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Needing some advice about my mom...
At 31 years old, I feel like I've been a grown up more than I haven't. I really don't feel like I had a childhood and what I did have wasn't that great. My parents didn't really get along and by the time I was 13 the marriage was pretty well over. They stayed married another 4 difficult years, with my dad working all sorts of weird hours and my mom not there much. I feel like I raised my brother until my stepdad came into the picture at 17. Things haven't gotten much better and now I'm at a place with my mom that I don't know what else to do. My dad's mom has Alzheimer's Disease and so I've been talking to him a lot about the disease and he symptoms. I'm also a CNA with quite a bit of medical background so I understand a lot. My mom's mom for years has been displaying dementia and Alzheimer's symptoms. My great grandma on that side more than likely had dementia or Alzheimer's Disease too. My mom's mom for the past 5 months has gotten quite a bit worse. With the progression of her memory problems, I've been doing a lot more reading on AD and dementia so that I may halt any chance of my getting the diseases. I've also been doing a lot of research on ways to help my grandma get diagnosed and treated. Her symptoms fit nearly perfectly but I'm having a horrible time getting my mom to understand that grandma needs help.
My grandparents have been married 61 years and while my grandpa thankfully is extremely healthy, he's having trouble with grandma. Same as my grandma had with her mom years ago. Grandma knew her mom had issues. My mom is in MAJOR denial. She gets so irritated at the things my grandma does or doesn't do, things she seems to no longer be able to do, etc. Grandpa has taken over a lot and my mom, I think, thinks my grandma is just letting my grandpa take things over. I honestly think she's had some close calls which is why my grandpa has taken things over. Grandma was hospitalized almost two weeks ago with pneumonia so severe that they gave her a 50/50 chance of survival. Thankfully she made it. Lots of things have continued with her dementia and possible AD and I've been urging my mom to ask for testing for AD and for them to make sure her meds are working correctly for her other problems she has. To make a longer story a bit shorter, my mom never asked about now she's out of the hospital with no answers. My mom is still getting irritated about what grandma has been doing but I can't convince her to talk to grandma's doctor. She's on the paperwork to discuss my grandparents medical information with their doctor so I'm not sure what the problem is. She seems more than happy to bury her head in the sand.
I recently want to get things going for not only my grandma but also for the rest of my family. My brother and I are both at risk for AD on at least one side of the family so I'd like to know what I'm up against on the other. I'm definitely taking the appropriate steps to ward off AD as well as the heart disease on both sides of my family. My mom has always been difficult and I've always felt like the adult since I was a teenager. She's tried to be the parent through lots of situations but always seemed to fall short. I've gotten some advice from my wonderful MIL but I could use more because she had it a lot easier with her parents. My parents have always made things difficult and with my in-laws being older and I worry about their health, it has really made my husband and I sit back and seriously think we should reconsider having children. That will upset my mom but she seriously doesn't know how difficult she can make things.
Thanks for the advice and sorry for the run on.
Re: Needing some advice about my mom...