Last month, my mom ended up unexpectedly in the hospital. It was a rollercoaster of all the Greatest Hits of the American Medical System, including supporting the Residents striking in the hour before Mom was due for surgery, because they're paid too little and work too many hours. No joke.

But this is a cybersecurity newsletter, so let's talk about the part I actually know something about. As I went through this process, I wanted to help prepare anyone else who might go through a similar thing. You think the annual ritual of "fixing a few things" around Thanksgiving is rough for the average tech person? This is rougher.

And by the way, Mom's out and doing fine, thanks for asking!

Let's get to it.

(One more thing before we dive in: stick around to the end. If this series has hit close to home, we’ve got something for you.)

I've put this piece last, because emotionally and morally, it's a tougher thing to write about. There's a bunch of questions here you're going to have to face about autonomy and respect and responsibility, and they take a lot more thought than "freeze your credit," which is about as no-brainer as this series gets. So get your goggles on, and let's do this.

I had no idea this was a thing, but it absolutely is. Simply being in the hospital puts your person at risk, especially if they're elderly. And watching it happen is devastating. Suddenly, your person is no longer your person — hostile when they used to be happy, angry when they used to be peaceful. A whole lot of weird personality things pop up. It's… super stressful, and I can't overstate the need for mental support for you, the caregiver, so you have the ability to help your person get through this.

But this is a cybersecurity newsletter, and we're here to talk about digital security.

I'm pretty sure I don't have to explain that delirium and access to the internet can be a desperately bad combination. As much as I could use Mom's phone to play her favorite music for her, which was soothing, she also had the ability to access… anything. My mom is not a shopper, but I watched her try to purchase something on Amazon. Couldn't tell me what, couldn't tell me why, couldn't tell me what for, but was determined to hit that Buy Now button.

I suspect it was a dopamine thing, but it was terrifying. If you're not fully cognizant, you can do a lot of damage with unfettered internet access.

In any other context, controlling someone's access to information is a form of abuse. As someone whose entire career has had "information wants to be free" and "the people's right to access information will not be abridged" (that's a Lois McMaster Bujold quote) as its basic ethical underpinning, the idea of restricting access makes me instantly nauseous.

I never did access control with my kids. We had hours and hours of conversations, where I explained to them how to navigate an internet that doesn't always have your best interests at heart. We played together, I watched them use their devices, I made myself available to them for their (endless) questions about how it all worked and what it all meant.

The idea of restricting Mom's access was… impossible. And yet.

There are plenty of access control programs out there, with various pros and cons to them. We at the 'Tea haven't fully evaluated them — there will be a blog when we do. But for now, dear reader, just know that there are options, and this is a thing you can set up.

Rather than putting down software I hadn't validated, I went ahead and deleted apps. Because of the delirium, navigating by website and reinstalling apps were not on the table as doable tasks. Simply deleting the apps solved our problem, without restricting her access to the things that were helping her get back to herself, like her music, and YouTube, where she watches Josh Johnson's monologue every Tuesday.

We were lucky; the delirium was short-lived, and I was able to reinstall everything and get her all logged back in. I was lucky, too, in that I have a few friends involved with elder care who were able to talk me through all this, and help me find a middle path that felt ethically OK to me.

You know that Winter Olympics sport where half the team frantically sweeps the ice in front of the stone? That's what this felt like to me. I was trying to keep out ahead of the digital bumps that would send the stone of her healing awry. And as I thought about this, I realized that's what weighs on the caregiver: the idea that you didn't get them all, the idea that there's more sweeping to be done. It's freaking endless.

This series is my gift to you, to allow you to get those bumps swept away, so that even if you and your people are hit by the unexpected, you have a solid foundation behind you that provides some confidence and security when you need it most.

And this is what I teased at the beginning of the newsletter:

I know this has all been a lot. And I know most of us aren't exactly eager to dwell on our people being incapacitated. So here's the good news: we've built something to help.

It's called Digital Caregiving, and it's the step-by-step version of everything we've walked through in this series (and more) — except live, with J.B. and me actually there, so you're not piecing it together alone at 2am.

If any part of this series made you think "oh no, I have no idea where Dad's passwords are," this is for you. Save your spot on the list. You've done the hard part already. You decided to deal with this before it became an emergency. Let us help you with the rest.

CybersecuriTea is a free, plain-English guide to digital safety, designed for families, friends, and the folks you love. Subscribe today and get weekly tips to help keep your digital life secure.

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