Mother-in-law living with us

[FC]

There's a new chapter in our life, my mother-in-law is living with us. Barbara's dad died around October in KY. Her mom has been a stay-at-home mom, and has never lived alone, and never had an outside job. She's hunchbacked pretty bad. She fell last week. First ER was a 6 1/2 hour wait for her and my wife. Never got a room! Took an x-ray of her coccyx! I couldn't dead lift her into bed; too much weight, despite her being thin, when she hollered in pain. The next day I took out the box spring, and that worked fine. I put a ramp up the two steps in our garage, so she can use her rolator. She left without being seen. She was later taken to urgent care. Radiology tech claimed she couldn't do a hip x-ray because of limited mobility (baloney!). Next my wife took her mom to our local hospital. She had to have a hip replacement. Hard on her, being about 83, and frail. I bought a used sit-to-stand lift from an assisted living facility, 3 1/2 hours from our house. Batteries are dead. I hope that's all that's wrong with it. We had talked about RVing, but always knew something like this could happen. We're learning what it means to, "Take up your cross daily, and come follow Me." It's fine, because it was just wrong having her live alone in a house. She has arthritis, and being bent over, makes it just too hard to live alone, and have somebody drop by most days. 

[Dr.Hess]

I feel for you, FC, and it is very nice and responsible of you to take care of her.  My MIL lived in a house on the corner of our property until she passed.  She (RN) worked at nursing homes most of her life and flat out refused to consider anything like that.  She lived there with her cats and Linda seeing her practically daily right to the end and she was happy.

[Horsefly]

Sorry to hear about that. We went through same thing except that I bought this house to have room for my MIL. It had to be completely remodeled to be liveable. Just about when I had it ready she passed away. 3 kids in the family but my wife was an only child when the poor old gal needed a place to live. It would’ve been hell of a battle to have her leave her house and move in here. I dreaded the day but never happened. Wish there was something cool or encouraging to say. 

[AzRednek]

To be very blunt, you’re a good person for helping out. When I took on the union’s job as the Health Benefits Rep. I had to help so many retirees or their spouses with health insurance claims. Their were a lot that didn’t get any help from their adult children. Many elderly feeling worthless were suicidal. Back in the 80’s there was a lot of paperwork involved with Medicare claims and a lot of chicken sh!t denials. For a time seemed like every ambulance claim was automatically denied. I had to assist with appeals and process claims for their secondary coverage. Many retirees would send a check usually after dealing with a collection agency for the balance after Medicare. The elderly very simply couldn’t do a claim form, understand the secondary needed an itemized bill and would not process a statement saying balance due after Medicare. I often got involved after the retiree was broke and in debt. 
 

I became emotionally involved as many retirees were just lonely. It started with a retired Postal Inspector and FBI Agent. I got involved after he had written almost $200,000 in checks for his wife before she died. He feared if the bills weren’t promptly paid his wife’s treatment might suffer. With my help I recovered a good portion. I showed him how the claims process worked, he understood and did well on his own for about a year. He started calling the union office again requesting help and it didn’t take me long to figure out he wanted company. His only child working in NYC told me when I contacted him. “Oh he can afford it”. His son was PO’d because dad didn’t help with his plane fair to Phx for his mother’s funeral. Dad was pissed because his son flew in first class. To make a long one short. The retiree being lonely on Christmas Eve went to a bar and met and invited a homeless couple to his home for Christmas. The couple robbed and murdered him. Shot him with his souvenir P-38 he brought home from the war. He loved to show it off and tell war stories. He claimed to have been a 90 day wonder coming in the tail end of the war and never getting promoted. 
 

Anyhow I could write some other horror stories especially how many adult children wouldn’t lift a finger to help their elderly parents. I went through a rough time at first helping my mother then later my aunt. More often than not, simply a visit or remembering a birthday was all I needed to do. Something as simple as a meal at Denny’s was really appreciated. My 92 year old aunt became difficult and I really felt awful breaking my promise not to put her in a rest home. I’m glad Tony to see you give a dam and willing to help.

[FC]

Thank you for helping those folks. I often dealt with elderly in the hospital who had no family, and ended up being assigned a court-appointed guardian through the social worker. It's really bad to not have kids at that point, but even worse if they don't care. Reminds me of an old woman who had three evil daughters. They insisted I give their mom morphine even though she was barely awake. I was convinced they wanted her dead, and I was the vehicle! My supervisor wouldn't do a danged thing about it. 

