To not help my neighbor

[boxonthehill]

My neighbour is elderly (I'm positively youthful at 40). I moved in just before lockdown and we've got quite close - I take her meals and get a bit of shopping in and since lockdown has ended she's been coming in once a week for her tea and to watch eastenders. She's quite hard work but sweet enough and I'm not working at the moment due to ill health so it makes me feel like I'm useful in some way. All good so far.

She's got 2 adult sons and a daughter who live in different parts of town about 15 minutes away. They all work full time but all drive including her son in law. The boys wives don't drive, one works and one is a SAHM with 2 kids at school and near a bus route.

So... neighbour has been taken in to hospital with heart problems and they discovered she has blood clots. They've told her she needs to be injected every day at home. They won't send someone out and although they could do it for her in hospital she'd have to travel in every day for this (40 minute bus drive).

She's asked me to do it and says im the only one - children won't because they're too busy.

I feel really uncomfortable with this. To begin with I had very unsteady hands. Can hold a pen and knife and fork etc but couldn't thread a needle or accurately use tweezers. I have no medical training (although they say this isn't needed at all). Im quite squeamish (I know that's a silly reason).

I suppose overall I feel like it's too much pressure. If I got it wrong I'd feel terrible. I feel like I have no business injecting this elderly woman whom I'm no relation to! It all feels really wrong somehow. I think the children (I say children, they're all 30s/40s) should make a rota and do it themselves.

Am I unreasonable to say no? My second worry is that she'll ask me to accompany her on the bus to the hospital each day which I also don't want to do because of my own health problems that she's not aware of.

How do I handle this?!

Oh, and do not call the hospital. Do not get involved. If you do, you'll get sucked into sorting every one of her problems out for ever more.

@KatherineOfGaunt

Definitely decline and state your issues with unsteady hands and/or needle phobia.

This lady has THREE grown-up children all married living in the same town and they can't organise the six of them to do this for her? So she felt the need to ask you? That makes me sad.

Totally agree with this.

It’s incredibly sad that they are so disinterested. 🙁

I'd definitely go back to that question of whether she'd claiming all she's entitled to. So many pensioners are not.

I wouldn't be able not do this for you, but I can suggest xyzzy care company that can get someone to send a person to do this every day. Or suggest she calls council for care packages that might be free to cover this

Do Not Get Involved with medical care as if something goes wrong you'll be to blame

I am so glad you have declined to do this @boxonthehill, as PP have said it is not your responsibility.
It would mean that you dont have the freedom to go away if you choose to , or if you had friends around you would have to leave them to go and give the jab .
I can also certainly foresee you becoming more relied on to do other tings for her , and while a bit of shopping , changing a light bulb is fine anything medical or what would be classed a s care could lead to more and more been laid at your door .
Stand firm and be aware that on the days she comes round to you she may try to get you to do it , so you need to be really firm on this point right from the start and continuously.

WOW @boxonthehill YANBU at ALL. You must say that you cannot do this. Tell her you flat out can't as you don't want the responsibility. Can you pretend you have started work again or something, so you don not have to go to hospital with her? (I would... Say you are working from home, and can't go with her to hospital because of your work commitments...)

See, this is why I NEVER offer to help anyone now. Old curmudgeon I may sound like, but I have been bitten many times in the past by people expecting lifts, money, visits, gifts, and just about anything else, including my company, and turning up at my home uninvited, and expecting to be entertained for 3 or 4 hours...

Even the Church took the piss when I started going some 7-8 years ago, and wanted me to do the Church cleaning, arranging the flowers, making and serving the tea and coffee and sandwiches, and looking in on elderly and vulnerable people and helping them with shopping and cleaning etc.

They wanted me to go to all the 'groups' too, and even help organise them! Prayer morning, ladies evening, mum and baby group, house group, all sorts. FFS, I was working part time, and had 2 kids at home, and wanted to pop to Church sometimes, but not live and breathe it.

Someone said once 'well if SOMEone doesn't do all this, the Church - and all its help would close.' Yet 90% of the people who went never did fuckall. They honed in on me because I was new into the village I think. I gave Church a wide berth for some months, and covid and the lockdown gave me the perfect excuse to stop going. I haven't been since Christmas 2019 now. Shame, but they were soooooo overbearing.

Also..... I had a great aunt Linda (62 at the time,) some 20 years ago, when my 2 kids were around 6-7 years old. She was my grandad's brother's wife, (his name was Peter, and he was the same age as her.) They had no children together as they met and married in their mid 40s, but she had 2 sons and a daughter from her first marriage. (Adults when she and Peter got married.) Peter had no kids...

