You call her "our girl".
She is your Personal Care Assistant/ Chef/ Nurse/Physical therapist/ Friend/ housekeeper/chauffeur/ The grand-daughter you never had.
Her presence has recently turned your life around.
You are cleaner. You are happier. You seem more relaxed. You are nicer.
Every day you tell me how much you like her.
**********************************
we have had this same conversation many times:
"What is her name again?", you ask me.
"Sherrey", I say.
"What?"
"Sherrey", I say again.
"Sherrey?", you ask.
"Yes, Sherrey."
"how do you spell that?"
"S- H - E- R- R- E -Y".
"Sherrey? Why can't I remember that?", you ask.
"We could write it down so you just have to look at it to remember it", I offer.
"Help me think of something else to remember it", you say.
"Sherrey Berry", I offer. "Sherry, like the wine", I try again.
"do you know where she is from?", you ask.
I tell you where she is from.
"Ok. Yes, I was just checking if you knew."
************************************
"We go for our walk, and it always seems to end with picking up the mail", you tell me.
"She has a thing for my mail", you muse, "but today there wasn't hardly anything".
You are lucky, I say. All I get is mostly junk mail.
Little do you know, Sherrey is acting on my instructions to help keep you out of trouble in the building. I have also put your name, address and phone number on every possible do not call, do not solicit list there is, and more than once. I also do whatever I can to take revenge on the junk mail solicitors.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2014/09/stop-junk-mail-and-how-to-get-revenge.html
We are trying to blend in, not stir up controversy, because you want to stay here, remember???
****************************
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Your right to poor choices
It is still generally believed that you have a right to make poor choices for yourself, as long as you are competent to make those poor choices.
********************************************
I eventually came to peace with the poor medical choices made by my parents. I have held the belief of health care autonomy for competent individuals, the right to make poor choices.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2015/02/first-heart-attack-spraying-roundup-on.html
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2015/02/its-breast-cancer.html
And, I remain fairly comfortable with that still today.
But do not be mistaken about your poor choices being a victim-less crime unless you live in total isolation of all people.
At the least, the people who love you will be the victims.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2015/02/we-are-all-vulnerable.html
At the most, the whole world will be the victims.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2014/10/pseudoscience-scam-and-ebola-outbreak.html
****************************************
I didn't realize I was so passionate about vaccinations until I unfriended someone on Facebook last summer, because of all of their anti-vaccination posts.
I can no longer defend your right to all personal poor choices.
**********************************
As we transition into dementia, do we retain our right to make poor choices?
In American society, families can have a great deal of influence to deal with these situations, but as my story illustrates, families can't always prevent disaster. Social services are limited in what they can actually achieve. The courts are the last resort.
and who makes the ultimate determination of where the competence begins or ends, and where our right to poor choices ends? It has to be very extreme to merit extra-familial formal intervention.
********************************************
I eventually came to peace with the poor medical choices made by my parents. I have held the belief of health care autonomy for competent individuals, the right to make poor choices.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2015/02/first-heart-attack-spraying-roundup-on.html
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2015/02/its-breast-cancer.html
And, I remain fairly comfortable with that still today.
But do not be mistaken about your poor choices being a victim-less crime unless you live in total isolation of all people.
At the least, the people who love you will be the victims.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2015/02/we-are-all-vulnerable.html
At the most, the whole world will be the victims.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2014/10/pseudoscience-scam-and-ebola-outbreak.html
****************************************
I didn't realize I was so passionate about vaccinations until I unfriended someone on Facebook last summer, because of all of their anti-vaccination posts.
I can no longer defend your right to all personal poor choices.
**********************************
As we transition into dementia, do we retain our right to make poor choices?
In American society, families can have a great deal of influence to deal with these situations, but as my story illustrates, families can't always prevent disaster. Social services are limited in what they can actually achieve. The courts are the last resort.
and who makes the ultimate determination of where the competence begins or ends, and where our right to poor choices ends? It has to be very extreme to merit extra-familial formal intervention.
We are all vulnerable
I started this blog, focusing on the story of my dad, the vulnerable character.
But, as I write, I keep discovering other vulnerable characters.
I have known so many vulnerable characters.
I am also a vulnerable character.
And I realize that we are all vulnerable, to something, sometime.
