Small Talk: A Common Room to gather and chat

[chitowngirl]

A place to discuss things not in the episodes, but perhaps generated by events in the episode.

[Shermie]

Lots of discussion about elder care options or lack thereof, cost comparisons, and the realism of the facility in this show compared to experience. I copied my last post from the episode thread, not sure if copied properly.

  14 hours ago,  possibilities said:

Yes, you have to spend down your money, but you're going to do that anyway if you pay for some dormatory type institution so might as well choose home.

If you’re in an apartment or condo, that might work, but if you live in a house and need home care, I assume you can’t mow lawn, tend gardens, rake leaves, or shovel show. Home care won’t do that. 

Aging in your house sounds nice, but there’s so much more to it. As the child of parents who stubbornly refused to move out of a house they couldn’t manage, I can tell you it’s a selfish choice. When they finally moved to a locally seniors apartment complex (independent living, no dining room), they loved it. I was angry they wasted so much time delaying the move that my very social father only got to enjoy for a year before he died. 

[QuantumMechanic]

This show really gives me the feels.

My 95yo mom lives by herself in her house ("I was born here [she literally was] and I'm gonna die here!") while my sister and I are trying to convince her to move into an independent/assisted living place.

A year ago she got covid, had to be hospitalized, and when discharged had to spend 3 weeks in a rehab center.  Those three weeks were the happiest my sister and I had seen her in years! Doing activities.  Talking with people.  Picking out her meals at lunch and supper. Doing PT. Once when I was visiting she even practically shooed me out so she could go hang with some of the other residents!  My sister and I were hoping that would be the thing that would get her to be willing to move or at least strongly consider it.

But no :(

She's the last one standing from her generation.  All her friends and same-generation relatives are dead and she's bitterly lonely. (And tells my sister and I that every other day).  But would apparently rather be lonely than move.  Even with the experience she had at rehab.  Que sera sera...

[shapeshifter]

My post from an episode thread:

On 12/2/2024 at 9:12 AM, shapeshifter said:

There are many triggering disconnects for me regarding this fictional assisted living center, including some of those discussed upthread.

One unrealistic depiction that hasn't yet been discussed is there are many people in such facilities whose brains are affected to cause Parkinsonian or other mobility symptoms rather than dementia, and who might "only" have the mild cognitive loss demonstrated in the conversation between Charles and Calbert about those pesky nouns.

This show speaks to those who have had close encounters with those affected by dementia, but it pretty much ignores that the same facility would house residents who might enter using a cane, graduate to a walker, and eventually be bedridden and unable to move, with hands frozen and speech not able to be controlled.

I don't recall the subject of assisted dying coming up either. Maybe a throwaway line, but not in depth, I don't think.

This show was good — even excellent at times — but maybe Charles' next assignment will be outside of that facility, because I don't see how they can continue at Pacific View — or even another such facility — without it going either too dark or too unrealistic.
Calbert or Virginia or even Elliot might accompany Charles for part of his mission. 

They left it open-ended, so it could go literally anywhere.

So here's my TL;DR thoughts triggered by anything like this show:

My parents moved to Hawaii in the mid-1980s and lived there for 30 years (Mom worked there into her mid-70s and Dad worked into his mid-80s.)
It was a 12 hours to get there by 1-3 planes from California/Illinois for me and my kids, so I/we never went more than once a year; there were some 4-year gaps too, sometimes during which they'd make a trip, though we spoke on the phone every week.

It was 16+ hours for my sister from Ontario Canada, but she had more money and vacation time, so my sister and her husband went every year, cleaning gutters, replacing the dishwasher etc. (things my parents could afford to pay someone to do), and the last 10 years my sister and her husband went twice a year. 

Every. Single. Visit for those last 10 years my sister would get in a huge argument with my parents about how they should move into an assisted living place. 
One time she told me she was not going to argue with them anymore, but that only lasted 6 months. 

Mom and Dad finally did agree to tour the only assisted living place on their island and they hated it. They loved their home. 

Meanwhile Dad would have episodes where he would collapse on the ceramic tile floor and Mom couldn't lift him up, but they never called 9-1-1. They refused to get Alert pendants too. 
Dad shouldn't have been driving, but they lived 5 miles from town, and Mom's leg didn't move well enough for her to brake, and there was no food delivery services then (not even pizza; I made calls) so Dad drove them to Costco and doctors once a week and miraculously didn't have any accidents.

On my sister's last visit there in 2015 when Dad was 91 and Mom was 86, he had one of his passing out episodes, and my sister called an ambulance. 
He was hooked up with tubes and couldn't swallow. Sister got him to sign a form to not be intubated for food. 
Then she called me and told me he was dying and that I should not come because she needed me to be there for Mom after he died since they had reservations for a trip to Wales in 2 weeks. 
I didn't know I had stage IV cancer at the time (I'd find out 2 months later) but I didn't have the energy to argue and it was the busy time of the year where I worked. 
My oldest daughter was always supposed to go when "something happened" so my sister wouldn't make wild decisions, but my daughter was in the hospital recovering from a cycling accident. 

Within 2 weeks my sister sold their home for half its value and moved Mom into the assisted living place. I stayed with her for a bit after that, but it's a blur along with a lot of memories of that year wiped out by my cancer treatments. 

