing home probably will not do her any good long term.

[M&P15T]

Good luck - I agree that her staying in a nursing home probably will not do her any good long term.

And that's my exact thought. She can get back to a 99% level if she works at it. But where she's at now, that's not gonna happen.

In fact, her forward progress has halted over the last two weeks she's been there. She might have even regressed a bit. She just sits around playing the helpless victim role in her head, acting like things aren't up to her, taking no control.

That has to change.