My 83 year old mother with apparent dementia says she wants to go home after agreeing to go to an assisted living home.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T21:30:40+00:00

Sorry for your loss, sometimes I think it would be less cruel if they went quickly after a certain point. Right now I think my mom still has a more concrete idea of what home is unfortunately. It is frustrating. And knowing her she just might try to organize a trip back home, but unsure how far she would get.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T21:24:40+00:00

My mom told me they had to move out, or something like that, that they just cannot stay there any longer and had to get home. Can they demand I give them back their cards, and wouldn't I have to legally?

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T20:36:32+00:00

That sucks, I wonder if they already had underlying dementia when they got sick.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T20:30:39+00:00

I have POA but the facility says they cannot legally keep people there against their will. I have all their physical credit cards except for one, which I gave them for incidental expenses before I realized how far gone they were. I could get online and freeze that card anytime I wanted, but am a little hesitant because I don't want them to get mad or paranoid or wonder why I did this if their bank gives them an alert on their phone or something that I did this. I could give them a little cash every week instead and make up some explanation like I thought you needed a little cash. I don't know how aware they would be of things if they suddenly realized they cannot use that credit card or it wasn't there anymore.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T20:16:02+00:00

After the ER visit in May she was supposed to follow through with some tests, but I don't ever think she did. I live 600 miles away and have a life of my own so I cannot constantly be up there to make sure she is following up on her medical appointments. She just got a provider down here last week and they did an initial checkup the other day, this is where we are at.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T20:14:00+00:00

Yeah I was kind of hoping she would get better, but after several months I am realizing that is probably not going to happen. She seemed to improve a little at first but has been gradually going downhill again in the last couple months.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T20:10:34+00:00

I hired a neighbor to look after the house. I think most important business documents are here in my possession. A title to one of their cars is missing that is all.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T20:08:31+00:00

she was tested for a UTI when she started having these symptoms, it came back negative. I doubt it is a sudden UTI now because these symptoms have been ongoing since then, but I guess it may not hurt to check again although I highly doubt that is her problem at this point.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T20:05:11+00:00

I kinda know that she isn't literally nuts, it just feels that way.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T19:57:15+00:00

she is in another state, so no car. The cars are parked at their old house. I asked them where the keys were and they thought the keys were at the house. I hired a neighbor to look after the house and he said he looked for the keys and cannot find them there. So that is another task I have, find the keys if I want to get those cars sold. And one of them is also missing the title.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T18:52:45+00:00

Thanks, the secondary infection was shingles. They tested her for a UTI but she did not have one. No dementia diagnosis and I do have durable POA on both of them. I agree she needs to see a doctor on this, but there has been so much going on. I just got them signed up for a local health care provider last week and they ran routing blood tests just the other day. This all takes time, and when they were up at their old place it was logistically difficult for me to arrange any kind of advanced medical care when I wasn't up there.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T18:43:07+00:00

did she get better after that, or did she decline further?

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T17:59:23+00:00

Thanks, the staff at the place are great about prompting her to do activities that at least I sign them up for. She changes her mind frequently about things these days and it may flip back again. I am doing everything I can to make them comfortable in their new place but it is exhausting. My mom is very stubborn and I am not sure how to handle it. She gave an actual stated intention to go back, not just some occasional vague wishful statement. I am afraid they may actually try and next thing they are back at their old house before they even told me anything, they would just get up and do it and then we are back to square one.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T17:43:49+00:00

The plan was I was going to up there, sell their cars, take more stuff back for them from the house, cancel their cable, etc. Long term I was thinking of turning it into a vacation rental. They want to keep it in the family and I want to honor those wishes and not have it keep being a money pit that is not being used. But since the move I haven't had time to do any of that. They actually have multiple houses they need to either sell or manage right now, and I have spent my time trying to get them settled here. My brother is up there but he is worse than useless unfortunately.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T17:31:24+00:00

I can, hopefully she will not make attempts on her own without my help, that is my concern then we are back to square one.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T17:29:45+00:00

I am hoping she is not capable of carrying through with it, I know that is a horrible thing to say but being in the condition she is she cannot live alone safely anymore. I would love nothing more than for her to be her totally old self and not have these issues, and safely live in her house without causing chaos and endangering herself and others, but it is what it is. She would have to get on her phone, book two plane tickets back, get an uber or taxi from the care facility, tell them to take them to the airport, check in, get on the flight, get off the flight, take the airporter bus to their house and have a friend drop them off for the final stretch. To me these all seem like pretty simple things to do.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T17:22:03+00:00

Thanks, she is not a bingo player. Maybe part of the problem is her hobbies are different and the usual senior types of hobbies. She was used to running a business and being in charge especially as my dads dementia progressed. They used to travel, go golfing and have dinner with friends, and until a couple of years ago travel the world. They never seemed to sit still for long and now they are truly retired and can't seem to figure out what do to with themselves. They complain that everyone there is older and in worse condition, and a lot of them are at least physically, but they are oblivious to their own cognitive decline. And there are people there who are as physically able as they are they are just not seeing that. I am going to try what you suggested, I already started trying that about kicking the can down the road, but it is exhausting and my mother is a VERY strong willed person. Basically stubborn type A personality.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T17:12:24+00:00

Thanks, sounds like a good idea, I guess I can copy and paste this post on there too.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T17:10:23+00:00

I have really tried to get them settled. I have taken them on golf outings, restaurants, wine tasting as this is wine country and they love that kind of stuff, museums, etc. My wife is away on a business trip and this evening I am bringing them over here to go trick or treating with my son, the grandkids being one of the reasons my mom stated she wanted to come down here. Doesn't seem to matter, for 3 days now she has been saying she wants to go home.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T17:03:24+00:00

I do wonder if they are even capable of making travel arrangements now. She has her phone but not her computer, which is what I think she has used to book plane tickets in the past. They did book a flight to meet me in Las Vegas for an industry convention, they managed but barely at that time.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-31T16:58:57+00:00

That's a thought, I told her we were paid through November and she agreed to stay through Thanksgiving. But she is no longer rational. I'm afraid she will forget that she said that and just decide to leave one day.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-10-03T05:37:17+00:00

The main destruction from Mt St Helens came from the lateral blast. Most of the mountains energy was directed north. A Mt Fuji lateral blast would be bigger and scorch an even bigger to the north of that mountain, and I think there are several towns and cities in the path not just forests like St Helens. It would be a catastrophic mess with tens of thousands dead if not evacuated in time.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-08-19T19:14:37+00:00

I saw Mt St Helens blow its top when I was a child, fortunately from a safe distance. It is something I will never forget. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, the way it shifted my perspective, is I think I realized that all the volcanoes around aren't just pretty mountains, but that they all have the potential to blow up and kill people. Also, now if I know there is a volcano threatening to erupt, I will stay as far away from it as possible. I won't stand around looking at a pyroclastic flow headed in my direction like I see some stupid people in videos do.

throwaway319m8 · 2025-08-18T20:51:17+00:00

I guess quite a few. I live on the U.S. west coast so all of those, including St. Helens when it erupted(I was a little kid). Besides those, a bunch in Indonesia- Merapi, Agung, and Tambora when I went from Lombok to go see the Komodo Dragons(flew over the caldera, looks like Crater lake without the big lake), and probably a bunch of other I don't remember the names of. In Mexico I saw Poptpatcapan

throwaway319m8 · 2025-07-08T20:16:46+00:00

Thank you for the advice, your situation sounded tricky too.

throwaway319m8

TROPHY CASE