2 months later when I was on chemo, my sister moved Mom to another assisted living place in Florida, about 6 hours for me by taxis and plane, and about 10 hours for her. I had suggested a place closer, but my sister reasoned that Mom's 83-year-old brother in Florida (who she hadn't seen in 10 years) was going to "take care of her."
I suppose my sister assumed I was dying, and since my sister lives in Canada where Mom could not get healthcare for the first 2 years, and since the other place in the States I suggested was 3 hours by car from my sister, I guess she still thinks she made the right choice. 

But Mom cried and moaned all day with no friends in a strange place in a strange town among strangers the first year and a half after Dad passed. Then she started losing her ability to speak clearly, so she just stopped, except for an occasional barked order. 

There was one saintly caregiver for the next couple of years, but then she left the facility, and then there was Covid, and then Mom died, 5 long years after Dad. 

During one of my visits the visiting chaplain pulled me aside to tell me:
“Your mother misses her husband; she misses her home.”

On 1/3/2025 at 9:47 AM, shapeshifter said:

Mom was in a place like this her last 5 years for $5k/mo from 2016-2020.
3 times she lay on the floor for 8-10 hours pushing the button on the lanyard around her neck. 

 

[Haleth]

Oh, shapeshifter. I’m so sorry. Hugs. 

[Bastet]

On 1/13/2025 at 8:20 AM, shapeshifter said:

During one of my visits the visiting chaplain pulled me aside to tell me:
“Your mother misses her husband; she misses her home.”

What an asshole move.  Her husband and home are both gone; of course she misses them, and you're well aware of that, but there's nothing you could do to bring either of them back.  So what's the point of saying that?  The only thing it's going to do is make someone feel bad - sad, guilty, and/or angry.

On 1/13/2025 at 8:20 AM, shapeshifter said:

3 times she lay on the floor for 8-10 hours pushing the button on the lanyard around her neck.

That's exponentially more appalling.

[chaifan]

On 1/13/2025 at 11:20 AM, shapeshifter said:

3 times she lay on the floor for 8-10 hours pushing the button on the lanyard around her neck. 

Here's a weird thing I learned at the first independent/assisted living place my mom was in...  The alert pendants they used were set up so that pressing the button once activated the alert, but pressing the button again CANCELLED the alert.  How absolutely stupid is that???  And yes, we found this out after mom needed assistance and no one was responding.  She was close enough to her phone, reached that, called 911 and told them to call the place's front desk and have them send an aide up!  

The place said they told everyone that's how the pendants work, but my sister and I were both there when mom got hers and none of us recall that at all.  Mom talked with her lunch/dinner ladies and nope, none of them knew it as well.  I made sure to send them an email (documentation) saying how ridiculous that set up is, and that someone is going to be harmed by it.  I don't think it was ever changed.

Her current place has buttons that can only be reset by the aides.  When I was touring the place before mom's admission, I asked them about the alert pendants and they were shocked the old place that ones that cancelled themselves out.  

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, chaifan said:

Here's a weird thing I learned at the first independent/assisted living place my mom was in...  The alert pendants they used were set up so that pressing the button once activated the alert, but pressing the button again CANCELLED the alert.  How absolutely stupid is that???  And yes, we found this out after mom needed assistance and no one was responding.  She was close enough to her phone, reached that, called 911 and told them to call the place's front desk and have them send an aide up!  

The place said they told everyone that's how the pendants work, but my sister and I were both there when mom got hers and none of us recall that at all.  Mom talked with her lunch/dinner ladies and nope, none of them knew it as well.  I made sure to send them an email (documentation) saying how ridiculous that set up is, and that someone is going to be harmed by it.  I don't think it was ever change

Yes. We learned that too after the 2nd or 3rd time. But Mom could not get herself off of the floor to the phone. She wound up with a deep wound from trying to push herself up for 10 hours, when the aids were supposed to be checking on her every 2 hours. And her hands were starting to not function well, so how could she be sure she had successfully pushed the button at all? Or that pushing it 3 times might not reset it? 

 

2 hours ago, chaifan said:

Her current place has buttons that can only be reset by the aides.  When I was touring the place before mom's admission, I asked them about the alert pendants and they were shocked the old place that ones that cancelled themselves out.  

Maybe they're all improved now? I would hope so.
But I suggest you do a test with your Mom to see if it works. If she doesn't want to, at least have her watch you do it and talk her through not pushing it again and time how long it takes for someone to come (if they do).

[chaifan]

3 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

But I suggest you do a test with your Mom to see if it works.

I do that every now and then.  These buttons are really good - they vibrate when pushed, and a little red light will blink so you know it's been activated.  Doesn't matter how many times it's pushed, it won't cancel itself out.  A much better system than the ones in her other place.  

 

[shapeshifter]

An uplifting story of care for the elderly:
“‘Nobody’s dying': A look inside how a senior home evacuated before burning down in LA wildfire,” by  Allen G. Breed and Heather Hollingsworth, Updated 10:02 PM EST, January 14, 2025, apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-escape-evacuate-senior-citizens-7068811f9be7a03c4932817320d97b73

Edited Thursday at 10:27 PM by shapeshifter