***********************************************
By the very nature of caring about a vulnerable character, we must open ourselves up enough to be vulnerable, to potential emotional expense of the interaction.
***********************************
The expense of caring for some vulnerable characters is much higher than caring for others.
For example:
You (ie not dad, but someone else) are in a longstanding domestic violence situation and we all know it, but we are powerless to fix it. You refuse help (or you are afraid to get help, afraid of consequences, afraid of loss of "love" from the abuser). We know you won't tell the truth to the police if we were to report for you. And, getting help might make it even more dangerous for you.
We watch helplessly, from afar, as the situation unwinds .
On another day, its a health matter, for which you refuse appropriate care, which could have grave consequences of death or disability.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2015/01/choosing-insanity-in-dangerous-world.html
Both are upsetting.
Still, I would rather see you die of a medical condition, due to poor choices, than murder.
But, as I write, I keep discovering other vulnerable characters.
I have known so many vulnerable characters.
I am also a vulnerable character.
And I realize that we are all vulnerable, to something, sometime.
***********************************************
By the very nature of caring about a vulnerable character, we must open ourselves up enough to be vulnerable, to potential emotional expense of the interaction.
***********************************
The expense of caring for some vulnerable characters is much higher than caring for others.
For example:
You (ie not dad, but someone else) are in a longstanding domestic violence situation and we all know it, but we are powerless to fix it. You refuse help (or you are afraid to get help, afraid of consequences, afraid of loss of "love" from the abuser). We know you won't tell the truth to the police if we were to report for you. And, getting help might make it even more dangerous for you.
We watch helplessly, from afar, as the situation unwinds .
On another day, its a health matter, for which you refuse appropriate care, which could have grave consequences of death or disability.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2015/01/choosing-insanity-in-dangerous-world.html
Both are upsetting.
Still, I would rather see you die of a medical condition, due to poor choices, than murder.
Big fish
I own only 3 or 4 movie DVDs.
One of them is the movie "Big Fish".
there is so much in that movie that reminds me of our story.
You, my father, are the storyteller as seen in the movie Big Fish. Your stories, perhaps, weren't quite as fantastical, nor the characters, quite as colorful, but there was still a similarity. This was present as long as I knew you.
And my reaction was always to partly believe, and to partly not believe it all.
It was never so obviously not true that I knew I couldn't trust you.
***********************************************
Well, that isn't completely true. I did figure out, in 1993, that you were not a good source for financial advice. I stopped asking for your financial advice after I quickly lost $13,000.
Also, today I am reminded of the day you took me and my husband to the safe, and told us the secret combination, and that there was so much money in there I would never have to work. I believed you. You were my dad. I still went on to get an education and work. But what if I had relied on that information? Was it a delusion or a lie then? Or did you lose it all to scams?
********************************************
The poignancy of the Big Fish movie, for me, was the funeral, when all the fantastical bigger than life characters turned out to be real.
It wasn't all a fantasy, or a lie.
**********************************
We have pictures of those colorful characters from my early life. It was true then, too.
Is this what made it seem feasible to you, that the scam scenarios in 2009 and 2010 were true?
****************************************
Was the dementia present already in 1993 when you gave me bad financial advice? or a few years earlier when you took me to the safe?
Were you a normal person who went on to insidiously develop fronto temporal dementia?
Or, did you actually have manic depression, or some other untreated psychiatric condition, earlier in life, which made it all the harder for us to notice or to deal with the transition?
************************
One of them is the movie "Big Fish".
there is so much in that movie that reminds me of our story.
You, my father, are the storyteller as seen in the movie Big Fish. Your stories, perhaps, weren't quite as fantastical, nor the characters, quite as colorful, but there was still a similarity. This was present as long as I knew you.
And my reaction was always to partly believe, and to partly not believe it all.
It was never so obviously not true that I knew I couldn't trust you.
***********************************************
Well, that isn't completely true. I did figure out, in 1993, that you were not a good source for financial advice. I stopped asking for your financial advice after I quickly lost $13,000.
Also, today I am reminded of the day you took me and my husband to the safe, and told us the secret combination, and that there was so much money in there I would never have to work. I believed you. You were my dad. I still went on to get an education and work. But what if I had relied on that information? Was it a delusion or a lie then? Or did you lose it all to scams?
