Man...You Just Can't Win With Relatives...

General General Discussion
1

Like most of you, I have visitors during the Holidays. Living in FL when 95% of the country is under snow and ice means people suddenly want to visit.

In this case my Grandmother has been staying with us. Like most elderly people she can be difficult (she’s 90 going on 9) but my Grandfather always was there when needed and he’d want somebody to take care of his wife. So that is simply that.

It is a chore simply to make her eat properly (again I am dealing with a 9 year old) and if left up to her she would exist exclusively on cookies, cakes and pie.

When plans are made to go out to dinner she always requests to be left at home and suggests she can just have pie for dinner. But the fun doesn’t end there.

First night, we took her out to a really nice steakhouse so she could have a good meal. She spent 15 minutes with the waitress hoping to order pizza among other things. After much negotiation she finally settled on a chicken breast at one of the best Steakhouses in FL.

Second night, it’s FL so that means seafood. That also means she asked if they had hot dogs. Oh and Orange Juice for a beverage. She finally settled on a salad. Because after all you just can’t get a decent salad in Iowa but good seafood is common.

Third night, we decide to do something a little more mainstream in the hope that she will find something more to her liking. I know she liked Mexican food so we went to a Mexican restaurant. And of course NOW she feels like fish. They had fish tacos and I simply didn’t have the strength to argue with her and explain that this wasn’t a fish dinner. But at least she ate it…and they even had orange juice.

Hoping to make something more to her liking I took her to the grocery store. I tried to get several ideas from her about meals we could prepare. She was incredibly indecisive so I told her to just keep the cart and get whatever she was interested in while I ran to grab some things like milk, eggs, etc.

I come back and in the cart is three different boxes of cookies, a dozen donuts, two pies and she is in the Little Debbie snack cakes area trying to make a final decisions.

She put up a minor scene when I told her she couldn’t have all that stuff (minor compared to say taking an ice cream cone away from a 4 year old child) and we negotiated down to one box of oatmeal cookies and a sweet potato pie. She of course still had zero ideas regarding what she might want for dinner and suggested that she could just have the pie and she’d be fine.

As it is now Day Four of Operation Babysit Grandma my resolve is greatly weakened. I actually consider just letting her have the damn pie for dinner but horrific thoughts of explaining to the doctors that I didn’t provide healthy meals and that is why we are now in the ER seeking help stop me from caving in to her progressive program of psychological stress methods.

I have decided to seize the initiative and take the option of deciding away from her and simply inform her what we will be having for dinner. So I tell her that we are going to get pizza delivered but in a moment of weakness and consideration I hand her the take out menu in case she wants something special from the pizza place.

After studying the menu for 5 minutes she looks at me and asks me if they have egg salad sandwiches. Never mind that we were in a grocery store where they sold everything one might need to make such a sandwich only a few hours ago.

:blink:

2

Is your grandmother on any medications that she has stopped taking?

Has she started any new meds?

Has a really good pharmacist ever looked at all of her meds and history?

Has she ever been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia?

I am not an MD. I do have a mother that is older that your grandmother. I’m very familiar with behaviors such as the ones you describe.

I’m not making any judgments on anyone. Just wondering if there may be underlying medical issues.

3

Ninety?

WTF. Let her eat cake.

I’m not trying to be insensitive or a dick. It’s just that sometimes the juice ain’t worth the squeeze. And you’re probably on the right track with eliminating all the choices. Just serve up a healthy meal and she’ll eat if she’s hungry.

4

Wish I could blame it on something like that, but she’s been that way most of her life.

I think secretly she is just fucking with us and laughs herself silly later.

5

I’m pretty sure than when left to her own devices she eats a steady diet of cookies, cakes and candy all year long. But when I am responsible for her, I try and act responsibly.

It’s a losing battle, but I was never gonna win anyhow.

6

It is what it is; my mom and step dad have been with us for the last 10 days and after two strokes and the beginning stages of dimentia this year he wants to try to survive on coffee and Speed TV. I figure their time is limited so as long as we can get him to eat a meal of some sort it’s a victory. My mom wants to live on Pall Malls, coffee, and her homemade fudge(which is tasty but should make you diabetic after 3 pieces) but at least she doesn’t complain about going outside to smoke.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I deal with them like I did my kids. Dinner is done if you don’t want it now; the microwave is over there or there is plenty of sandwich and salad stuff in the fridge. I’ll be happy to heat it up or make you a sandwich and salad when you’re ready. They’ll eat when they get hungry. Life is too short to stress over things that while they may not be the best for them they also aren’t going to instantly kill them either.
BTW; you haven’t lived until you’ve been in a nice restaurant and he has turned his hearing aids off and then announces loudly “I have to go to the bathroom right now before I shit my pants!!!” :blink:

7

You obviously did something to piss her off when you were a child.

I’ll bet she laughs all the way home.

8

I actually am an M.D. and here’s my take.

We all die of something eventually. I hope it’s old age and cookies for me. She’s not shooting up and smoking meth.

Stop fighting with her and enjoy the limited time you have left. Trust me. When she’s gone you are going to beat yourself up that you didn’t have a non-stop conveyor belt of cookies running into her room.

I’m not kidding. She’s made it to 90. She isn’t actually nine. She’s just being treated by that way by everyone around her and is acting out.

9

I should mention that she does eat cookies and pie pretty regularly while watching TV all day. I’m just trying to put a real meal in between at dinner time.

