No.
First, let me take a really broad brush over the last 4 months.
UTI/overmedication/hospitalization/transitional care/concerns from 100% of her care team about her ability to live alone/released only after she agreed to in home help for medication/she refused any in home help the second she walked in her door. Discovery that her license & tabs all expired before any of that happened. We took her keys because she was so out of it all the time and if she shouldn’t be living alone driving also seemed like a bad idea. Also she agreed. We have been to her house at least every 2-3 days each week since she moved back in December to get a better sense of where she is at mentally and to fill her pill boxes. And to bring her to doctors appointments, hair & nails appointments (in New Prague), the pharmacy, the smoke shop, the bank, Walmart, Cub, the shoe store, .. etc. She has been the equivalent of a part time job.
In March we finally felt like we were leveling out. The anonymous report to the DMV medical examiner resulted in the in person interview (which she passed) and she was given a month to take her drivers test. T and I spent an afternoon with her teaching her how to do the 90 degree back in (which we hated because the main problem she had was that she COULDN’T SEE ME IN THE BLUE COAT standing in the back of the parking space and if you can’t see the human in the blue coat who says “I’ll be behind the car in the space just center on me” how will she ever see a pedestrian that doesn’t announce herself first?) Bygones. Last week she somehow managed to pass her behind the wheel exam on her second try in as many days. Not bygones because after the test the examiner pulled me into a room privately to share that he wanted to fail her but when he looked at the standards as written she met the standards and I felt so let down because I needed a 3rd party to TELL her she couldn’t drive and instead the 3rd party told me to keep an eye on her. Moving on.
Three times on the ride home that day I answered her question and told her that getting insurance on her car was her next step towards driving. And then she called S that night and then the next day to ask the same question and I don’t fault her for not remembering because I know her memory is a problem but it is impossible to know where the remembering starts and stops and if she cannot remember the one thing that needs to be done to get her keys back which she desperately wants then how is she remembering rules of the road? ….. ufft. 10 days letter she called S in tears because she couldn’t get insurance because of… blah blah … and she just didn’t know what to do… blah blah … and long story short it ended with me making an appointment and then bringing her to an insurance office yesterday and sitting at a desk with an agent who could write her a policy and accept her check. Done. (Thank you Bob)
None of this matters. Its just all facts and its nothing that every person with an aging parent hasn’t dealt with. We aren’t special. I know that. It’s just background to say that its been a hard few months trying to establish her ability to take care of herself. I could list example after example after example but it doesn’t matter because in the end it just is what it is. Nothing matches. Nothing makes sense. We are constantly asking ourselves what we are seeing. Is this the new normal? How much is she covering? Is she lying again? Is she trying to manipulate us into believing she can take care of herself? Should she be living alone? Should she? How about now? On a weekly basis this answer seems to change. I showed up a few weeks ago to bring her out to practice parking for her drivers test and was so alarmed by the sounds in her chest and her inability to get a good breath that instead I took her straight to Urgent Care. If she couldn’t breathe (“its been like this for a few days”) then why didn’t she call us about that? It definitely seems more important than calling me with an urgent need for a tomato. She is just hard. She has always been hard and this extra layer doesn’t make it any easier.
So there is that. And there is still the thing where she is always making negative comments about S and T. “You need to get a better picture taken of her because she doesn’t look pretty in her hockey picture”, or complaining to S about me “M just couldn’t get it done” or complaining to me about S (too many examples to list). Because as much as I’m not pumped about spending time with her several days a week I am exponentially less pumped if I know I have to work to actively not argue with her the entire time I am with her. It is just so emotionally draining.
A few weeks ago she called S crying because she really needed to see him and then when he got there she started sharing things from her therapy appointment. Telling him things her Doctor said. She “cannot believe you took my license away” and is “mortified that you just dumped me on the doorstep a year ago and haven’t done a thing to get me unpacked” is uncalled for, unnecessary, intentionally mean spirited and wrong. Suddenly she seems fine. Her behavior is back to the making up lies to manipulate shit place and no longer in the crap I can’t remember what day it is place. When this happens it always stuns. How is it possible for her to have such an altered sense of perception? Does it truly not even register with her how much we are doing for her? Does she know how often we are there? Does she understand that when we are with her we are not anywhere else? Like at work? How is it possible for her to be so consistently self-centered and blissfully unaware of how she impacts others?
All that said, imagine how easy it is for me to completely ignore her when she starts complaining to me about how the 3rd level of the townhome isn’t set up (the one she doesn’t go into and has never gone into and will never go into), or how she needs lampshades, or how she can’t find anything in her house. Just do it yourself. You have literally nothing else to do. It isn’t our job. We have been having an internal struggle for 3 months about you living alone. Why would we spend extra time to unpack boxes full of things you don’t need if there is a chance we’ll have to pack them up again shortly when you move to assisted living? Replacing lampshades that were lost in the fire for rooms you never sit in is not a priority. Nor is “putting everything back where it goes” because everything will never be put back where it goes because half your stuff was gotten rid of in the fire and the other half is meant to fill the space you are living in. Not the basement. Not the 3rd level. Not the porch. The space you are living in. Which is currently full of furniture and beautifully decorated.
Which leads me to today. I picked her up in Burnsville to get her to St Louis Park for the 11:40 appointment with her psychiatrist. At then end of the appointment she joyfully handed me a letter addressed “To K’s family” (which promptly put in my bag) that stated “it would be helpful for K’s mental health for home decorations to be back in place in a manner she is accustomed to.” because “spending time in her undecorated home has been very detrimental to her mood and has exacerbated her mental health symptoms.” and “it is not healthy for her. She needs assistance with this project” and finally “thank you for helping her with this”.
NO.
Absolutely not. No. Nobody tells me what to do. A doctor I haven’t met and who has heard only one side of a story doesn’t get to give me a letter telling me I need to be more helpful. How dare she judge me and what I’ve been able to do and decide I’ve come up short? Who does she think she is?
So NO. We won’t be giving her any more time to “hang pictures” and get her home “put back together”.
I went to get the car and quickly read the letter in the ramp. Fuming. Pretending I didn’t read it. Not wanting to give her the satisfaction. Knowing damn well she thinks she won. So I had to do lots of deep breathing as I pulled up the car at the clinic and then sit in an uncomfortable silence all the way to the insurance agents office. And then to the pharmacy and cub for a few things (4 boxes of bacon and a tub of guacamole) and then home to fill her pills.
As I was FINALLY leaving to go back home she started doing what I can only describe as making her case. About how its so hard for her to get things out of the basement. (You don’t need to. The basement is storage) She doesn’t trust herself to lift those boxes. (great. Stay out of the basement). Her back really hurts. (Maybe get a bed to sleep on because that couch is the source of your back problems) She told her Doctor today that its so hard for her to get settled because none of the boxes are labeled with what is inside them. (wait.. WHAT??) I’ll say it again.. She complained TO ME that one of the boxes are labeled with what is inside them. She never lift one finger to help us move her out, or move to Serv Pro, or to the dumpster, or into our house, or into the apartment, or back to the townhome. She did zero things. She packed zero boxes. We did all of it. And she has the nerve now to complain about what a terrible job we did to her therapist, who has now decided we need to do better.
No.