Community Chat

[dionline]

DH's mother is now 85 yrs old and doing okay despite being an insulin-dependent diabetic. (About 5 yrs ago my hubby found her lying on the floor for close to 12 hrs - turns out she was a diabetic & never knew it. Quite the scare for them both. She spent 10 days in the hospital.) Since then she calls every night before she's getting into bed and just hangs up. It's our little code that #1 she's alive, and #2 she's gotten upstairs safely and is ready for bed. She's been more lax in calling. When we call her, she says she thought she already called us. She didn't. We have Caller ID so we'd see it on any of our phones.

We took her up to attend my family's Christmas festivities (my FIL passed away about 6 yrs ago & she's all but estranged from her daughter) and DH noticed a definite decline in her hygiene, her mobility and her faculties. We've spoken with her numerous times about buying another home closer to us (we're about 1/2 hr away) that doesn't have a second floor. She's a tad scary on the stairs. She won't hear anything of it. She's in the house she built with her deceased husband and won't leave there. DH and I are in the process of trying to sell our home in order to move to FL for health reasons. Once it sells, we're outta here! We're trying to get her to come with us....first for a short visit so she can see how nice it is (in The Villages - it was built for Senior Citizens!!) and hopefully she'll like it enough to buy her own home close to us. She's having no part of even a short visit with us! All she does is sit in front of the TV all day. She talks to a couple of friends on the phone about once a month and she does attend church on a weekly basis. It's not like she'd be leaving her friends to move there!

We are at wits end trying to figure out what to do next with her. DH's nerves are shot worrying about her. DH tried calling her PCP to discuss it but they won't talk due to HIPPA requirements.

Anyone have any ideas?? We don't want to/can't physically remove her from her home but what's the next step to take??!?

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. (Sorry for the long post...) ~Diane