My father-in-law had a stroke a few years ago - which was good for them in a way because he could start drawing disability. They had a business that was doing okay in the 90's but went downhill progressively. They were scraping by up until the stroke. Now that they were 'retired' they started coming from Ohio to spend the winters out here in Arizona. They had planned to move here but had trouble selling their house. Finally, last winter they got their house sold and they moved here permanently. They decided to rent a house because they wanted someone else to take care of the maintenance.
In the past year, my Mother-in-law's uncle died and left them a decent amount of money. Then her father died and left them even more. So they were living somewhat carefree out here for several months. My father-in-law still has diminished mental and physical capacity from the stroke. Although, he decided to get his driver's license again a couple months ago for the heck of it.
Anyway, late in December they were starting to complain about various ailments, although they seemed fine. In January they said they couldn't make it to my daughter's birthday party because my FIL was having trouble with his knee and my MIL said she was having bad allergies. We came to their house to pick up my SIL, and dropped off some Claritin.
A week or so later, my MIL calls to ask me to take her to the hospital because her allergies were so bad. She hadn't taken the Claritin. She hadn't taken anything. My SIL said she thought my MIL was also dehydrated. When I arrived at their house, they told me they were calling an ambulance because they thought they'd be processed into the emergency room faster. My FIL was trying to call, but was just staring at the phone and asked my SIL to call 911 for him. After she did, he grabbed the phone back from her so that he could talk to the dispatcher himself. He couldn't even tell them their address - he had to give the phone back to my SIL. I'm just letting this all happen, because....well....I was amused.
The ambulance eventually comes and takes them to the hospital. Evidently, the people in the ambulance gave my MIL shit the whole way ride to the hospital because it was a waste of resources. After spending half the day at the hospital, the doctor tells her to take an antihistamine and drink fluids to get hydrated - but not to just drink a bunch of water. I drove them home and stopped off to get some pedialyte for them on the way.
The next day, my MIL said the pedialyte sucked and she was just going to drink water. She still didn't take any medicine. Then she asked if I thought Flagstaff or Payson would be better for her allergies. I said, probably Flagstaff. The next day she texted me early in the morning, "I'm sorry I have to get out of here. Will you take me to Flagstaff?" This was a Thursday. My wife texted her back that we would take her to Flagstaff on Saturday if she took the Claritin we got her that day and the next day and still wasn't any better on Saturday.
Instead they got my wife's uncle to take them up to Flagstaff. My MIL starts sending out emails daily about how much better she feels. After a couple weeks, for some reason, they decided they were going to move to Prescott, AZ. So they rented a cottage there temporarily, started looking for houses to rent, and found one. A couple days after signing the lease, my MIL says she can't stand it anymore and has to go back to Flagstaff. So my wife's uncle drives them back to Flagstaff. Their plan was to stay there for 3 weeks and figure out where to live.
About a week goes by and my MIL is getting worse. My SIL convinces them to go to some "Natural Medicine" type doctor because they refuse to go see a real doctor. That person was trying to put them on a diet or something....I don't know all the details but I just assumed that wouldn't work out anyway. I ended up getting forwarded an email exchange between my FIL and some dude he went to school with and hadn't spoken to in 50 years. This guy lives in Traverse City, MI. Suddenly, they decided they're moving to Traverse City. I don't know how this came about. My SIL is at their house down in the Valley packing up their stuff. My wife's aunt was going to fly to Arizona and drive them to Michigan next week. That was the plan yesterday.
Today, my MIL decides she can't take it anymore and they are going to drive themselves right away to Michigan.