When they were 60, Peter died, and the rest of the family didn't bother with her much, just Christmas and birthday contact really, but I used to visit maybe every 2 months (sometimes with my 2 kids,) even though she lived 25 miles away. Her 2 sons and 1 daughter were 10 to 30 miles away, so not that far, and they never visited her - EVER, except for Christmas, and her birthday. TWICE a year. I would sometimes bring bits and bobs of shopping for her, and stayed for hours talking to her.

She had a fall 2 years after my great uncle Peter died, and was hospitalised for a couple of weeks. I visited her 4 or 5 times in those 2 weeks, and no-one else did. NO-ONE. After 2 weeks, the staff nurse pulled me aside and told me that she needs full time care for some 2-3 months, and possible longer as she had broken her leg, and she asked me when I could come to take her to my home as they needed the bed and wanted to discharge her.

I was like I said 'but she isn't coming with me.' The nurse said 'well she said she is. She said you're taking her home with you and looking after her.' I said 'I am really sorry, but I don't know where this has come from. I have a job. I work 3 days one week, and 4 the next, and I have 2 small children, and a very small 2 bed home. There's no room for her, and I work.'

The nurse said 'well you HAVE to take her, she has no-one else.' I said 'she has THREE adult children who live 10 to 30 miles from her. Two of them have no children. Why aren't they being asked?' The nurse said 'she has nominated you to take her home to yours, and care for her.' I said (more firmly this time,) 'No, I can't, and I have not even been consulted, and even if I had I would say no because it's not possible.'

Result... I was completely ghosted by my great aunt, and she told anyone who would listen that I was a nasty, spiteful, selfish little cow, who had 'thrown her under the bus.' Also, I am written out of her will. (Didn't even know I was in it, so I didn't care!') Plus, she didn't have much, except her house, and her 3 kids would get pretty much everything anyway!

That did me in that did. I was fucking raging. I was the ONLY one who visited her when great uncle Peter died, and the ONLY one to visit her in hospital. Not even her own adult children could be arsed. yet I became the pariah, because I wouldn't taken her home and be her nurse/carer for as long as it suited her...

After that, I never EVER offered to help to anyone again. I will help/assist in an emergency, but will NOT OFFER. Too many cheeky fuckers and pisstakers. I had had it all my life up to then... (My mid 30s,) and that really REALLY fucked me off and upset me...

(Linda and Peter are not the real names btw...)

"Her children telling her No is one thing, not helping her to source an alternative indicates little interest."

We don't really know who has said what though.

If her children have said no, they might think that it will be organised by the hospital before she is discharged.

I'm sure that a lot of us woudn't think that we would have to "source" this if we couldn't do it ourselves.

There is a fair amount she is entitled to atop her basic pension; I was a pensioner in the UK before I came to Ireland and she needs to apply. eg heating allowance. They make all the difference.
Is there not a social worker around?

If the injections are anything like my husband had, they’re a drug called Tinsaparin - designed to break up clots. They’re only very small needles - pre filled one dose syringes - and they’re designed to be self administered, usually in the lower abdomen. Even so, I don’t think you should do it. I would be firm but kind and say you have a needle phobia and couldn’t possibly do it. I don’t think it’s right that the hospital have told her that no one can come out to her. If she really can’t do these herself then the district nurse service should do them, and it’s up to the hospital to arrange that before she’s discharged.

When DM was in hospital her GP told me to say I wouldn't be looking after her when she was discharged. I hated myself for saying it, especially when bitch of a doctor looked at me as though I was something she'd trodden in and told me DM would be discharged on Friday (despite the fact she was barely conscious and on oxygen on Monday) and if I wouldn't do anything she would have to involve social services. I got the phone call to say Mum had died on the Friday morning but I knew I couldn't give her the care she needed if it had come to that.

It’s not something shaky hands would affect , honestly it takes seconds and you can jab fairly indiscriminately around the area used - I used stomach for a while , it’s something she could probably do herself but I assume there’s some reason why they have not deemed this possible

I haven't even read the thread and I'm aghast for you that she's even asked, op. You're not unreasonable in the slightest.

When my Dad needed discharging from hospital, they just seemed incredulous that there would be no one there & he couldn't go home until he was able to look after himself again.

It's as if people not living in the same street let a different country is a complete mystery to them!

"But there must be someone, can't you just fly over for as long as possible?"

I said 'she has THREE adult children who live 10 to 30 miles from her. Two of them have no children.

It shouldn’t be assumed that those without children should automatically be stepping up to the plate for caring duties. Child free people have lives too.

Sounds like your great aunt Linda was also a CF, which might be why her children didn’t want to get involved.

@BrightYellowDaffodil

Oh, and do not call the hospital. Do not get involved. If you do, you'll get sucked into sorting every one of her problems out for ever more.