********************************************
The poignancy of the Big Fish movie, for me, was the funeral, when all the fantastical bigger than life characters turned out to be real.
It wasn't all a fantasy, or a lie.
**********************************
We have pictures of those colorful characters from my early life. It was true then, too.
Is this what made it seem feasible to you, that the scam scenarios in 2009 and 2010 were true?
****************************************
Was the dementia present already in 1993 when you gave me bad financial advice? or a few years earlier when you took me to the safe?
Were you a normal person who went on to insidiously develop fronto temporal dementia?
Or, did you actually have manic depression, or some other untreated psychiatric condition, earlier in life, which made it all the harder for us to notice or to deal with the transition?
************************
Some answers never come
closure.
That thing we all want, especially when we are hurt, or when things don't make sense.
Sometimes we don't get closure.
Or we need to create our own closure.
Some answers never come.
***********************************************
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2015/02/its-breast-cancer.html
I ask my mother, "Why didn't you tell anyone about the breast cancer???", "how long did you know about it??"
She says, in her stuttering speech: "I don't know". And it is clear from the new person she is , post stroke, she doesn't know why she made the poor choices she made before. She wouldn't make the same choice again, In fact, much to my surprise, she chose to fight for her life, to try treatment, it would be too little too late, but again her choice.
There's no point in crying over spilled milk, as they say.
**************************************
supernatural peace is the only answer that has worked for me.
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives....."
John 14:27
That thing we all want, especially when we are hurt, or when things don't make sense.
Sometimes we don't get closure.
Or we need to create our own closure.
Some answers never come.
***********************************************
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2015/02/its-breast-cancer.html
I ask my mother, "Why didn't you tell anyone about the breast cancer???", "how long did you know about it??"
She says, in her stuttering speech: "I don't know". And it is clear from the new person she is , post stroke, she doesn't know why she made the poor choices she made before. She wouldn't make the same choice again, In fact, much to my surprise, she chose to fight for her life, to try treatment, it would be too little too late, but again her choice.
There's no point in crying over spilled milk, as they say.
**************************************
supernatural peace is the only answer that has worked for me.
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives....."
John 14:27
The day I lost it
circa late March, 2001
We are bringing mom home from the hospital today. She has been there for 2+ months, related to the treatments needed for the breast cancer and the stroke. She has had toilet mastectomy, plastic surgery skin grafts, radiation therapy, physical therapy. She is in a wheelchair, but also has a 4 point cane, and she can walk a bit, but still needs someone to stand by. She has regained a stuttering speech that we are so thankful for - and we continue to work on.
You have stayed at her side continuously throughout the process as I have flown in and out of another world, to be with you.
During this entire time I had no clue of how impaired you already were or of what would follow.
******************************************
We arrive home and I set about setting up the home. I ask you to get the medications we had filled at the pharmacy. You disappear into the back of the house for longer than necessary.
When you return with the medication, it is apparent that something isn't right.
The tablets don't look like normal pills I am accustomed to seeing. Instead, they look like clear plastic capsules with grassy like powders inside.
*********************************************
You had decided, on your own, that you weren't going to give her the medication that had been prescribed by the doctors. Instead, the grassy substances were various supplements that you had extracted from the huge stock of bottles located around the house.
Did you forget that I have spent my life studying medicine and science? That I am an actual expert in the room?
*********************************************
I put my hands on each of your shoulders, standing over you as you sat in the chair, looking at me without concern, and I SHOOK the shoulders with the emphasis of my words:
"You are a F_ _ _ _ UP!!!" I repeatedly exclaimed, in horror.
I liked to tell people afterwards, it was the day I kicked your ass, that I shouldn't have waited so long to have kicked your ass. But, I didn't really kick your ass. It was a tragic realization.
***************************
My vulnerable mother is not safe with my father as caregiver.
No. 2015 Translation: My vulnerable mother is not safe with my vulnerable father as caregiver.
What would it have taken for me to have actually gotten control of that situation in 2001? I don't think it would have been possible to have done any more than I did, short of moving in with them.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2014/11/what-you-should-do-if-this-happens-to.html
*****************
You didn't seem very concerned by my reaction, or the tears, making me cry, making mom cry.
