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I did it for both of my parents -- mostly by myself. It can be done. Both of them had dementia with a host of other problems. My father was diabetic and lost part of a leg. I dealt with this and more. Yes, it was hard, but I don't regret a minute of it, as they got to spend their last days at home where they wanted to be.
Impressive. Hats off to you and yours. My family also is on the side of letting them die at home rather than nursing homes, but dementia/alzheimers is the deal breaker. That is when they get moved into good professional facilities. So hard to care for them when they have alzheimers. If we ever find out alzheimers is something our govt was behind? Off with their heads.
Well, let me tell you something. My mother-in-law, who was of sound mind, was the first to go into a nursing home when she became wheelchair-bound. Her family made this decision. It was actually just as much work for the family as if she'd been at home. If she had to go to the hospital, we had to pay a fee everyday to hold her room. Since it was expensive to do this, we had to go with a truck and clear out her room of all her belongings, then lug it all back when she got out of the hospital. We had to do this a number of times. Since having them do her laundry was another added expense (where most of the time other residents ended up wearing her clothes, as a result) the family had to start doing her laundry. They charged an arm and a leg for Depends, so we ended up buying them ourselves at Sam's Club. We made countless trips back and forth doing this for a couple of years. They chose a nursing home that was central to most of the family, but it wasn't necessarily the closest to anyone.
Really, in the long haul, it would have been easier in many respects to have kept her at home.
exactly....you are not going to get one on one care...you are going to get whatever the staff can get to......keeping them home would be better with one caveat....many elderly can be very stubborn and prideful and demanding.....oh yes, elderly can be very difficult to handle....
What if you don't have a home? What if they didn't have a home?
Say you have a small one room apartment. What do you do?
Not only is that extremely ruinous to any further progress, both financially and socially, it is extremely stressful.
This isn't exactly some fringe situation either. Housing prices are getting ridiculous, with Blackrock further jacking the prices up. Taxes are insane. So on.
You are lucky that the state didn't intervene and force you to put them in a home "for their own good." It happens, and in California, spousal separation is mandatory when one has dementia and the other doesn't. I believe the mandatory spousal separation is cruel.
Visiting nurses came in frequently to check on my parents. They were a godsend. They helped me get whatever I needed to take care of them, along with monitoring their health. They always told me I was doing a good job, so I had no fears of the state intervening. In fact, it never even crossed my mind that they would try.
It is hard emotionally and physically caring for dementia and Alzheimer’s family members. You will have no regrets, knowing you did everything to make their last days comfortable.
Did you also have a full-time job that required you to be away from home?
When it first started, yes. When it became necessary to do full-time care, no. My spouse and I both worked for many years and were careful with our money, which allowed me to give my parents the care they required. (I have no siblings.)