My Sanity Needed Vents

[MartyT]

http://www.sandcmemories.com/i/CottageCutz/Cottagecutz_Sending_Hugs_Bear.jpg

[widow'15]

4 hours ago, kayc said:

That's all well and good for a loaner but I hope they don't bring my car back with a stressed engine that'll have problems on down the road, I want to hear my son's take on this!  I need a man who knows something about now!

Oh kayc, wishing this bad luck streak will disappear for you quickly.  You have been through enough.  Your son's knowledge will hopefully give you answers. 

So sorry Peggy's dementia has progressed.  Sending you good thoughts and hugs.  Dee 

[Gwenivere]

6 hours ago, kayc said:

I need a man who knows something about now!

I sure know that feeling.  It sounds so dated as we women are so strong, but I do so miss my masculine hero.  Just like men miss their feminine balances in their wives.  Even the gay married couple I know each have strengths more dominant to a gender.  It’s that perfect person, no matter who the participants, that make it so ideal.  I see that in a new friendship with the gay women i recently met.  They round each other out.

[kayc]

Men and women, if coupled right, can balance each other.

I picked my car up last night.  My son and neighbor both say Kendall is lying!  My son said if the car sucked air for a while it will cause damage to the bearings, which can show up later.  My neighbor said him and his wife are witnesses, he checked the oil twice and put a board under the car to catch the leak.  Yep, they're lying.  I'm not up to a big court fight right now, I have my hands full.  Thankfully I have five years left on my warranty (I bought an extended one).  That's good as I still have four more years to pay on it.

Peggy's doctor called me last night at bedtime wanting permission for an epidural for pain as Peggy is unable to make decisions for herself due to her mental state right now.  If no one takes her in, the state will take over, it might be best.  I know Julie and Mick could do it, they're both young enough and in good shape, but apparently don't want to...I gave the caseworker Julie's number as she'd offered to take her in, but she backed off on that and is still pushing me.  BP still up.  Gee I wonder why!  I am so aggravated!  What they're trying to do to me is just wrong.  I can't sacrifice my own health and well being, and I know this is too much for me with my age, medical conditions.  My son is the only one who mentioned that Peggy has lived her whole life doing whatever she wanted and she is living the consequences.  It sounds harsh but it's true.  This is the person who lived here all these years and yet never once did anything for me or anyone, not even brought me a cup of soup after surgery!  No rides, no nothing, yet now I'm supposed to sacrifice my life for her...she sat in a chair and read or watched t.v. or talked on the phone and ate, no volunteer work, nothing for others, no exercise, no eating right, nothing.  Not saying that brought on her dementia but she has done nothing to help her situation.  Her biggest handicap is not her balance, it is not respecting her limitations with common sense.  Anyway, enough said.

 

[MartyT]

5 hours ago, kayc said:

I can't sacrifice my own health and well being, and I know this is too much for me with my age, medical conditions.

Please copy this and post it where you can see it as often as necessary, dear Kay, because it's the TRUTH ~ and I hope that for your own sake you will abide by it. ❤️

[Kieron]

[kayc]

Believe me, Marty, that is inscribed on my forehead! 
Kieron, I have saved that to my desktop, it's perfect for dealing with someone with dementia. 
Thank you, both of you.  My friends and son support me in this, it's only my family pushing me, that's because they don't want responsibility for her care.  It's too much, at this point it looks like she does need 24 hour care, not half as much for the physical as her mental state.  It took me all day to get a hold of her and she thinks men in black suits are watching her, her responses don't correlate with what we say/ask her.  She makes no sense and has no judgment.  If they all want me to clean out her hoarding home, no.  I can help them but it's an impossibility to me.  I can't even pay her bills without being on her bank account or having POA, which she's not capable of doing now.  This is why I tried to get her to DO SOMETHING before...

[Gwenivere]

What a mess, Kay.  I think the wisest thing you can do at this point is step back.  You have virtually no control or any way of getting it done.  And it’s not something one person should have to take on when there is other family.  You’ve done a lot already and I’d beg out of cleaning out her home too.  Especially if she is a hoarder. I just read how much this all upsets you and the only thing you have control of is making some choices.  I know it’s tough with blood ties, I’ve been there.  But as Marty said, and I’m sure everyone here would agree, you come first.  

[Margm]

Sorry, I will take my word salad down.  Love you all.  My heart is with you.  Really, advice is something I think I should not give.  My life is played out in so many scenes that talking about them is kind of out of line.

Like going to the grief sessions at the church.  I cried all the way home from each meeting, not for the women who lost their husbands, but for the focus of each meeting was the death of their children.  I loved Billy, grief does not compete.  You have it, you live with it, you cope, but I could not handle the grief of these mothers.  

I love you all.  I am having some of the same troubles.  5 years and 8 months, but who is counting?

