The Taste of Bitter Fruit Served Continuously Through Undue Influence Lasts A Long Time

My Mother made me promise I would never place her in a facility until she had no idea where she was. 

I kept that promise.  I never put her in the Nursing Home/LTC/Old Folk's Home.

Julia H, her Undue Influencer, planned and executed every detail to ensure Mom's move from our home to a Long Term Care Facility including falsely reporting to the State of Missouri Elder Abuse Hotline preceded by her action in regaining her RN registration with the State of Missouri just months before she made her report.

Julia H took Mom to the bank, opened a safety deposit box and kept both keys. Julia H convinced Mom to remove my Power of Attorney, an appointment Mom had made decades before and I'd given her one over our daughter when Mom traveled with her. 

We believed each could be trusted and built our life together, our multi generational life, on that trust.

We lived together, Mom and I all but a few years of my life until Julia H entered our lives and saw the opportunity to take advantage of Mom, saw the advancing Dementia, probably knew it was Lewy Body Dementia, and took advantage of her and of our entire immediate family unit.

Julia had Mom take money out of our home, the little that still remained, tucked away for Mom's burial and what we'd allowed her to believe was "hers" but knew she couldn't have that amount and be on Medicaid. 

It gave Mom peace of mind to be able to count the money and know it was in her room, in our home, and we didn't care how she looked at it but we'd made that money possible over the years and had no intent, no matter how difficult the life and death journey was with my husband or with her, to use it for any other purpose.

Care giving 24/7 I'd not even thought about Mom's Social Security accumulating.  Dutifully I went to the bank for her, cashed her check except for a few dollars she deposited and gave it to Mom every month. 

Julia would use that "failure" to take Mom to the bank as a weapon in her arsenal of "proof" of abuse.  

Julia was really good at conversations with me that elicited information I had no idea were for a specific purpose.

Julia would ask me how Mom was doing in her visits and in her emails; was she able to get out, could I take her places like to the store and to the bank?

Stupidity or innocence -- a combination of the two looking at the situation from many angles -- I shared, I confided and I believed Julia H cared about Mom, cared about us and our best interests. WRONG. Julia H was focused on her goal, on her WIN, on seizing opportunity and taking advantage.

As I've mentioned in this blog previously, Julia H was an award winning tennis player and entered the Tennis Hall of Fame at her University. She plays still. She's a trained Registered Nurse complete with many hours in how to handle patients and families -- meant for good but used for the opposite.

Julia H, I believe, practiced and continues to practice Elder Abuse and is so adept at it that family members, ours included, do not see what she's doing and do not realize it's all about Undue Influence, gaining the trust of the Elderly and family members, and then helping herself to whatever she feels she can "get away with".

It was months after Mom's "entry" into LTC and my husband's death before I realized Mom couldn't possibly have spent money from at least nine months or more of receiving Social Security checks.

The last time I ever thought about Mom's having any money that might help us through the challenges we were experiencing with my husband's MRSA and complications of surgery and 100 consecutive days in the hospital, most in critical intensive care, was when we were behind on payments on our van, the only transportation we had, by $250. and were threatened with repossession.

Mom told me "NO", she wouldn't let me have the money. Looking back, I should have realized this wasn't the Mom I knew. But I respected her rights, "her" money and had told this story to Julia H. Looking back, I'm sure she felt Mom had that money and that's why she took her to the bank and secured the lock box in her name and Mom's.

In Mom's defense, a few days after Mom refused to help, she said she'd loan me the money, that was after the van was repossessed. By that time the amount was over $1,000 and when I told Mom the costs due to all the charges the company who took it added, she refused to help and we were suddenly without transportation.

A note of hope: a relative of our second son's wife had a car sitting in his driveway he didn't use; he drove it from across the country and gave it to us. He gave us a lifeline in a time when we were losing all hope and to this day I remain grateful for his help in our great time of need. 

Logical thinking, a function of processing information that disappears with Lewy Body Dementia, is now clear to us but back then we were told by everyone, including the Dr she was visiting, how capable Mom was "for her age".

A friend recently described her Mom, in her nineties, as "just plain mean" these days. 

No matter how I tried to counsel her, she would not accept her Mom might have Dementia, in particular, Lewy Body Dementia. 

The friend insists her Mom has a good Doctor who her mom sees regularly and the Doctor doesn't see anything and tells her "Mom" will probably pass from a fall but otherwise is "very healthy". 

Falls and LBD go together because the signals within the brain become less and less able to provide accuracy and that's why a higher level of assistance is necessary esp in the later stages.

Sad. So sad. My friend doesn't understand most Doctors don't recognized Dementia, especially Lewy Body Dementia.

Those who are fortunate to have a Dr who knows this silent and stealthy robber of lives, Lewy Body Dementia, have been given a great gift. 

We received that gift finally late into Mom's Lewy Body Dementia, but Mom's LTC Facility would not accept it -- diagnosis cannot be conclusive before death and an autopsy at this time. 

Diagnosis uses the terms "possible" and "probable" and the facility's "lead Doctor" refused to accept this "shoddy, inconclusive and improbable" diagnosis.

It was during those really challenging economic times when financial institutions were highly aggressive when we lost our van.

It was January, 2010. My husband was going to be getting out of the 100 day stay in the hospital and going into rehab. Our savings were gone. I couldn't possibly work. Daughter was in college and I was trying to keep her there so she could graduate knowing without that college degree, her ability to find anything, especially in the really depressed economy, would be limited to entry level, minimum wage jobs. She was and is bright, highly capable and was given amazing opportunities and had great academic promise.

