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Post by rikita on Jan 9, 2015 8:49:24 GMT
not my own - i sometimes wish i had a bit less appetite - but my neighbour from one floor down. she is an elderly lady, lost her husband last year, had been in hospital a few times recently (not sure what it was anymore, but i think she fell and hurt her hip or something), but still manages to get down and back up the three floors to her apartment several times a day to walk her dog (we have no elevator). anyway, she told me, she often feels very weak and faint lately, because she just eats too little. she says she has all of her favorite things at home, but just can't get herself to eat them, as she has just no appetite. she is planning to see a doctor about it next week ...
i was wondering two things - one was, should i make a bit more for dinner tomorrow, and bring her a portion, or would that be too much and come across patronizing (i don't know her all that well, after all). if so, what would be good for someone lacking appetite? and - any tips i can give her to increase her appetite? (she gets enough fresh air, and i don't think she'd smoke weed, which are the only two things i can come up with right now)
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Post by bjd on Jan 9, 2015 12:22:59 GMT
I think taking some food to her, and going with Agnes to share it with her would be a nice gesture. The lady sounds as though she is suffering from depression and loneliness, so perhaps some company would do her good.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2015 13:03:16 GMT
Well, at least the lady wants to see a doctor. Most old people seem to think "it doesn't matter." In my father's last 18 months, he lost his appetite, and since my mother was already in no condition to make any effort for him, they were both going downhill fast, to the point that it was indeed the neighbours who started bringing them food. I flew to Florida about six times during that period and took over the kitchen, and they both ate just fine as along as I was there, but they would not allow any outside assistance into their house.
Don't they have meal delivery services for the elderly, rikita?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2015 13:45:49 GMT
I think BJD's suggestion is excellent.
Also, as Kerouac indicated, her willingness to seek medical advice is a positive sign.
That's very thoughtful of you Rikita.
I hope there are people like you around when I get older and may well end up on my own, having no children or grandchildren.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jan 9, 2015 20:07:49 GMT
I agree with what everybody has said here Rikita, it is true that when you are lonely and unwell it is difficult to drum up the enthusiasm to prepare a nutritious meal. You are a kind, thoughtful neighbour  |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2015 20:55:40 GMT
You know, you could start with a few home-baked cookies, see how those go over. Test the waters, so to speak. She might be tempted by something sweet.
I know my father hates it when people bring over food for him, because it reminds him of the time he was inundated with friends' good intentions after his wife died. He's not a huge fan of other people's cooking. But then again, he's still cooking a lot for himself.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2015 21:05:56 GMT
It's true that old people often have a sweet tooth, even when they know it is bad for them. But as far as I'm concerned, if you have lived to be old, you can do whatever you want.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2015 21:36:49 GMT
My father smokes, drinks coffee, never exercises and eats very few vegetables. At this point (81) he can do whatever the hell he wants, as far as I'm concerned.
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Post by rikita on Jan 9, 2015 23:37:47 GMT
okay, tomorrow is saturday, so i have a bit of time, so i will see if i can bake something to bring over (don't usually bake though) and visit her for a bit with agnes ... she has a son. i don't know how often she sees him, but i know she spent christmas with him ... and when the weather is better she often sits on the bench in front of our house chatting to people (she has lived here for many decades, so she knows a lot of people), but right now is not the weather to sit outside ...
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Post by mossie on Jan 10, 2015 14:27:40 GMT
That is a very kind thought Rikita, and I am sure she would love a little time with Agnes.
Loneliness is a strange thing and allows the mind to wander. Mine has been wandering this last hour or so, assisted by the half a bottle of red I finished off with my lunch, and sparked by this thread.
I went back into the 55 years of married life that I spent with my wife, and was berating myself for not having done more for her. As they say "hindsight is a wonderful thing", and I have realised too late many things I should have said and done.
So, friends, live for the moment and do whatever you can for others now, not just be selfish or put things off for tomorrow. As I have said before, we used to go into a bar somewhere that had a big notice "Free Drinks Tomorrow". If you went in the next day and asked for your free drink the barman would silently point to the notice.
And, as some unfortunates in Paris have experienced, there may not be a tomorrow.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2015 15:48:42 GMT
mossie, I hope while you were sipping you were also remembering the people on anyport who love your contributions and who think you are a fine chap!