[kayc]

19 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

What a mess, Kay.  I think the wisest thing you can do at this point is step back.  You have virtually no control or any way of getting it done.  And it’s not something one person should have to take on when there is other family.  You’ve done a lot already and I’d beg out of cleaning out her home too.  Especially if she is a hoarder. I just read how much this all upsets you and the only thing you have control of is making some choices.  I know it’s tough with blood ties, I’ve been there.  But as Marty said, and I’m sure everyone here would agree, you come first.  

Thank you.  I see we no longer have the ability to "like" a post, just another change.

Last night she told me a volunteer named Joe did surgery on her.  This is typical of what I'm dealing with.  Polly called me, upset.  Peggy said Polly was mad I wasn't home the first time she called (I was walking Kodie, am I allowed?!).  Peggy reiterated that I'm in charge...I'm not in charge, there is no POA, no one on her bank account, etc.  The state will have to take over and they will take her home.  I only want Bert's ashes for safekeeping.  If she gets in a care center I can bring them to her if her mental state improves...if I can trust them not to do something with them.  I will go get them Sunday and take a look in her refrigerator (her neighbor told me day 4 I need to go clean it out).  Polly told me she got groceries nine days ago, stuff shouldn't be rotten yet, it can wait a while.  I can unplug her air filtration as it doesn't need to be drawing electricity.  Fortunately I have a key to her house she gave me this year.  I told Polly the family can come get the family heirlooms if they want but if by some miracle she's ever able to return with a caregiver, they need to bring them back.

Marg & Gwen, I think I've blocked sex out of my mind, I just don't go there, it's off the table.  I've had to learn to live without it.  That was hard when George died, I was just 52, now, well, I've grown old and have many other things consuming my mind.  To us it wasn't just a physical act, it was us connecting, George always called it "plugging in," I loved that way of describing it because it's how I felt, an emotional and spiritual connection, the physical was just part of it.  Since I don't get to have the whole thing, I don't go there, besides, there's my beliefs (sex is for marriage).  Right now my mind is very much on my sister's situation and dealing with everyone about it, no room for much else. 

Marg, I feel for you having so much family to deal with...it can be a positive but can also burden us as we care.

[Kieron]

Well, Marg, I got to read the word salad before you threw it out 🙃 , so all I can say is, after reading it I made a vow to never complain about getting migraine headaches.  Those at least go away after a while.

[widow'15]

Marg, Like Kieron I got to read your "word salad" late last night before I went to bed and as I was reading it all I could think of is how in the world could any human endure such medical treatments.  I shudder to think how your poor little body survived.  I am embarrassed to complain about my aches and pains after what you had to go through. Hugs to you.  Dee

[Margm]

4 hours ago, Kieron said:

Well, Marg, I got to read the word salad before you threw it out 🙃 

I'm sorry Kieron, I get carried away sometimes.  "It is what it is."  Those were the last words my beautiful aunt said to me.  She got our family's inherited tremor late in her life.  I've had from the 6th grade to get used to it.  No one treats me with any hatefulness because of it.  Never have.  I had it mildly as a teenager and at our dances at the teen club, a slow dance was interpreted as the male feeling he made me "excited" and he liked that.  I didn't and quit going to them.  It was only a slight tremor.  It advances and my dad, and my aunts and a distant young cousin have it.  We really should be studied by some neurological institute, but myself and the young boy are the only ones left. My grandfather and his brother died of Parkinson's and I worked in the neurology department, but was told there was no correlation in mine and Parkinson's.  I retired from that hospital in 1997, and in 1997, they did discover there was some of the parkinsonism genes inherited.  My aunt was late in getting it.  She had lost a husband, a daughter,  and her lifelong neighbor, her sister by then.  She had a son left, they were not that close, she hated his wife.  My aunt was certainly old enough to die an elderly woman, but she had been a beauty even in this later life.  She decided to give up.  I went to see her one last time before COVID and she told me how much she loved me, we had grown up together even though she was five years older.  She actually willed herself to die.  It is possible, I saw her do it.  No stopping her.  I wouldn't have tried.  She wanted to give up.  

I'm sorry I got carried away last night.  I felt the cancer had taken some of my existence, but remember, that was in 1982.  I've lived many years since then.  I knew so much radiation could come back as other cancer.  It didn't.  Thirty-two years later my insides simply exploded.  My colon burst through my female organs and I had sepsis all over and was expected to die.  They didn't tell me though.  Instead, my best friend, he left the next year.

Sorry for all the gore.  What doesn't kill you cures you.  I got that close enough. 

 

[kayc]

You have indeed been through a lot.  More than one person should have to.    I see we got the ability to "like" posts again!

[Kieron]

We also have a "Sad" response as an option, now. 

Marg, no worries, I wasn't bothered in the least.  You have indeed been through hell and back, from the sound of it.

