I am sure you all have asked, or will ask yourself this same question. Today I watched mom drive out of the driveway and head off to her hair appointment. As I watched her back out of the garage, I noticed that she never once turned to look behind her. Yes, she used the mirrors, but not one head turn?
Does this seem safe?
This seems trivial to write, but I suddenly had a bolt of terror, as I watched her back up, turn the truck around, and drive out of the safety of our driveway. My heart actually lurched. She had …read more

Especially in these tough financial times, older adults are delaying their own retirements and using their savings to support aging parents as Sue Martin, of Claymont, Delaware has had to do:
It hasn’t been easy. Martin, who’s divorced, had planned to retire next year from her job as a legal assistant at a pharmaceutical company. But while she has a retirement fund of her own, her mother does not.
So now, Martin plans to work, indefinitely, to help cover the portion of the mortgage and living expenses that her mother’s Social Security and small allotment of food stamps don’t.
It can create a …read more

You may recall I talked about Slouching Mom’s touching recount of her elderly mother in the hospital.
Her mom is in a nursing home and once again, I could have written much of this myself when my mother was in a nursing home for a while, especially about meal time. For some reason, that’s one of the hardest parts:
Stepping out of the elevator and onto my mother’s floor, I spy her and the other patients eating dinner in the dining room. It is a peculiar and wrenching sight. Fifty people in wheelchairs pulled up to tables. All wearing bibs so they …read more

I have a friend who has both parents in a nursing home. Like me, she also has young children at home, but her parents live a state away.
Her mother has some dementia and her father cared for her until they were in a pretty severe car accident about a year ago. Her mother was sent to a nursing home for rehab, but her dementia worsened and her father couldn’t take care of her.
Her father has diabetes, and wasn’t caring for himself properly, so he was admitted to the same nursing home, temporarily. It turned out that he had many other …read more

It looks like Suebob and her dad’s trips to the grocery store have been postponed for a bit.
Send good thoughts and prayers to her dad and family as he is having some pretty severe eye problems.
I know this means big changes for everyone involved for the duration, and it’s never easy.

Slouching Mom has a wonderful post about her aging mother that, especially as a nurse, I can relate all too well:
Instead I stared at the computer screen that blinked above my mother’s head, and I played with the numbers, the blood pressure, the heart rate, the pulse oxygen, adding, subtracting, multiplying them, the arithmetic flooding my brain until there was no room for ambiguities like love, sorrow, pain, and anger.
During my mother’s illness and eventual death, I was good at being a nurse. Nurse, I could do. Motherless daughter, not quite as much.
I monitored her oxygen set-up and her …read more

I love to hear about my friend Suebob’s parents.
They had a hard time a while back when a family “friend” tried to take advantage of them and I hope life is somewhat back to normal for them.
She writes about her and her dad’s grocery routine and it both cracked me up and touched me:
Mom doesn’t get out much any more, so it falls to Dad and I, The B Team, to take her list and try to translate her wishes into reality.
There’s a flaw in this system – there are things that do not go on the list. They are …read more

Saving Our Parents us a documentary about the hazards of abuse our older generation faces and it’s hosted by Ed Asner.
It features law enforcement and elder abuse specialists who share tips for abuse prevention:
Featuring real-life events, Saving our Parents is a startling demonstration of the potential pitfalls facing today’s aging adults. Exposing scams and the devious crooks that may have us or our parents in their cross-hairs, this compelling documentary delivers a message that will both empower and motivate.
Professionals, experts and “victims” share life-saving knowledge and inspirational insights with candor, their heartfelt message guiding us, our parents and our loved …read more

Lucanix is a promising looking vaccine for patients with advanced lung cancer.
It just entered Phase III testing after a successful Phase II testing period where it was thought to nearly double a person’s chance of surviving two years:
The study is designated as the STOP trial because of its expected endpoints: Survival; Tumor-free, Overall; and Progression-free. It is an international, multicenter, randomized, double-blind study involving up to 700 individuals with advanced stage NSCLC, and will be conducted at approximately 90 clinical sites in the U.S., Canada, India, and Europe.
In a Phase II clinical trial, two-year survival among patients with stages IIIB …read more

Eden Kennedy of Fussy fame wrote a touching piece about her aging mother who is bedridden and no longer recognizes her:
My mom has no idea who I am. She thinks I’m just some nice lady who comes over every once in awhile to sit and chat. She has clear knowledge and memories of her daughter, Eden, but she doesn’t connect that Eden with the woman in the Target men’s bathrobe sitting off to her left. Maybe that should bother me more than it does, but it doesn’t too much. I can’t take it personally. We were never that close anyhow.
What’s …read more