It's lovely that you had 55 years with your wife, most people are not that lucky. I've been married just 3 years, and I'll probably be lucky to get 20 with my husband, but we all have to take what we can get.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 10, 2015 16:33:33 GMT
A vet told me that this point, I can feed Renzo whatever he will eat...
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Post by rikita on Jan 11, 2015 0:23:29 GMT
well i went there today with some cake i got at a bakery, but she wasn't there - maybe her son has picked her up for a visit, or maybe she was just walking her dog, it was kind of late in the afternoon already and i still had to cook, so didn#t have time to try again later, might do so tomorrow though ...
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Post by mossie on Jan 11, 2015 13:54:55 GMT
You made the effort Rikita, so that is a good mark
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Post by rikita on Jan 11, 2015 22:33:27 GMT
tried again today, and she wasn't there, so i suppose she really spent the weekend at her son's - that is good, as i am sure he takes care that she eats enough ... we had the cake ourselves then, as i wasn't sure how long it will keep. was really nice, especially the mousse au chocolat one ...
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2015 23:20:37 GMT
Yes, it seems that she is being taken care of, but obviously you will check on that in the coming days. I have known numerous people who have watched out for old people in their building and helped them, and they always found it rewarding.
I had an old woman in my building (she wasn't even that old), but she died. Now I am the old man of the building. I wonder if anybody will want to help me if I stay here.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 12, 2015 2:15:56 GMT
Fortunately, I live in a housing co-operative, so we are expected to have at least some contact with one another and do "corvées" together. My next-door neighbour is a man with a degenerative disease, not MS but something similar, and he is really going downhill. We live on the top floor of a triplex, like so many dwellings in Montréal. So it is just two flights of stairs but difficult for him, and he refuses to move to a ground-floor flat although at least three people are willing to swap with him. Sometimes he falls down (probably going to pee) in the middle of the night and I wake up until he seems to have gone back to bed.
Of course, the other aspect is that I don't really like this person, as he has gone all ranty and judgemental as his capacities fail. He rants into his phone about this or that while I'm working at my desk, so I put on some music or don my headphones. But obviously I don't want him to die alone or suffer.
The oldest member of the co-op was very able and fit well into her 80s, but not much less than 90, she had a fall in the bath, standing on the edge of the bathtub to mend a shower curtain, which led to a fairly swift decline.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2015 16:49:53 GMT
When I first started my gardening business the vast majority of my clients were elderly women. A lot of other horticulturists I knew "couldn't deal with them" so I took them on.
It was so very rewarding to me as I was able to learn so much from some of them, not just about gardening, but a variety of things.
They in turn appreciated having someone like myself come on a weekly basis versus a garden maintenance company that hires transients for the most part because the pay is/was so shitty they could get away with it.
Anyway, there were times when some of these women fell ill or looked poorly and in some cases I had to take on caring for them in some fashion until I could notify a family member as to their particular state.
Most of them are all dead and gone now but, I have fond memories of many of them and was named in several of their wills and testaments.
I was shocked in some instances at the lack of caring that some of their children and grandchildren did not have for them and on more than one occasion was considered to be suspect in trying to somehow "weasel" my way into inheriting their money or whatever fortunes they make have held.
I was "let go" of one account as the grandsons were resentful of their grandmother's fondness for me while at the same time she was being grossly neglected to the point of me having to clean her because she would be lying in bed in her own feces and urine.
It was an awful situation.
People often assume that just because they have a living child or grandchild they will take care of their elderly mother or grandmother.
There are many instances where this is simply just not the case,sadly. They just don't want to be bothered.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 12, 2015 18:27:23 GMT
Well, that is sad and true, but it is also the case that some parents and children just don't get along.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2015 18:35:57 GMT
Well, that is sad and true, but it is also the case that some parents and children just don't get along. True but, blood relations aside, I don't always get along with many, even posters on here. That doesn't mean goodness forbid, that I wouldn't do everything in my powers to seek out comfort for those in need. That's a little too pat for me I'm sorry to say Lagatta. |
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Post by lagatta on Jan 12, 2015 18:46:02 GMT
Often, in the relevant cases, the family members have taken care to put a great geographic divide with those they couldn't put up with. There are toxic and abusive parents (and siblings) as much as there are greedy or uncaring children.
Please let's not get into a fight. I can think of my own work at a shelter for battered women. Usually the husband or male partner was the main batterer, simply because he was stronger, but the toxic relations reproduced themselves along the family chain; often the mothers were violent in turn to their kids. Fortunately there are happy and devoted families, but families (whether couples or blood relations) are one of the most common settings for murders and assaults.
