My grandma is approaching 90 and lives on her own - and has done for about 2 decades, so she is incredibly independent.
She is also very, very stubborn…
She refuses to let anybody have a spare key, we have of course explained to her that we wouldn’t be using it unless it was an emergency but she outright refuses.
She is quite deaf, to the point now where nobody can call her anymore because she cannot hear and ends up hanging up on us. She has 2 pairs of hearing aids (one pair through the nhs and one pair she went and got privately). She refuses to use them because she says they give her a headache. We tried explaining that we can adjust them for her but she gives up at the first hurdle and says that they are no good.
Now she has cataracts in both eyes, she has let it get to the point where she can hardly see and her appointment isn’t for another month. For some reason she canceled the first appointment which has pushed things back. She probably will get them done but it’s frustrating that she never attended the appointment she had a while back.
She tends to do a lot of self diagnosing, which I feel bad for saying… but she doesn’t let anybody go to any appointments with her and we literally know nothing factual. She supposedly has a lot going on with her health, yet the only medication we know of is for her blood pressure - no on going treatments, no specialist appointments etc, which you’d expect if her diagnoses are correct.
It’s awful doubting an elderly person but her ways are becoming very hard to deal with. It feels like we are watching her struggle, but equally we are so shut out when it comes to her health and her safety. Worse now that we can’t call her as she can’t hear, can’t text her as she cannot read it and can’t take her out because she has arthritis and is wobbly on her legs now (also refuses a walking aid).
She has zero patience and likes to be seen as an independent lady who relies on nobody - which was admirable when she was younger and fitter, now it’s just silly and rather irritating. She is so lovely, so kind and I’m sad that she has kept everyone at a distance. Nobody can help her.
Just wanted to get some takes on it and see if anybody can suggest a different approach that we could try.