Sorry this is going to be a long question but I feel I need to give a little bit of a back ground on my mom. My mom is in her late 50's and has a long history of mental illness including anxiety attacks, severe depression, and just emotionally unstable. Well her sister was just diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time so my sister and I have been preasuring our mom to get a mamo. but she refuses. She hasn't been to a gyno in probably 10 years. She feels that because she had hysterectomy that she doesn't need to go any more. Both me and my sister have tried to talk to her about her health but she just blows it off. If it wasn't required by her health insurance to a physical she would never go to the Dr. Well we had enough so we had decided to have an intervention with her and get serious but before that happened my sister pulled her aside to ask her why she has been blowing us off on something that is so important. She said she went to her Dr. (not her gyno.) and hinted somethings to him so he said she could wait until she was 60 to have her mamo but he could not hold it off longer than that. SO my sister asked the obvious question "what did you hint to him?" why are you not getting this done now? She said she had a reason but was too embarrased to talk about it but that some "junk" happened in her past and she said I think you know what I mean. SO now my sister and I are even more concered. My sister is determined to find out what she means and keeps creating things in her head of what she could be talking about. I have ALWAYS pushed for my mom to go back to counseling but nobody will back me up and we don't have the best relationship. So my question is how do we handdle this? We have no idea if anyone in her family knows and we also don't know if this was like childhood past or 10 years ago past. Both of our minds are about to explode. Do we push it or do we let it go? I completely understand if she does not want to tell her children about something embarassing that happened to her but I feel that if she didn't want us to know then why did she hint at it. also we are wondering if she is saying this to get us off her back. One other thing is my mom loss her hearing suddenly last year because of a fluke that could have been avoided if she had gone to the Dr. sooner. All of this has been weighing very heavy on my heart and I really don't know where to go from here. Any advise from some grandmother of older children would be great as well.
thank you for the advise. I do understand the back off advise that most everyone gave me but it is difficult to stand back with my mom. There is a HUGE history with my mom, too much to write in a question so I guess get people would respond as such. Growing up I didn't have a mom that I could talk to or confide in. Don't get me wrong my mom has a huge heart and loved her children with every fiber in her body. It was really hard growing up watching your mother have emotional meltdowns at the drop of a hat, having to go visit her in a phsyc. ward and worst of all calling your grandmother in the middle of the night in a panic because your mother was going through convulsions and having to force pills down her throat...and that was only before my 13th birthday. SO like I said it is very hard to sit back and expect my mom to be taking care of herself. She has grandchildren that would like to have her around and children that don't want to loose thier mother. So if that makes me "nosey" or budding into my moms business then so be it. I am sure you would ALL fight for family even if they are not willing to fight. Yes she is an adult but even adults need help making decisions. This is not the role that I want but it is the one my siblings and I have been given. She has a very long line of mental illness in her family and although it is not a disease that people fight it is an illness that affects many people. Again thank you for your responces but I didn't sit back and do nothing when I was a child and I am not about to do it now.
My parents don't go to doctors and are slightly medaphobic if that is a word.
It is not something I agree with but I cannot rule their lives...
My mom probably has COPD. My uncle has it and my aunt (who was a nurse) keeps bugging her to get more answers. But until/unless MOM does it, then it's out of our hands. Like it or not, my mother is still capable of making her own decisions about her own health and life. I encourage her periodically to get it checked out because I want her to be here for her grandbabies (my DD and now my sister's son), but we can't drag her there. And, frankly, she's respected me when I made some less than stellar decisions in my life and I owe her the same. My mom is also in her late 50s and I am her oldest daughter. I think that you can express concern, but you shouldn't pry. You should support and encourage, but should not guilt or shame or bully. People have many reasons for not wanting to go to a doctor (I have "white coat hypertension" aka anxiety and only go when I MUST so I an't really blame my mom). Tell her you love her and stop pushing her to divulge what she isn't willing to tell you.
I know what you mean. I had a lot of difficulty getting my mom to a doc. When my dad passed she lived with us periodically. I went into the doctor with her. At that time it was 1 year after she had a broken ankle and a massive pulmonary embolism. The story she told the doc down her was that she had a small blood clot! Major difference. My mom had anxiety issues too and never wanted to be a bother or divulge anything she felt ashamed of. From her symptoms I guessed she had PTSD. Never able to get her to a counselor. Dont freak out guessing what she means. She may even be confused and making something up in her head. Share some secret of your own with her and maybe she will trust you with her own. Your moms hearing loss will make doctor appts even harder for her. If you can at all, go into the doctor with her. Get a mam the same day as her. Let go of fixing her. Its not your job to make her do things. It's your job to love her.
Maybe she told him she had breast implants and the mamo test would pop them? ;)
If she is in her late 50's, maybe you could convince her that she is close enough to 60 to get it done. The do now have that 3D version that uses a computer instead of the torture slabs, and they are more accurate.
We went through this with my grandmother. She refuse to see a doctor or dentist. She had chronic infection from dental disease. She also had depression and anger issues. When she finally started to fail and was admitted into the hospital, she was diagnosed with thyroid disease....and this is what was causing her mental issues. We tried to get her to go to the doctor, but she refuse. One thing I learned from this hell? AS much as we want to "fix" others, we really can't.
Here's the thing ... your mother is an adult. The reason she doesn't go don't matter. She doesn't. That's her choice and her RIGHT. She knows what she should be doing. She has assumed the risks. Let it go.
And don't try to figure out what happened or if anything really did. Let it go and move on. Accept that she is who she is, why doesn't matter. Set boundaries you can live with and go from there. That's really all you can do.
My Father-in-law never went to the doctor. We didn't even know he wasn't feeling well until we checked in on him and he couldn't get off the couch. Ended up he had terminal prostate cancer and died shortly thereafter. Had he gone to the doctor, he could still be here today. Otherwise, he was in excellent health.
You can only do what your mother will allow herself to do. Please don't feel guilty. She is a grown woman and has to make her own decisions. I know that mentally, she is unstable but there is not much you can do for her if she won't get help.
Do you think her hinting at something could be part of her mental condition? Could she be hallucinating?
While I can understand your concern, she is a competent, grown woman
and you can't make her go to the doctor.
She may have "drummed up the thing she is hinting about" in order to
throw you off and possibly get you to let go of pushing her to see the dr.
Instead, I would just converstationally talk to her about how you are
trying to take better care of YOUR health. Just plant the seed about how
YOU are eating healthier & taking better care of yourself so you can live
longer for your kids etc.
Don't push anymore, just try & support. Try that route.
You can't make her talk about the "junk" from her past but you can try to
encourage her to talk about it with you or your sister. Whomever she
feels more comfortable with.
She is a grown woman, moody, hard of hearing, but has all of her other faculties to allow her to make informed decisions.
Her doctor said she does not have to have a Mamogram until she is 60. Perhaps he has done a physical on her breasts each year and this is the doctor's opinion. Another possibility is, she had a mamogram recently, is not due for another until she is 60 and thinks you are too nosey to tell you about it.
So, as the song goes, "Let it be." Drop the subject and go purse shopping with mom. Buy a nice one for your auntie, perhaps?
I've advised my mother on taking better care of herself. She refuses. That's her decision. In the meantime I have prepared myself in case her health fails and she has illness and/or dies earlier than expected. That's how she wants to lead her life, that's her problem. I made an attempt, so I can live with myself.