I used to take Mom to the bank but caring for my husband 24/7 and trying to ensure Mom got out to Adult Day Care, both went to a myriad of Dr's appointments and other needs, I was functioning on little sleep and extensive physical challenges.

Anyone who's assisted someone needing a wheelchair from a car to a chair, rolling them through buildings and assisting them in getting MRI's and other necessary treatments knows it takes a great deal of physical strength, mental endurance and often leaves the care giver without strength and ability to do other things and even to think clearly and accurately.  

When you have TWO people needing to be moved by wheelchair, and you're not a certified weight lifter, the strain physically and emotionally is overpowering. 

Then there's the other challenges of toileting when you're out somewhere or just moving them through doors that have no automatic openers -- like at the bank.

And when Mom went to the bank, she didn't want to go to the drive through and insisted we go inside. 

I didn't need another challenge in life and decided, and she agreed, at the time, I could do the banking for her when I needed to go to the grocery store or out for something made more sense. 

I tried taking her with me but pushing a wheelchair and trying to get groceries is not an easy task.

I could not afford "private duty care" and there was no organization, no church, no community of volunteers to help.

Our daughter, seeing the toll it was taking, quit college to help and then also became a victim of long term care giving being unrecognized, unassisted and often chastised because she "wasn't doing enough" in other people's eyes or because she "left college" when she should have finished -- should have taken care of "her needs first".

It's easy to criticize and find fault from hundreds of miles away as my oldest son did.

It's far easier to believe Mom/Dad/Grandma can "handle" their lives because that's how you've always seen them. 

It's easy to make excuses for not providing help even in the simplest form of listening and hearing the truth and not turning it into a web of deceit being spun by an Undue Influencer for their own personal profit and gain.

Mom told us she was "happy" in a Long Term Care Facility when we found out she'd "moved out" through a notification of change of address from the postal service, wasn't coming home, as we thought and were told would happen by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services representative when they pushed her and us INTO GIVING MOM RESPITE.

Yes, there are family abusers but we weren't, aren't and will never be.

Lewy Body Dementia is an abuser to the person who suffers from it and to the families who are caught up in the web it weaves in the lives of all who experience it first hand.

The facility was smart; they placed Mom in an empty room, as a single occupant, a large, spacious and quiet room. 

Of course she would be moved from that location; it was a way to ensure she stayed, to get her to sign a formal letter of "self committment" which anyone who knows Lewy Body Dementia realizes the person with the disease really doesn't have the mental processing ability especially in the mid to late stages of the disease, to legally sign.

False, misleading and destruction of a family unit based on unsubstantiated and uninvestigated Elder Abuse.

Coconspiracy on the part of the Long Term Care Facility who saw a "capable" person at an advanced age who they could work into entering "their" facility. 

Why would the facility want to disprove Elder Abuse by the family? Families are a facility's worst nightmare as they visit and especially if they're vocal and become involved in insuring good care and quality of life. 

Facilities welcome Medicaid recipients who are mostly self reliant. It's a win-win for them because they require less care giving and reduce the ratio of needed employees to give care.

Permanent Residency in a place where, according to State Law, Mom had "rights" and one of these would be to Julia H's unsupervised, private visits with Mom. 

Yes,Julia knew exactly what she was doing and she knew the law, the system and knew very well she had a short amount of time to take action.

The State of Missouri incarcerated my mother, split apart our family, caused significant financial loss emotionally and financially, all on the report of a woman who had much to gain and nothing to lose because she knew and understood the system through "caring for" many other elderly people who had the challenge of Dementia.

Are we the only ones? As I write and talk I find others like ourselves. We are not alone.

What's upsetting is I've never been formally "released" from this accusation. No letter. No phone call. Everything has "disappeared". I understand. I do not accept. 

We were in her way; I was especially in her way. 

I had the same name as Julia's mother, who she'd told me once when we were Eucharistic Ministers together she really didn't get along with her mother very well. 

Imagine it was far more than just not getting along with but deeper and more challenging a relationship if not shown, certainly retained inside Julia.

Why was it necessary, Julia, to separate Mom from the only family she knew, the home she lived in for decades and the life with people who truly gave her daily care 24/7?  

Guess you needed to ensure you gained access to Mom's correspondence.

Trying to see if she had a charge account, perhaps, that you could use?

Possibly believing she may have had some "investments" or perhaps money tucked away some place and it was getting on the end of the year when these reports would be sent out.

IF YOU RECALL NOTHING ELSE FROM READING THIS BLOG, PLEASE REMEMBER:

Dementia exists before the starting of possible behaviors like staring into space blankly, continual body rocking, conversations with no one visible and other behaviors we know and can easily see mean the person is no longer really cognizant or capable. 

Lewy Body Dementia wears many masks.

Dementia is not to be ignored, dismissed or underestimated.

It is and will continue to be more devastating to entire generations until we recognize Dementia is a medical challenge the same as Cancer, Heart Disease, Kidney Disease and Lung Disease.

Dementia is the brain, the heart and the circulatory system combined reducing and eventually eliminating functioning.

Dementia is not inevitable.

Dementia is a group of medical problems with individual names but each is significant and must be spoken about, learned about and most importantly, understood.

It's not due to aging. It can happen in the young and the old. It's medical. It's possibly totally curable and potentially reversible. 

We hold the future of Dementia study in all its forms in our hands by joining the various Dementia communities -- Lewy Body, Alheimer's, Parkinsons and others -- together in a collaboration to promote understanding and to seek ways to reduce, eliminate and possibly cure

GET TO KNOW AND UNDERSTAND DEMENTIA -- 
IN ALL ITS FORMS