[Gwenivere]

Marg, this is my outlet for getting carried away!   Sure can’t do it with anyone I know out there.  And venting to myself turns me more inward which is not a good thing.  For example, where else could I get out how thrown off I am my alarm didn’t go off, is throwing off my med schedule and creating anxiety because I’m so locked into routine?  For anyone else it’s ‘what’s the big deal about half an hour'?  My overreaction feels like there is something wrong with me.  Actually I know there is.  All these months of added pain and loneliness have me locked in a mental prison of despair that adapting to small changes or doing minor things are monumental. Sometimes coming here even seems hard.  
 

so vent away!  I remember that was how you were when I joined.  How I got to know so much about you.  Sharing your struggles helped so many not feel so alone.  I also know you have to feel up to it.  I just hope you keep checking in.  I know you’ve been struggling with some personal stuff.  
 

I just miss ya, lady!  💖

[Margm]

Well folks, I have company, and they are all amusing themselves.  I am trying to kind of listen, Trying to not listen.  I did accidentally get back in the year 2020, don't know why, but I was terribly confused and sorry for the things that were happening.  Could not figure out when Gwen went to rehab. (I then checked my dates.) Also, company has gone.   

I'm doing okay.  Kay, I hope your situation will figure itself out.  I know when it is my time, if my sister goes first, I'm just going to have to have help.  If one of my kids go first, I probably won't be far behind them.  

I've got to where if I have a different skin grabbing pain, I will say, "well, lets wait and see."  All I can do.  If I see blood from anywhere, there is nothing they can do. (Have not seen blood in 7 years).  I still don't have a doctor here.  I need to have one.  Don't laugh:  I had discolorations above my toes.  Looked like I had drawn about three inches long, two inches wide using a Sharpie.  I washed, rubbed, scrubbed and it would not go off.  Looked like I had dirty toes.  Did not hurt, except I had rubbed so much.  It has been on now about five days.  I showed Bri, she is so against me getting dirty.  She is really OCD about cleanliness..  Mama used to call me "Moonbeam McSwine" so you know, I get by on PTA baths most times.  I shower, no tub baths since 1982.  I know this is not "normal" but it is "my normal."  Brianna smartly mentioned COVID toes.  Yes, they are real. (I looked it up naturally.)  I have had no fever, no cough, no chest congestion, headaches, any flu symptoms.  And now that I probably need to go to a doctor, they are fading and I have decided, they are the two toes next to the big toe.  If they fall off, I'm okay.  I probably told you I called a doctor, they asked my age, insurance, meds I take.  I believe telling them Xanax made them think I was drug seeking, so they said he would "interview" me as a patient in July, his next open date.  I said "elf them anyhow" and will go to urgent med if I have to.  I don't think they want to be bothered with old people.  Either that or the Xanax.  My blood pressure had been going high so I called the clinic I have used for about 25 years, and really cannot drive 175 miles for an emergency. She assigned me another blood pressure med I had been on a few years ago.  My insurance is very excellent, being almost 79 and taking Xanax are not good patients to get acquainted with..  

Word salad.  I'll leave it.  Toes don't hurt.  They are still hanging on the same as the other foot.  At the time I thought it was my black sneakers and black socks and walking in water.  At this point, I'm my own doctor.  (Probably like the lawyer, equaling a fool for a patient.)

[KarenK]

Marg,

Black toes!! That's a new one. Have you maybe bumped your toes, not hard enough to cause a lot of pain, but enough to bruise? I know it takes almost nothing to put a bruise on me, another gift of old age.

Made me think of the "Blue People Of Kentucky", although their blue tinged skin color was caused by a recessive gene carried by both original parents, and passed down through the generations by intermarriage due to isolation in the remote hills of Kentucky. They were shunned by " normal" people.

[kayc]

The black toes thing would scare me!  If you were diabetic I'd say get into your doctor or urgent care asap!  Barring that, ER.  Whether they fall off or not, you still need medical care for them!  Did you have Covid?  Are they necrotic?  I really hope you get to the bottom of this!  Do they itch?  One place I looked at said hydrocortisone cream, but if it was me, I'd want to know what's causing it and what to do about it!

[Margm]

Not necrotic.  I didn't know what they were.  Could have gone to urgent care (less than a mile away), last night they had faded to almost natural color.  I thought about the dropping something.  No soreness except where I tried to rub the color off.  You live miles from a doctor.  I live within less than a mile from a few.  After the "interview" suggestion, I was ready to tell them all where to put the interview.  I have to tell them I take the Xanax, but I do not want medicine from them.  I'm sure they would not like my primary doctors to still be used, but I will keep using them.  If they have suggestions for different blood pressure meds, I will take them.  After the local MD had to "interview" me, I just sort of gave up on local docs.  I can still call mine in Arkansas, but they are not here.  I can call and talk to them any time, but they still are not close, and they know my history.  I've written it down for local doc's, but I don't know how they would enter it in the computer and the first local doc I went to didn't listen to me.  I did not have to take the medicine prescribed.  A new antidepressant.  Even I know you have to be cautious about antidepressants with the elderly.  I still have to find one, and use my own will as to what they tell me.  