Sorry I strongly disagree. If a neighbour phones a ward they won't get dragged into anything (unless they want to).

On the other hand, as I explained upthread, the ward cannot organise community nurses unless they know they are required.

If alternative arrangements are not set up, the chances are the neighbour is going to be calling the OP and putting pressure on because there is no plan in place.

I have been involved in hundreds of hospital dischatges and have never told a patient they need to get themselves to the hospital for these injections, either the patients are taught how to do this, the carers do it or the district nurses are organised by the ward team. Maybe she doesnt want nurses coming in, she might think they might not turn up, will arrive at different times when the injections are usually given at the same time or thinks it would be nice for op to do these whilst having a snack, doing a bit of housework, making tea.

@Iliketeaagain

Stupid question, but why can't she do it herself? Normally they are pre-filled syringes, stick into abdomen and push the plunger. If she can wash, dress, brush her own teeth, she can probably do the injections herself too.

Ive had a few major surgeries recently and I’d rather have had them all over again rather than inject myself. I’m a really good patient but that is a step too far. It’s what nightmares are made of. Thankfully I have my sons live in carers who did it for me but if didn’t have them I’d have gone to the nearest poly clinic and paid to have it done. There’s one just round the corner and it would have taken all of ten minutes. And no I’d not have let my children do it, not even my son who’s a dr, my way would have been far quicker than anything else.

I think if 3 children collectively told their mother they couldn't do this daily requirement, if they did have interest they would seek clarification as to possible alternatives with the hospital care team, rather than simply say No and presume their 80 year old mother will sort it out on her own.

@Cuck00soup

I mean sorting her problems in terms of the neighbour assuming OP is going to sort her problems. By ringing the hospital OP would be giving the neighbour the message that she - OP - is willing to get involved.

Ultimately this is the neighbour’s issue to sort out, rather than dumping it on others and absolving herself of responsibility. So it is the neighbour that needs to be telling the clinical staff that she has no one to help her.

Ah OK I misunderstood. Absolutely OP needs to be clear in her communication that she isn't taking any responsibility for her neighbour.

So long as the ward knows to actually arrange the DNs.

The thing is, she's completely mentally capable. I think it's easy to assume elderly people need input like calling the hospital, making arrangements etc. And I started to feel this way. But having thought long and hard today - with the help of this thread, thank you all - I really think that I'd be over stepping to put myself in touch with the hospital as she's not incapable of understanding her needs.

If she turns up on the doorstep and hasn't arranged alternative help i imagine I'll be back on here... considering whether or not to get in touch with social services. I don't think there's any involvement at the moment.

As it stands. She's accepted I can't do the injections. So if that's the end of it then all is well. Id like to continue with the social support. I think that is good for both of us and although I dont have much, I always cook too much and can spare it.

@MyPatronusIsACat; my SIL had something similar. She was a full-time teacher, and rented rooms from an elderly lady for some 30 years; as the lady got older, and kept doing silly things like climbing on and falling off chairs, my SIL was having to take her to A&E. The day a nurse asked who could care for her, and she said "Oh. (SIL) can do it" was the day my SIL started looking at houses for sale!

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

When DM was in hospital her GP told me to say I wouldn't be looking after her when she was discharged. I hated myself for saying it, especially when bitch of a doctor looked at me as though I was something she'd trodden in and told me DM would be discharged on Friday (despite the fact she was barely conscious and on oxygen on Monday) and if I wouldn't do anything she would have to involve social services. I got the phone call to say Mum had died on the Friday morning but I knew I couldn't give her the care she needed if it had come to that.

When my FIL had dementia he had to be moved to a home when it became dangerous for him to stay at home. We moved him, not SS, and we were paying the care home bills of EUR 7000 every month, waiting for it to be sorted. It was draining our accounts pretty fast, as you can imagine. The owner of the care home sat my husband and his brother down and said if we wanted FIL to get a permanent place in a specialist care home, we had to say we were no longer paying his bills and were effectively abandoning him. He explained the care system was under so much pressure that if we looked in any way willing to take on the burden of care, in whatever form, we would be left on our own to cope. We had to be brutal, push, shove and yell to get him the care he needed before we were bankrupted. So that's what we did. My husband sobbed moving his father from a lovely care home to a hospital ward where we had to leave him to the mercy of the system. Thankfully, he was moved to a lovely dementia home six weeks later and we were able to pay much fairer fees under the Irish Fair Deal package. But that is what happens, the system demands you be inhumane. OP< you are doing the right thing, you cannot commit to this, it is not fair and if anything goes wrong, you will be held responsible.

She will have to either learn to do it herself or the District Nurses will come and do it. It absolutely shouldn't fall to you. What if you're unwell, away, it's a huge commitment and you're under no obligation