Here are the players in this not-so-little story. My maternal grandmother, aged 89, suffering with late Stage 6 Alzheimers, My Mother, retired, turns 70 in two months, and my Aunt, her sister, working, aged 55. My Mother and Aunt have joint power of attorney for my grandmother.
Grandmother is living with her daughter, my Aunt, at her house. During the workweek my mother goes over there to care for grandmother, she is there from 9am to 8pm, sometimes longer.
Here is the problem, my Aunt is a selfish, self centered, worthless piece of trash human being. She is also a hoarder - one who is constantly buying all kinds of crap, whatever catches her fancy. Most of the time it ends up laying scattered about the house, mostly still in the shipping boxes. Same with clothes. The house is an absolute pigsty because of her laziness, also having three small dogs doesn't help.
To make matters worse, at night and on days when my Mother is not out there, my Aunt does not take care of Grandmother at all. Grandmother is to the point her mind is that of maybe a two-year old. She needs to be led to do just about everything. She is incapable of taking care of herself. Many mornings when mom comes in, she finds her mother covered in feces. Sometimes the dogs too, and of course its tracked all around the house. Mondays are the worst. Mom comes in to find her mother still wearing the same clothes she had on when she left the previous Friday. Naturally the feces is caked on. Its absolutely horrible.
All my aunt does at night and on weekends is sit on her computer and shop for things (she always did this even before moving in her mother.) She does feed grandmother, sometimes.. if you count TV dinners, fast food, and Wawa as proper food - especially for someone who has IBS and almost no control over her bowels. It takes about three days of my mother properly feeding her for the diarrhea to stop, but come Friday the cycle starts over..
What my Grandmother needs is to be in a home - memory care or whatever. My mother is ready, she wants it because quite honestly what she has been doing is killing her. I see how she is when she comes home at night and I am really starting to worry that one morning I am going to find her dead.
The problem is the Aunt. She is "not ready yet" is her excuse, despite the other day when during a conversation about some open sores that are likely to get infected, since Aunt does nothing and they end up covered in feces.. My mother mentioned strongly to the Aunt how those wounds need to be kept constantly clean or she will end up in the hospital. To that the Aunt mumbled "Good, a vacation". Thankfully my medication kept me from doing harm, old me would have.
Anyway what can we do? Aunt is absolutely horrible, does nothing yet complains all the time. Mom can't put her mother in a home without her sister agreeing - and she won't do it.. "not ready yet". I looked into reporting my Aunt for elder abuse, unfortunately the information I was given is that my Mother would get in trouble too, get this, even if mom is the one who reports the abuse, because of the dual POA, both would be held to account criminally.
We (Mother and I) have tried several times to have a nursing service come in to help out. All have refused due to the absolute mess the place is. Also tried talking to my grandmother's physician. If the doc ordered her into a home, Medicare would pay for it, the problem is this doctor is afraid of my Aunt, she fears that if she orders grandmother into a home, the Aunt will sue.
One idea that ended up getting shot down was moving Grandmother back into her own house, which is only a block away from my mom's house - but that place is cluttered also with all of Aunt's junk, and she refuses to take anything out of the place, in fact she dumps off more crap to store it there all the time. That plus the refrigerator and stove are shot, they need to be replaced, and the washer + dryer was moved to Aunt's house (for the past 20 some years she would bring her wash to her mother for her to do). The cost to replace everything, clean out the place and make it ready is too much - out of our price range.
I'm at wits end as to what to suggest doing. My mother has been doing this over a year - unpaid, out of the goodness of her heart (it is, after all, her mother she is caring for.) Already consulted with the family lawyer, he didn't want to touch it. Not sure if talking with another one would do any good since the main sticking point seemed to be the dual power-of-attorney.
What to do.. any suggestions?
TIA
Submitted September 18, 2016 at 06:33PM by unixwizzard http://ift.tt/2cTGban legaladvice
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