Dr. Bethany Marshall

When you have a parent that age, it activates the same feelings as if you have a baby.

You're always wondering, is the baby okay?

Are they being cared for even if they're in a nursing home?

Are their meals being brought regularly?

Is somebody abusing them?

Parents want autonomy.

Mine did.

He had his car keys until the day he died.

He did not want to go to a nursing facility.

I arranged everybody in the church to visit him on a regular basis.

He just thought he had millions of friends, which he did, but he didn't realize everybody was

was kind of having like a caretaker network, if you know what I mean.

So Savannah already is struggling with feelings and has been, I'm sure she and her sibling group and her family with how do we take care of mom?

And when a parent goes into a facility of some sort, what happens is that the caretaker usually needs respite, meaning they're having caregiver burnout.

But on the other hand, it goes against all of their internalized belief systems about what it means to care for family members.

So it sets in place like this complex bereavement process.

Nancy, I'm so worried about this mom.

I have to say one more thing.

Was she being targeted by somebody who was defrauding her, taking her money or targeting her because of a lurid fascination

with Savannah?