Dear Judy,
My 86-year-old grandmother with dementia is living with us every since she fell and fractured her left shoulder. She is healing nicely. However, I feel like a prisoner in my own home. For instance, yesterday I said I wanted to go to church, but she said she was sick and needed looking after.
Then later she said [...]
Dear Judy,
My mother-in-law has dementia. She and I have never gotten along (I have been married to her son for 16 years). She fell and broke her hip last year and her dementia progressed very fast. She has lived with us since her fall.
Judy, I need help! I am her full time caregiver, I take [...]
Dear Judy,
I live in Brussels most of the year, and I also travel a lot on business (mostly to Hong Kong and Singapore). For the last four months, my brother has been on my case. I’m about to come back to the US for four weeks, as I do each year, and he wants me to spend [...]
Topping the list of professionals who never get the acclaim and admiration they deserve are hospice nurses. Jeanne Frye, whose nursing career has been devoted to caring for the terminally ill, was the first to point this out to me.
Unlike doctors, hospice nurses really get to know their patients. Not just the patient’s symptoms; not [...]
Dear Judy,
Our mother is 80 and a little addled. Our sister, Nina, just died. Frankly, she had lung cancer, and everyone knew it but our mother. We just never had the heart to tell her, and judging from her recent behavior, maybe she isn’t “all there,” so we were right. I think.
Every once in a [...]
Dear Judy,
We have the opposite problem of everyone else who seems to be writing you. My mother has Alzheimer’s as well as other forms of dementia, and it’s pretty advanced. She is still living with us, although I don’t know for how long. It’s bad; she has maybe 2 years left before the curtain drops.
The [...]
Dear Judy,
As though my father’s advanced dementia weren’t enough, now he’s just been diagnosed with multiple myeloma — and the oncologists are telling us that dealing with it in some half-assed way (there is no cure) involves chemo with really tough drugs.
I personally think there’s no point putting my father through this ordeal. The problem is: my mother. She thinks [...]
Dear Judy,
All right. This isn’t really a question about dying, even though my mother-in-law is expected to pass away at any minute (severe dementia and emphysema). But I hope you’ll help us out anyway.
The question really concerns her jewelry. To be blunt: it’s very valuable and she has a lot of it. In particular a gorgeous ruby choker from [...]
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Posted on January 24th, 2009