MS Awareness Week

This week is MS Awareness Week and actually all of March is MS Awareness month.  Like I mentioned yesterday I'm going to be visiting my parents this week.  Ostensibly to celebrate my Dad's birthday, but also along with my sister to have a frank conversation with our parents about their living situation.  

My Mom was diagnosed with MS almost eight years ago and walks with a cane.  Over the summer she fell and broke her hip.  She is home and goes to physical therapy but cannot drive anymore.  Their house is a two story house with a finished basement. My Dad has memory issues similar to Alzheimer's but it's called something else.  Because of that and a nervous tick, his doctors no longer let him drive. My Mom has always been a proud and independent person and being restricted the way is making her depressed  She's 69 years old and 

Bottom line, they are having a hard time in their current situation and my sister and I agree they need to find some appropriate to their needs.  Some sort of assisted living situation where they can choose what assistance they need and ramp it up when needed.  

My sister talked to my Mom about all this when she was last there in December and while I think my Mom knows that this is what they are going to need to do, she's being stubborn.  Not that I blame her.  I can understand that she doesn't want to leave her home.  I know it's going to be a lot of work to get the house ready for market, and that she's not really physically able to do it, and my Dad isn't really mentally up to the task.

My sister gets mad when my Mom puts it off and they butted heads quite a bit last time she was there.  I think sometimes she doesn't realize how difficult it is for my Mom physically to do some of the things she needs to do.  Hopefully if we can all discuss it calmly we can figure our a solution that's acceptable for everyone.  

It's hard to be so far away when they are going through things like this and if they do end up selling the house I may have to take my in laws up on their offer to fly out and watch our kids so I can stay and help my parents longer.

MS affects different people in different ways and this is how the MonSter (as I've seen it called) is affecting my family right now.