Crossroads

"Golden years", my ass. These past few months have been extremely difficult on both my mother and myself. I am finding myself stuck between a rock and a hard place making very serious decisions regarding my mother that I never dreamed in any godforsaken nightmare in the world I would ever have to make. The entire time - and I mean every step of the way - my mother continues to push back on me, blame me, lash out at me, threaten me with a lawyer because she sees me as the "bad guy". And her mind is still very much in tact. In fact, she gets memory tests given to her (an insurance protocol) routinely and I have personally been there as she answered all of their questions like a pro -so her treatment of me is not related to dementia or the like. We find ourselves doing nothing BUT arguing and getting upset from frustration with one another about everything. Granted, my mother is not and never has been an easy person to deal with and, sadly, our relationship through the years has never been a good one. 

No matter how hard I try to make her see that selling her house and using the money for herself to live off of at the Senior Living Community where she is currently residing would be to her advantage rather than living alone at home with the very real possibility that the next time she falls she will have no where else to go but a nursing home, she refuses to accept it. On top of that, she consistently pushes at me about renewing her driver's license which expires on August 8th. The nurses and aides at Mifflin Court take very good care of her - she has told me this herself several times and even they have tried to counsel her but to no avail. She gets a Med Alert to wear and a button to push in her private bathroom should she fall - even a motion sensor set up in her studio apartment for her added safety, three meals a day, a kitchenette, a refrigerator, she can bring in her own furniture from home and other personal items, there are always daily scheduled activities and entertainment if she wants to join in, and she is around other people vs. living a lonely life at home without the care she needs. They even transport her to all of her doctor appointments free of charge. As her financial P.O.A (Power of Attorney), I have the legal standing to have her driver's license revoked through the proper channels so that she is no longer a danger on the road to herself or others. I do not want to be forced into a corner and actually have to pull out that card, but who knows as of yet. I called the DMV yesterday and she can use her driver's license renewal card for a Photo ID and that never expires. I have explained this to her, but she will not hear any of it. 

Friends, I am at my wits end with all of it and I simply do not know where to turn anymore. I am truly trying my best to understand what she is going through but all she does is feel sorry for herself about what she doesn't have instead of being thankful for what she DOES have. For example - ME. When my time comes my husband and I will only have one another as we do not have any children -in other words, I will not have someone looking out for me the way my mother does right now. It is no-win situation no matter how I handle it - it will cost her approximately $5,600.00 per month to stay at Mifflin Court long-term which begs the financial question of even if she does agree to sell her house can she afford to live there for very long? - or she risks the very high possibility of ending up in a nursing home after she goes home which is another stress all its' own. She has fallen twice already at Mifflin Court and she still can not get around on her own. She needs far too much care to be able to live with my husband and I and even "Seniors Helping Seniors" charges $30 an hour for home nursing care services! I am terrified of making the wrong decisions and find myself questioning everything I do or think anymore. 

At this time, she is scheduled to go home on August 31st unless we tell them otherwise. If you do not fill a form out informing them that the resident (my mom) will be going home on a certain date, they will automatically charge you another $1,000.00 towards the next months rent. No matter what, there is no easy answer.