Hopefully this won’t be too long, but I want to put the details that I know.
My wife’s sister (“Mary”) is helping take care of an elderly woman (“Rosie”). Mary isn’t medically trained, but she’s making some extra money by “elder sitting”. Rosie lives with her daughter “Tina” after having two small strokes last year. Even though she had these strokes, Rosie can walk, talk, cook, bathe, etc — and has all her cognitive function. She’s just a little slow, and fragile. Rosie also occasionally gets dialysis treatment.
After an incident last night, Mary shared some details that have me wondering what we should do. I feel a moral obligation to do something, but I’m not sure the proper course. Mary is disinclined to get involved, but rather thinks she can just keep an eye on the situation as she helps care for Rosie.
A while back, Rosie was balking at taking her medications. She said there were too many. The meds had been sorted by Tina. Mary said no problem- I’ll go through them and make sure they are correct. She put the meds back in the bottles and read the instructions for each. She noticed that Tina had her taking the wrong amounts. There was a statin, for example, that was “one a day in the morning”. Tina was giving her two a day. Mary re-sorted the pills and has been doing so (she’s been seeing Rosie 2-3 days a week for a couple months), and Rosie has not had any complaint taking her meds since.
Last night, Mary was watching Rosie, as Tina was traveling for a family event. It was time for Rosie to go to bed and for Mary to come home. Rosie asked Mary to stay- saying she didn’t feel well and that half her face felt numb and that her hand was tingling. Or course, Mary knows that this sounds like a stroke or heart attack, so she called Tina. Tina told her not to worry about it, that she’s had this before. She told Mary she could go home, that Rosie would be fine. Rosie begged her to stay, then insisted that she felt something was wrong and she should go to the hospital. Mary called Tina, and Tina still felt this was an over-reaction, but Mary insisted on taking Rosie to the emergency room.
In the emergency room, they did what is probably normal stroke diagnostics. Rosie didn’t seem to be having a stroke, but a cat scan showed reduced blood flow in her brain. So something was clearly wrong. They wanted to do an MRI but couldn’t because of some issue with kidneys/dialysis. At this point, Tina was worried about paying Mary too much money for her time — but Mary insisted on staying, assuring Tina that she didn’t have to pay her for this extra time. Then Mary heard the doctor talking to Rosie- asking her if she had been taking aspirin. He made a big deal out of this, telling her as a multiple stroke patient she should have been taking aspirin. Rosie said she couldn’t remember, but assured the doctor that “her daughter is very organized”. Mary told me that there is no aspirin in her medications, nor has there been since she’s been there. She privately asked a nurse there, if aspirin would be under some other name- and the nurse assured her no it would say aspirin. Mary then overheard the doctor talking on the phone to Tina. She could tell the Doctor was quizzing Tina on the aspirin issue, and that Tina was claiming that she was taking it. Mary heard the doctor ask, for example, “then why did she not know she was taking it...”.
Mary is home now, and Tina has returned from her trip. Rosie was admitted to the hospital and is having an operation tomorrow for an obstructed artery (we don’t have details, but I think a blood clot). Rosie told Mary that “She’s her angel”. So for now, Rosie seems to be in good hands and I’m sure they have her on an appropriate blood thinner.
But this feels very bad. It feels like Tina was purposefully withholding aspirin to help get her mother out of her hair quicker. Possibly, she was incorrectly administering her meds for the same reason. Who knows- maybe this even caused the kidney problems. The family doesn’t seem to be super wealthy- but clearly they are comfortable enough to afford a part time caretaker and Rosie probably has a good nest egg stored away from her long professional career.
Mary is uncomfortable confronting Tina with her suspicion. I feel we have to say something to somebody. Advice?