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Of course it couldn't be rectified. However, it would have been nice to hear some appreciation for making the choice to be fully available to provide hands on support. Don't ya think?
Yes. It was the least he could do. He should have recognized your feelings, sympathized with you, and tell you how very much he appreciated all the sacrifices you made for him. It's not that hard, especially considering the huge sacrifices you and your husband made for him. You changed your entire lives for your parents!
I am still recovering from my role as a caregiver. One thing I can say is that it gets harder as you go along, so any early measures you can take to avoid stress will help you later on.
If you have a good opportunity for respite that is safe for the person you are caring for, take it. Never feel guilty about taking a good respite opportunity.
I am still recovering from my role as a caregiver. One thing I can say is that it gets harder as you go along, so any early measures you can take to avoid stress will help you later on.
If you have a good opportunity for respite that is safe for the person you are caring for, take it. Never feel guilty about taking a good respite opportunity.
I wonder if age differences among caregivers might affect how posters see things and post?
Probably.
So many things go into each situation.
I can only speak for myself, so by golly, I will:
I'm in my fifties. My husband and I have lost three of our four elderly parents in the past 2.5 years, and the past 5 years have been a revolving door of hospitalizations, emergency calls in the middle of the night, frantic drives across country (not on a vacation, forget that - just a short business trip we HAD to make), doctor's appointments (usually with worse and worse news), psychiatric evaluations and involuntary commitments (not for my husband or me, though sometimes I feel like I might need a little of that!), legal proceedings, funerals, estate settlements, moving elderly folks from out of state, from house to house, to apartments, to assisted living facilities, to rehab hospitals, to memory care centers, to hospice, etc etc etc.
In between those events, with our parents, we've had sporadic stays in our home, near catastrophes, falls, broken hips, UTIs, fights over medication, having to be the one to take dogs to be put down because we couldn't find homes for elderly and unhousebroken dogs, crazy accusations that we're trying to kill people, extended family actually trying to steal thousands and thousands of dollars, family dynamics that have blown up when various people died, estrangements from extended family, hours and hours for months on end meeting with doctors, nurses, therapists, CPAs, financial advisors, bankers, attorneys, brokers, you name it.
I've spent days on end sitting in hospital rooms, sleeping in a chair in various hospitals, sitting in ERs for hours, etc.
My husband has been met as he got off a plane several states away and told to please turn around and get on another plane right back to Texas since his dad died an hour ago. We went about three years without going away for even a night because it never failed - we'd get a call from one family or the other saying that we were desperately needed at a hospital somewhere, as medical POAs.
Three days before my FIL died, an aunt got an illegal POA signed (also illegally) by my totally out of it FIL, and used it to bar my husband from visiting his dad in the hospital. The last words my husband heard his dad say was his dad screaming "I want him to stay, I want him to stay" as hospital security actually escorted my husband from the hospital. (This was the same aunt who tried to steal $50,000 from my FIL's retirement account using the same illegally obtained POA. She also tried, illegally and unsuccessfully, to bar my husband from his father's funeral - till she realized that she couldn't pay for the funeral and couldn't access my FIL's funds so she needed my husband and his brother to pay for it.)
(Finally last year, we went on a fabulous vacation since both my parents seemed to finally be stable, and thank God we did that because a week after we got back, my dad had a stroke and was dead a few days later, leaving my mom who cannot drive and who hasn't even written a check or opened the mail in over 20 years, and who has had a stroke and, just a few months earlier, a broken hip.)
This has been going on for five years.
And don't even get me started on the grief of losing one parent after another. And having to take on more and more responsibility (since both fathers passed away, leaving our mothers who needed/need a lot of ongoing care) both of the personal care of various parents, as well as the care and settling of estates.
And one of my daughters, the mother of four of my precious grandkids, became so mad at me because she didn't approve of my "boundaries centric" attitude toward my mother (who is mentally ill and who was abusive to my brothers and me as we were growing up and who attempted to be abusive even when we were adults) that she has cut off all contact with me. So now I have the grief of losing my inlaws, my beloved father, and now my daughter and four of my grandkids - all within a two year period.
I had to go to about four months of counseling to figure out how to process all this. Thankfully, my counselor (and my family doctor, who knows me well) reiterated that I'm not mentally unstable, that my responses have been normal, and that I don't need meds (not that I wanted them) but that I do need to continue to reinforce healthy boundaries and to focus more on my husband and the relationships with friends and family who appreciate me and who aren't critical (while they are literally doing NOTHING to help - NOTHING).
As I read the stories on this forum, I am constantly struck by the stories of people who I consider to "have it worse than me." The fortitude of many people is amazing. Also, it's nice to read of families who don't turn on each other - though my husband and I have not turned on each other, and though several of our kids have been great, as well as our siblings (thank you, God, seriously, for those folks), we've had one child twist off (very painful) and several cousins and aunts and uncles (sorry - not so painful - just infuriating). So when I read about healthy family units here, it often makes me smile.