I'm not trying to justify the callous behaviour of the adult children you are speaking of.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2015 19:08:03 GMT
Yes, family politics do often times take on a tragic bend.
I fully concur with you on this Lagatta.
Were my stepfather to have outlived my mother and needed care, I would have had tremendous difficulty in tending to him based on his abuse of me as a teenager, despite how happy he made my mother feel.
I kept it a secret for over 20 years or more.
I still wear the scars he inflicted on me as a reminder.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2015 21:02:41 GMT
I know a woman from my grandparents' village where my mother was born and grew up. She is the representative of the Red Cross for the village, visits all of the nearby nursing homes, brings the holiday municipal food baskets to all of the old people at the end of the year, and takes care of cleaning and cooking for a number of old people who live in the village who do not have any family looking after them. Yes, she has been remembered in a few wills, but a lot of people think that she is a conniving profiteer and say despicable things about her. At Christmas, she wanted me to go to the village to spend the holidays with her family because she feels that I am another abandoned case. Of course she forgives me for not going because she knows that I am looking after me mother.
The most unfortunate detail about it in terms of the village is that she is German and lots of people still automatically hate the Germans in that part of France, not for any specific reason but just as a genetic visceral feeling from the wars of 1870, 1914, 1939. Her name is Gertrude, but that is now hidden from all of the younger generations who know her only as Jeannette.
She is happy in the village and has lots of children and grandchildren. Whenever there is a big family event, at least 20 people arrive from Germany to happily participate, and that's how it should be.
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Post by rikita on Jan 12, 2015 23:19:12 GMT
i haven't seen her yet, but the guy that cleans the pub downstairs in the mornings (and thus sees everyone who enters or leaves the house) saw her ...
i imagine it to be incredibly painful if later on your child doesn't want anything to do with you, i hope this never happens to me. i know a few people who don't get along with their parents though - but i don't know details (and even when one knows details, i suppose it is always only one side of the story) - well, one of my aunts was out of contact with her family for many years, and it was really hard on my grandma ...
my other grandma right now needs a lot of help, as she broke an arm, her other arm has been useless due to something with her cancer for a long time already, so she can't use either arm right now. spoke to her today, she said the first couple of days were hard, more on my grandpa than on her ... but now one of my aunts is there, and when she leaves, one of my grand aunts will come there. fortunately, in our family the family ties generally are strong ... actually, with those grandparents it isn't that easy to visit them, as they get so many visits from relatives and friends, and are exhausted by more than a few per week, so i told them to just tell me whenever it is good for me to come by ...
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Post by rikita on Jan 19, 2015 8:33:39 GMT
well, i tried to bring her some of agnes' birthday cake yesterday afternoon, but she didn't open the door, so i put it on the ground with a note. it was still there this morning, and the pub guy also said he hadn't seen her yet, so i was a bit worried and considering calling our landlord (as i suppose he might have her son's number) - but tried ringing again after dropping agnes off at daycare, and she opened the door then and seems alright, and seemed happy about the cake ...
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Post by rikita on Jan 22, 2015 10:30:11 GMT
she just rang my door bell, asking me to come down help her with her backpack (she had been shopping, just a little bit, but still too much to carry up the three floors), and when i was there she was feeling dizzy and sat down for a bit, so i waited with her because i didn't want to risk her maybe fainting or something (she had said to just bring the backpack to her door originally), and then walked with her, holding her arm. she insisted on giving me some money afterwards, which is making me feel a bit awkward as i am sure she doesn't have much, but also felt rude to refuse for too long, so in the end i took it ... anyway, the way things look, i wonder how much longer she can deal with living in the third floor, by herself ...
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2015 12:11:52 GMT
You don't know of any other family that she has? Children or something? It would be a good time to talk to them.
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Post by rikita on Jan 22, 2015 12:29:56 GMT
she has a son, and i suppose he comes by sometimes. but i don't really know her well enough - nor him at all - to talk to him. from the things she's mentioned i think he is aware of that she isn't doing well, though ...
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2015 12:56:05 GMT
Well, that's a start. He will be able to see the evolution of the situation. But of course if ever you run into him, you can always say something like "Oh, I hope your mother is doing better" and see how he reacts.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 24, 2015 3:09:05 GMT
Is there no social service that can help her shop or check up on her?
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