One thing I know, I cannot be fixed.  But they can monitor blood pressure.  Sometimes you cannot make a doctor understand you know your body better than he does.

[Gwenivere]

2 hours ago, Marg M said:

Sometimes you cannot make a doctor understand you know your body better than he does.

I think of all the times I have been given new meds or had them changed in dosage or time taken and be told there is no way they could cause side effects I encounter.  Really?  Who’s taking the pill and who isn’t?  I’ve gotten ‘I’ve never heard of that reaction' like it means it can’t exist.  Don’t know many now, but I miss the docs I’ve had that would say....let’s just stop that then.  Maybe try something else or let me look at other possible options.  Sometimes we’d find something and others it was living without to avoid the cure being worse than the malady.  Thyroid meds I have no choice on.  Have to take them to live.  At least my endocrinologist listens snd makes adjustments ever so slightly so I can adapt.  It’s still hell tho.  

[Margm]

I screw things up sometimes.  Deleted response.  Did not mean to.  Will write later.  Your right Gwen, we know sometimes better than the doc.  There was a word they used in dictating, cannot remember it, but it meant "at the doctor's skilled request" and he was doing it because he had had success using that med, but it did not always work.  I saw Kelli in the  hospital.  She told them she could not take "mycins" and they overrode her knowledge, said it was the newest "mycin" and she would not be hurt by it.  I sat by her bed and saw her breaking out in red welts all over her body in a matter of minutes.  They were fast to give her the  medicine to stop the other.  

[kayc]

I am glad it's not necrotic!  There could be many possibilities, I'd be scared to try and draw a conclusion as to what without professional input.  I'm sure you'll keep an eye on it!  You've been around medical more than many!

[Margm]

No, it is all but completely faded now.  Toes intact.  I just really "get my feelings hurt" that as good of insurance as I have, and really what holds me back is they think I am drug seeking, and also, and I hate to say it, but I believe it is age related.  I will let them know my medicine will be given by my home clinic, which is too far from "home" and they will never be asked for Xanax.  I'm doing okay on my medicines prescribed by my "home" physicians.  I just need someone to read my case history.  I cannot be fixed, so they do not need to try anything new.  But, if I have bronchitis (which I have had once in the last 5-1/2 years, I will need IM antibiotics.  Otherwise, with the aggravation they  cause my colon, cannot take.  If they do not understand, I don't want one.  I'd like them to know me in case I have a stroke (gosh hope not), but need to know what I cannot take and what I can.  Not like the gung-ho new doctor that was going to cure my grief with the newest antidepressant that nearly killed me,  could have killed me, with me telling her I understood it was grief depression.  I guess they want to practice their new medical tricks and I'm too old to give something new.  Gotta make them understand.  My clinic in Arkansas understands my needs.  I just need one closer.  

[Gwenivere]

I’m in the same predicament regarding Xanax too, Marg.  Have to see a shrink for mine.  Not one single doc will touch the stuff.  I’m so missing the doc I had for decades that retired and a new one that said let’s not fix what isn’t broken move to another city.  Saved me having to add this guy. Now it’s like a 4 letter word.  Poor Dee got shot down for asking about it.  Yet, they will give you some risky sleeping pills I wouldn’t dare take for side effects.  This looking at the patient as an individual is getting lost in this drug sweep painting everyone the same.  You can be monitored for use by how much they give.  At least give people that option.  I’ve never exceeded what I was prescribed.  Seems to me you have to be dying to get what you need.  Steve could have anything he wanted.  They even offered him stuff he didn’t because he didn’t want to be overly drugged.  Hardly the picture of an abuser.  
 

I get pushed on antidepressants too.  Really annoys me.  I understand that they won’t 'cure' it, but will (supposedly) help you feel better able to handle the factors fueling it.  But side effects matter to me.  Like it being physically dangerous for you, I find them mentally dangerous as pushing me over the edge.  I don’t know the answer for how to deal with my deep depression.  I’m just sick of so few options that I can find.  Feeling sick and being in pain all the time is not helping this either.

It’s situation that in fantasy I’d love to not have to take any pills.  While some are helping, they are also creating problems often.  We have to learn to live with them. There are some fantastic meds out there that have given people their lives back.  Thank gawd for that.  While barbaric now, chemo has saved people.  
 

it’s so complicated as we age.  I miss the days my only pills were occasional aspirin and birth control.  Other pills were for dental pain but fun too.  Getting a script for Percocet was like gold!  Of course, the need was no fun.  
 

as caring as my docs can be, it has the feel of business with the changes.