You are, however, alarmed that I said the F word.
You also aren't appropriately alarmed when social services show up over the next months, following my report of Mom as a vulnerable adult.
**********************************
Was this already part of the dementia, but I attributed it only to poor choices? ?
Yes, I would say that more than anything, the lack of empathy or the loss of social boundary, permitting you to not be concerned by the need for oversight by a Social Service agency, in order to maintain basic proper medication management of the person YOU are caring for, is a manifestation of the dementia in progress. A normal person, even if they had made a judgment error, would be called into check, would self correct, and also be embarrassed by this requirement; but you weren't.
**************************
the timeline on the story noted above isn't quite 100% factual. The part about the meds on day 1 arrival at home is true. But the part about me losing it actually was a week or 2 later, but related to a similar issue, as I recall.
We are bringing mom home from the hospital today. She has been there for 2+ months, related to the treatments needed for the breast cancer and the stroke. She has had toilet mastectomy, plastic surgery skin grafts, radiation therapy, physical therapy. She is in a wheelchair, but also has a 4 point cane, and she can walk a bit, but still needs someone to stand by. She has regained a stuttering speech that we are so thankful for - and we continue to work on.
You have stayed at her side continuously throughout the process as I have flown in and out of another world, to be with you.
During this entire time I had no clue of how impaired you already were or of what would follow.
******************************************
We arrive home and I set about setting up the home. I ask you to get the medications we had filled at the pharmacy. You disappear into the back of the house for longer than necessary.
When you return with the medication, it is apparent that something isn't right.
The tablets don't look like normal pills I am accustomed to seeing. Instead, they look like clear plastic capsules with grassy like powders inside.
*********************************************
You had decided, on your own, that you weren't going to give her the medication that had been prescribed by the doctors. Instead, the grassy substances were various supplements that you had extracted from the huge stock of bottles located around the house.
Did you forget that I have spent my life studying medicine and science? That I am an actual expert in the room?
*********************************************
I put my hands on each of your shoulders, standing over you as you sat in the chair, looking at me without concern, and I SHOOK the shoulders with the emphasis of my words:
"You are a F_ _ _ _ UP!!!" I repeatedly exclaimed, in horror.
I liked to tell people afterwards, it was the day I kicked your ass, that I shouldn't have waited so long to have kicked your ass. But, I didn't really kick your ass. It was a tragic realization.
***************************
My vulnerable mother is not safe with my father as caregiver.
No. 2015 Translation: My vulnerable mother is not safe with my vulnerable father as caregiver.
What would it have taken for me to have actually gotten control of that situation in 2001? I don't think it would have been possible to have done any more than I did, short of moving in with them.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2014/11/what-you-should-do-if-this-happens-to.html
*****************
You didn't seem very concerned by my reaction, or the tears, making me cry, making mom cry.
You are, however, alarmed that I said the F word.
You also aren't appropriately alarmed when social services show up over the next months, following my report of Mom as a vulnerable adult.
**********************************
Was this already part of the dementia, but I attributed it only to poor choices? ?
Yes, I would say that more than anything, the lack of empathy or the loss of social boundary, permitting you to not be concerned by the need for oversight by a Social Service agency, in order to maintain basic proper medication management of the person YOU are caring for, is a manifestation of the dementia in progress. A normal person, even if they had made a judgment error, would be called into check, would self correct, and also be embarrassed by this requirement; but you weren't.
**************************
the timeline on the story noted above isn't quite 100% factual. The part about the meds on day 1 arrival at home is true. But the part about me losing it actually was a week or 2 later, but related to a similar issue, as I recall.
First heart attack- spraying roundup on thistles
circa June 4, 1989
You are age 58.
You call me from the hospital in Sioux Falls. You have been there a day or 2 already, didn't seem to see any urgency to call.
You explain what had happened:
The chest pain had been sufficiently bad that you couldn't recline. You decided the solution was to sleep in the car (poor choice #1). My mother joins you in the car (poor choice # 2). Neither of you thinks to call me (poor choice # 3), your physician daughter, who could have made the diagnosis over the telephone.
