How Do You Help Care For An Elderly Parent From So Far Away?

For  just over a month now my elderly Mother in Michigan has been dealing with  quite a few health issues. She is also struggling with the loss of some of her independence and as a result she isn’t being completely cooperative. How do you help to care for a family member from so far away?  I am lucky, I have 2 brother’s back in Michigan still. My youngest brother takes the bulk of the care and most of the punishment right along with it because he lives in the same town. My other brother and his wife are a great support system for all of us. They call, they keep all of us in the loop with all the different information that her care entails. My sister in law is a nurse and she is a wealth of information with all of the technical terminology that we are faced with. The 2 of them try to visit and help out as they can to relieve some of the burden from my youngest brother and try to do as much as they can. That brings us right back to me. How do I help care for her from so far away?

I know many of you are thinking, just go.  I am planning to but sometimes we have to make choices that are right for our immediate family that may not necessarily be what an elderly parent wants to hear. So between now and next month this is my dilemma. What can I do way over here that makes things easier on my youngest brother and also help my other brother and his wife?

Between the 4 of us we have been figuring out what items she needs around the house to make it easier and safe for her, and at the suggestion of my sister in law I contacted her Home Health Care Agency. I was nervous to do it at first because it was an unknown to me. That may sound crazy but I have been away from Michigan for a while and I know what my brother’s and sister in law have been telling me, but it is different when a healthcare professional is confirming everything to you. By speaking to my Mother’s Nurse and her Physical Therapy Assistant I feel I have a better understanding of her limitations and her treatment plan.  But I still struggle to try to figure out what more I can do.

Both her Nurse and Physical Therapy Assistant are very concerned by her diet and are afraid she isn’t eating properly. I have to agree with their assessment. I have heard her tell me for the past couple of years what she is eating and I have tried to tell her she needs to do better. I sit here and think what can I say or do that will make her listen. She can be a stubborn woman and really thinks that she knows best simply because she is the Mother. It’s so easy to feel like the roles are now reversed. I find myself telling her “Mom, you have got to eat more vegetables”. It’s funny how I remember telling that to my children when they were small.  Who really imagines that they will have to tell their parent that they have to eat more vegetables? Certainly I never thought it would be me and I am sure that neither of my brothers or my sister in law thought it either.

As I plan my trip, I am making list upon list of things that I think I need to do while I am in Michigan. There seems to be so many things in my mind that I really want to help with. I need to do more research on freezer meals that would be good with her medical issues.  Homemade meals that she can pull out that would be healthy options for her and also well balanced. I am making lists of groceries that I can purchase both for the freezer and the pantry so that my brother’s and I know she has enough healthy food to eat.  I know that she will be open to healthy food and meals and even though she will put up quite a fuss she will accept the groceries. In this day and age of grocery delivery at nearly every store you can imagine. My mother still lives in a small town that doesn’t have this service… How much easier it would make my life if one of her grocery stores would offer this service. How much easier would it make my brother’s life! Someone else could share the burden of helping her with one of her necessary errands. I know that Amazon will ship just about anything anywhere, but unfortunately not fresh meat and produce.

Also going through my mind is how to help unclutter her home without making her feel like we are trying to take everything away from her.   This will be our biggest problem and will present quite the challenge for us. My brother’s, sister in law and I all know it has to be done. Her Physical Therapy Assistant has told us that things like her thow rugs are tripping hazzards for her and really need to be put away. She will not like that, she is a woman who loves her throw rugs! Maybe if I come up with some organizational  ideas for some of her things we can figure out a way for her to keep  a bulk of the items that really have to be put away so that her home is easier for her maneuver through.

If I didn’t love Amazon Prime before, I surely do now. Our Amazon Prime account has enabled us to send many items to my mother that she needs and she receives them within 2 days. When she was in the nursing home receiving physical therapy it enabled us to purchase a shower chair, rails for her toilet and helped me to research suction shower rails (though I ended up purchasing them through Walmart instead for a cheaper price). It has also helped me to send her multivitamins and some Glucerna nutritional shakes this week. I have alot more research and planning to do before I leave for Michigan next month. I can only guess that I will be doing alot more shopping on Amazon and having it shipped to Michigan to wait for me to use it.