I got the lift working. It's $3000 new, and, counting diesel fuel, I have about $630 into it. I need to buy a smaller sling too.

[manureman]

  I do believe you to be a good man Tony.

[FC]

My wife's been staying with her mom at the hospital about 12 hours per day. I've been a nurse 28 years, and worked med-surg/telemetry many of those years. I can't be conned. Except for one Jamaican nurse, my mother-in-law has not been cared for properly! She's supposed to be out of bed every two hours, and out of bed to eat, post-total hip replacement. The only time she's been up is when I wife says to get her up. She wasn't bathed, except for the Jamaican nurse, and when my wife insisted. She was stopped up, and was supposed to get an enema. Lazy day nurse put it off on the night nurse. The night nurse put it off because she didn't want her "going all night". Finally, about 0600, she got the enema. Absolutely no excuse! Her bed wasn't getting changed either. If you have a loved one go to the hospital, you HAVE to be the squeaky wheel! Most nurses care primarily about charting, meds, and getting out on time. Management does not want to pay overtime. Going the extra mile has few rewards from the hospital. I'm going to get records, and if they charted that they rounded every hour, and got her out of bed when they didn't, I'm going to the board of licensure!

[Dr.Hess]

You Go Tony!  Man, I've seen it too.  The charity hospital I worked at was pretty good, for the most part.  A few problems but not too bad.  The nearest hospital to me is about a 15 minute drive.  The next hospital is about 35 minutes (Springdale.)  I have told my wife:  When I have my heart attack and minutes count... Drive me to Springdale.  The closer hospital is that bad, and it's the nursing staff mostly.  Her mother was in there with strokes a couple times.  They did NOTHING to try to keep her clean, etc.  My friend was in there with a compound tib-fib fracture (hit and run T-bone on his motorcycle) and I saw him complaining of the severe pain and the nurses, none of which looked over 20, just ignored him or said it wasn't time for his next vicodin.  I had to go there once for the 6cm gash in my scalp from getting rear ended in the Elise.  I was in a pissing match with the billing department at Springdale at the time so didn't want to go there.  We got to the ER at 0800, with me holding my dress shirt on the wound to try to control the bleeding.  We got seen by the ER hospitalist at 1230.  He shot a full staple gun plus into me and closed the wound in one layer.  I could have done a better job with a mirror, sewing needle and some fishing line.  Springdale has their billing department in order now.

[FC]

Ooo, those are some bad wounds! 

Here's another really bad one- total hip patients have an abductor pillow between their legs so they don't pop their prosthetic hip. This morning my wife found that the pillow was not applied! Also, the tech came in when the M-I-L needed to get onto the commode chair. The nurse told the tech that she was on total bedrest!

If you're so butt lazy that you don't want to take the trouble to get a patient out of bed, you're in the wrong line of work!

[AzRednek]

I heard plenty of hospital horror stories from fed retirees usually with some exaggeration but I’m sure some were legit. I almost wound up as a witness in a malpractice lawsuit. Long one short supposedly a RN on her own decided to wean down woman from her pain meds claiming it was the surgeons orders. Her husband begged me to visit hospital because his wife was worried about the bill. A short time after I arrived she handed her husband a note saying “air I need air”. I stayed in room while husband went to nurses station. He came back in a few minutes telling me nurse said she’s doing it for attention wanting more Morphine. She died he next day. 
 

Later when I was contacted by phone by husband’s lawyer. All I could attest to was the note asking for air. I had no first hand knowledge of anything. All I could do was relay what husband told me. I didn’t know anything other than what the husband said about her being taken off Oxygen and being weaned down on pain meds. I had absolutely no idea why she died. When the lawyer asked if I was willing to be deposed. I said ok but there was no way I had any first hand knowledge of anything other than the note and what the husband said to me after returning from nurse’s station. I was never deposed, never heard again from the husband or lawyer. A friend of the husband told me months later it was the RN’s doing and the surgeon denied giving the orders. I don’t know how it ended but I ran into the husband about two years later at Home Depot. He tried to ignore me and when he did speak it was with a cold shoulder. 
 

EDIT: I should also had the hospital was in turmoil at the time. It was originally an Osteopathic facility but was bought out by a conglomerate. From I was heard there was a lot of friction between the DO and MD Dr’s as was the nursing staff. A high school friend that was a physical therapist there told me there were a couple of fist fights between Dr’s and a near riot in the kitchen between the original and new staff.