Eventually you drive to a small rural hospital, 60 miles from home (poor choice # 4), presenting with chest pain. The EKG shows an anterior MI, but its 1989, and a student is covering the ED. You are sent home. It was the wrong thing to do. He didn't know any better and he wasn't adequately supervised. Plus, they don't know you in this small town, they don't have any investment in you, as they would have had you gone to your local hospital where people know and care about you.
The next day you spend the day slowly spraying thistles with Roundup (This may be significant in retrospect , 26 years later). Its not a hard job, but its too much.
Eventually the system kicks in and the abnormal EKG is recognized and you are called back to the hospital.
First angioplasty.
I am watching Tiananmen square protests taking place on the TV in your hospital room. I am very concerned, very upset, by the poor choices you made in getting to this point.You had at your fingertips resources that could have given a better outcome. But you chose not to use them.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2015/02/your-right-to-poor-choices.html
*****************************
Does he have diabetes?
The answer was "no" at the time, but by today's criteria, he did have diabetes.
You also never bothered to followup with a cardiologist or primary care doctor, as a routine measure, following this event.
You knew better than any of us, you knew better than what the doctors advised.
Your high intake of supplements would save you.
You continue to order in bulk. The house is increasingly littered with bottles of unopened supplements, cans of lecithin, brewers yeast, etc. The kitchen cupboards have bottles of stevia, cinnamon.
My mother changes your diet - virtually eliminating red meat. You rely much more on what comes from the home garden.
**********************************************
From then on you became much more emotional, tearing up with good byes.
Was a part of the brain lost already with that event?
Or were the tears a recognition and acknowledgment of your own mortality?
*********************************************
I used to plead with you back then for proper medical care. I pleaded with both you and Mom. It was agonizing and frustrating.
Another part of the frustration was the way you preached to and pushed others to participate in what YOU were taking or doing, as if you actually were in better shape or more wise than everyone else.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2015/02/your-right-to-poor-choices.html
You are age 58.
You call me from the hospital in Sioux Falls. You have been there a day or 2 already, didn't seem to see any urgency to call.
You explain what had happened:
The chest pain had been sufficiently bad that you couldn't recline. You decided the solution was to sleep in the car (poor choice #1). My mother joins you in the car (poor choice # 2). Neither of you thinks to call me (poor choice # 3), your physician daughter, who could have made the diagnosis over the telephone.
Eventually you drive to a small rural hospital, 60 miles from home (poor choice # 4), presenting with chest pain. The EKG shows an anterior MI, but its 1989, and a student is covering the ED. You are sent home. It was the wrong thing to do. He didn't know any better and he wasn't adequately supervised. Plus, they don't know you in this small town, they don't have any investment in you, as they would have had you gone to your local hospital where people know and care about you.
The next day you spend the day slowly spraying thistles with Roundup (This may be significant in retrospect , 26 years later). Its not a hard job, but its too much.
Eventually the system kicks in and the abnormal EKG is recognized and you are called back to the hospital.
First angioplasty.
I am watching Tiananmen square protests taking place on the TV in your hospital room. I am very concerned, very upset, by the poor choices you made in getting to this point.You had at your fingertips resources that could have given a better outcome. But you chose not to use them.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2015/02/your-right-to-poor-choices.html
*****************************
Does he have diabetes?
The answer was "no" at the time, but by today's criteria, he did have diabetes.
You also never bothered to followup with a cardiologist or primary care doctor, as a routine measure, following this event.
You knew better than any of us, you knew better than what the doctors advised.
Your high intake of supplements would save you.
You continue to order in bulk. The house is increasingly littered with bottles of unopened supplements, cans of lecithin, brewers yeast, etc. The kitchen cupboards have bottles of stevia, cinnamon.
My mother changes your diet - virtually eliminating red meat. You rely much more on what comes from the home garden.
**********************************************
From then on you became much more emotional, tearing up with good byes.
Was a part of the brain lost already with that event?
Or were the tears a recognition and acknowledgment of your own mortality?
*********************************************
I used to plead with you back then for proper medical care. I pleaded with both you and Mom. It was agonizing and frustrating.
Another part of the frustration was the way you preached to and pushed others to participate in what YOU were taking or doing, as if you actually were in better shape or more wise than everyone else.
http://seniorfraud.blogspot.com/2015/02/your-right-to-poor-choices.html
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