Need advice

[boylo]

My father has MS and is in the later stages. He is 78 and I am 48. He continues to work everyday as he is self employed. He works because that's all he knows and that's what keeps him going. He has no other hobbies or distraction besides working. I have offered many times to help transition his business to the next generation but he refuses, stating if he retired he would die.

His MS has gotten so bad he can barely walk and should be in a scooter or wheelchair. But because of is pride he insists on just using a cane. His job requires him to travel by plane 3 times a month and drive a car over 400 miles a month. while travelling this spring he fell while walking and was in the hospital 3 days. We later found out he fell 3 other times last winter. He also had a seizure while at home last fall.

So as you can imagine the entire family wants him to stop driving and traveling because he is unsafe to himself and others. I talked to him last week about driving and he stated I will decide when my driving is bad enough to quit. Did I mention he is a very stubborn guy (:

I'm very proud of my dad for accomplishing everything he has while having MS for 40 years but he has never dealt with the disease and has instead lived in denial of it. But his condition has progressed to the point of disability and it's obvious to his friends and family that he has to stop working.

So my question is has anyone been through something like this? And are there resources out there for this situation? How should I proceed? Are there legal options? I don't know what to do because my family is afraid of change as well as him and aren't 100% behind me if I step in to make these tough choices for my dad.

** Moderator's note - Post broken into paragraphs for easier reading. Many people with MS have visual difficulties that prevent them from reading large blocks of print. **

[MSer102]

I can appreciate your dilemma because my late husband was also quite stubborn about what he did and didn't want to do. We also had to have my senile grandmother declared mentally incompetent so we could put her in a nursing home against her wishes (but she was much farther gone than your father seems to be).

You might consider consulting an eldercare attorney to see what your legal options are. Unless and until you can prove that your father is mentally incompetent there isn't much you can do. I know you want to just go in and fix things but you can't without legal authorization.

Unless your father is mentally incompetent and an immediate danger to himself you can't stop him from living the way he wants to or continuing to work if he wants to. Choosing not to use a scooter or other device doesn't mean he's incompetent. Wanting to continue to keep working in spite of the risks doesn't mean he's incompetent. He has the right to determine his own fate even if it isn't what you would choose for him.

But you can take steps to stop him from driving by reporting him to the DMV and asking that they cancel his driver's license for medical reasons. The seizure alone is enough to make him medically unfit to drive. And it might be as much about his age as it is about MS. That won't stop him from driving his own car but it will at least prevent him from renting a car while he's traveling.

The eldercare attorney will have to advise you about how to get his own car away from him. He won't want to give it up if he needs to be able to keep working. So you'll have to find a legal way to take a car that you aren't the legal owner of.

Fortunately my husband stopped driving on his own but it still took 2 more years for me to convince him to get rid of his car. We only got my grandmother's car away from her because she backed it into a tree and it became undriveable. She wasn't mentally sharp enough to figure out how to get another one. It sounds like your job is going to be much harder.

Not being fit to drive doesn't make your father disabled. Falling doesn't make him disabled. It doesn't sound like his seizure made him disabled. So telling your father that he has to stop working because he's disabled won't fly with him. It sounds like he doesn't need to stop working. He just needs to stop driving. Maybe there's a way he can keep working without driving or traveling?

If your father is sharp enough to keep working and traveling he might be too sharp for you to have him declared incompetent. So it sounds like you're going to have to consider your options and their consequences very carefully. I think the best thing that can happen is if you find a way to convince him that retiring is his idea. It doesn't sound like that will be easy.

My husband make choices for himself that I wouldn't have made. He could have lived years longer and more healthfully if he'd had a couple of operations and chosen to treat some other ailments. But he didn't want to. I had to remind myself that it was his life to do what he wanted with even if I didn't like it and it took him from me too early. Although he wasn't happy about his health he was happy with his independence and at peace with the decisions he made.

Your father might be physically safer if you take his car and make him stop working and basically confine him to his home. But you also have to consider what that will do to him mentally. The last years of his life might be spent resenting you. Is that how you want to remember him?

He might have a bad end if you give him as much independence as he can handle without hurting anyone else. But that will be by his choice. If you force him to do anything he may very well die anyway from depression and a broken heart.

I have in many ways been in your position. I don't envy you the hard decisions you'll have to make. You won't like some of them and your father won't like some of them. I hope that by consulting the attorney and the rest of your family you can come up with a solution that everyone can live with.

[hunterd]

people of that era, think of things far differently than we can imagine. They lived through the Great Depression and will continue to be independent, self-sustaining, and proud until the day they die ( or as close to it as is physically possible). I say this with the utmost respect and admiration. My grandmother is 95 and she does things that we just shake our heads at and wonder why.

"If your father is sharp enough to keep working and traveling he might be too sharp for you to have him declared incompetent. So it sounds like you're going to have to consider your options and their consequences very carefully. I think the best thing that can happen is if you find a way to convince him that retiring is his idea. It doesn't sound like that will be easy." have you talked to his doctor ( unbeknownst to him) about reporting him incompetent to drive? From the sounds of it, that may be the only way that it happens.

There may be something to the fact that working keeps them going. Work ( no matter what kind nor your age) gives people something to look forward to and it also gives them a sense of well being.