I’m really not treating her like a 9 year old, she really has kinda acted that way for a long time now. I’m just trying to take care of her given her regularly poor judgement, it’s what my Grandfather would have wanted me to do.

She’s kind of been grossly irresponsible all her life. My grandfather took care of things until he died years ago. Then my Dad took over until a couple years ago. These last few years it’s been me and my uncle trying out best to make sure she is looked after for as long as she gets.

It’s sort of late in the game to expect her to start taking care of herself and make responsible decisions.

It’s just kinda funny how in the end she still manages to mostly get her way and undermine everyone else’s best efforts to make her act responsibly, but it’s been that way forever. I just figured a few here could relate.

10

My grandad is suffering from some seriousn dementia. No matter what we cook, he demands Vienna Sausages, wafer cookies, and the salt shaker. After a while, we learned that it was best to let him live his life how he wanted. YMMV. He can no longer recognize who I am anymore, he thinks I am my deceased father, and he is 100% sure that my sister is his niece. Sad.

11

I appreciate what you are trying to relate, but thankfully we aren’t there.

At 90 it isn’t surprising that sometimes my grandmother gets confused and will attribute family events to the wrong person, combine stories and repeat the same ones over and over.

But at the same time she can be incredibly lucid. I can still have a meaningful conversation with her about nearly any subject. She comments on every news story in a way that clearly indicates she understood it, and she’s usually annoyed by most events on the news. She can recall important dates and she still reads books. And of course if is is something really important, like the garage sale piece of crap she wants you to go pick up for her she knows every detail right down to the atomic weight of the object.

So in that respect we are very, very lucky.

It isn’t so much that she gets confused and thinks steakhouses serve pizza and she doesn’t understand where she is. It really is a case of taking her to a nice steakhouse and her deciding pizza would be good right now, not seeing it on the menu and HOPING the waitress really would go back and have the guys in the kitchen somehow produce a pizza for her.

It really doesn’t matter what the conventions are or what rules may apply, she wants whatever she decides she wants at the time and will do almost anything to get her way. She is the only person I’ve ever seen who can consistently board an airplane with 5 carry ons and get away with it. She will stand there with any given airport employee and explain the importance of each carry on as many times as are necessary for that employee to give up and just wave her on through.

But the fact that she is incredibly clear minded for her age doesn’t mean she is in any way a responsible person who makes good decisions. We have to watch her constantly or she will spend every dime she has on complete junk from garage sales and then not have anything for things like prescription medicine, the rent or the light bill. But again that is because she’d rather have garage sale junk than budget money for medicine, the rent or the light bill.

But at least she still mostly knows what she is doing, even if it isn’t always very wise.

12

If it doesn’t miss with her meds. I would let her have more freedom over her diet. Let her enjoy the little things.

13

If she is acting like 9, treat her like 9.

Put the food on the table and tell her that in 30 min dinner will be done and the food removed. If she wants to eat, this is her chance. AND THEN FOLLOW THROUGH WITH IT. After a few times, she will get the hint.

And tell he NO DESERT until the veggies are eaten. And follow through with that as well.

Just be firm and don’t give in. That is how you work with kids that age.

If she is really behaving like 9.

14

I think it has to be hard to be in your situation Steyr. You are technically the caregiver, and thus responsible for her welfare, but at the same time she isnt mentally gone yet and knows what she wants. I think you just have to find that fine line. Sounds alot like being a parent.

15

I was hangin’ on your every word, 'til this sentence.

My in-laws are from NE, and while not quite as old, that’ll be MY MiL in another decade.

I think it’s due to decades of corn exposure toxicity, combined with Lutheranism. Or something.

16

Well, my heart legitimately goes out to you on this situation. I went through a very similar one for about six months. It ended in March. But in this case it was my Mother in law and she was pretty much gone mentally and physically. which translated to some pretty excessive strain.

Keep your head up. It all passes eventually and you’ll know in the end that you did what you felt to be the best and right thing.

17

Corn fed, brain dead is what we called it in Illinois.

Hang in their Styer, she may be balking at the price of the entrees and think she isn’t ‘worth’ it. Just be thankful she goes home. Imagine what she does to pres candidates that stop by to ask her for her vote for the caucus.

Love them while they are here, or enjoy the garage sale crap they leave you later. I don’t know how many times I heard the same stories from grandpa about working on the pipeline. Wish I could hear them one more time, even if it is over a piece of pie for breakfast.

18

I think many have been in your shoes. I know we have but to a lesser extent it sounds like. It’s hard trying to do what you think is right. Trust me; you’ll look back and feel good that you did your best for her once she’s gone.

My grandmother could sometimes act like what you describe, obstinate and cranky. My mother took care of her primarily but we got our share as well. She was diabetic but tried to eat like she wasn’t. It was often a real struggle. When she would be driving us crazy, I tried to remember her as she had been in my youth. She took care of me a lot when I was young; telling me stories, feeding me, teaching me things that would be lost now. Maybe it helped, I don’t know but I felt I owed her. Besides, I hope that someone will do the same for me when the time comes.

19

Pie for dinner, hells yeah! :stuck_out_tongue:

Does she have her teeth? Are they in good shape? This may be why she wants soft foods.

Most grandmothers eat like birds. I would starve to death if I only ate what I have seen most grandmas eat.

20

I went through something similar to this with my grandmother. All I can say is pick and choose your battles wisely. I know this can be an aneurysm inducing experience. Just hang in there and drink heavily.