And regardless of whether I can relate to all of what various posters say, I get some sort of valuable information from this group nearly every day. And I hope that mine and my husband's very difficult journey over the past five years can be used to help others. It's already helped us - my dad was smart enough to apply what we learned through the disastrous events with my inlaws, so that when his time for help came, he at least already had most of the legal framework in place and had walked me through most of it. But I've come to realize that I was lucky in that regard - lots of people don't have that sort of infrastructure in place, so hopefully I can help them and return the favor that so many people have given me on this forum.
My mom is stable right now, after a very trying year and a lot of effort on her part and mine. I understand that some people don't consider me to be a caregiver, and that's their prerogative. However, I know that my mom could not really survive on her own for long. For starters, she would be taken advantage of financially, and probably ruined financially in pretty short order. She would lose properties because she would have no idea how to transfer them to her name, pay taxes on them, insure them, sell them, etc. She would not take her meds and her bipolar disorder would overtake her life and shorten her lifespan significantly (per her doctor). She does well if she is monitored closely, helped a lot, etc. but there is simply no way she could live independently.
I mean, she might get lucky and have someone like my oldest daughter step in and take care of her, or my husband, but the point is, she cannot make it on her own. She needs a LOT of help, even though she lives in a senior living facility. She's high maintenance to say the least. My husband works out of state for two weeks out of every month, my two brothers live out of state, so does my daughter, so the care of my mother is my responsibility and really only mine.
So I don't apologize for calling myself a caregiver, though right now I'm in a less taxing situation than I was a few months ago. I've been down this road three times already - I know that this reprieve is temporary. I do not expect my mom to go gentle into that good night. I expect things to become very difficult again, so I'm enjoying the stability we finally have at this moment.
Thanks for your latest post, Kathryn. I often wonder how you do it with as much as you've been through over the past 5 years. You are one strong woman and I truly appreciate how you share your life with us here! So glad to hear your mom is taking her meds better now!
Thanks for your latest post, Kathryn. I often wonder how you do it with as much as you've been through over the past 5 years. You are one strong woman and I truly appreciate how you share your life with us here! So glad to hear your mom is taking her meds better now!
Thank you!
I just reread my post and I'm sorry it wasn't written all that well, but you get my drift so I appreciate that. To be completely honest, to recount all that's happened is emotionally draining for me and rereading how I wrote it out, I am reminded of the emotional toll. It's been terrible, frankly. I am so glad I never really saw this coming when I was younger. If I'd known how difficult my 50s would be - years I had actually looked forward to (kids all grown, husband and me with established careers, good health, still energetic, etc) - if I'd known the stress and heartache, I would have dreaded these years. So ignorance in some ways really is bliss.
But the downside of it is that we never saw it coming and were sideswiped.
That carries it's own stresses - feeling like things came out of left field and realizing that you don't have the necessary tools to handle this sort of stuff (retirement and other financial accounts set up correctly, POAs, medical POAs, medical directives, knowledge of where things are if you have to step in and manage another person's life, CPAs, business information, etc.).
That's the main reason I am so vocal here - I really, really have found helpful information here when I was going through various scenarios, and I want to help others possibly avoid some of the pitfalls I found myself sinking into from time to time.
In spite of a few oversights and mistakes, one thing my dad did right, that my inlaws did completely wrong, was preparing for his own death or disability, and taking my husband and me into his confidence showing us what and where most things were, getting my mom's and his legal paperwork in order so that I COULD step in and help them without having to reinvent the wheel during a crisis.
This stuff is pretty easy to set up, and the difference it makes is like the difference between night and day. I know because we lived it the wrong way and then the right way.
But even the right way is super stressful. Another thing I learned, that I am so big on sharing, is that if we're not careful, caregiving and trying to help others we love and feel an obligation to help can totally overcome our own lives and relationships. Wow, have I ever struggled with this and with the crazy myriad of emotions involved in dealing with elderly parents - love, concern, grief, frustration, fear, self doubt, fatigue, anger - oops, look at that list - only one positive emotion out of eight. Personally, after years of all this, I felt battered. I swear, I felt like I had developed some sort of PTSD and that's no lie. That's when I finally got professional help, but I realize that some people don't have the time or other resources to get professional counseling, and honestly, I already KNEW what my counselor just reiterated to me - I just needed to hear an objective source remind me of it.
So maybe we can be an objective source for others to hear. Maybe by sharing our stories, we will share something that hits home, that rings true, for someone else. That's my hope.
Thank you again for the appreciation - it really does mean a lot to me.
I'm in my fifties. My husband and I have lost three of our four elderly parents in the past 2.5 years, and the past 5 years have been a revolving door of hospitalizations, emergency calls in the middle of the night, frantic drives across country (not on a vacation, forget that - just a short business trip we HAD to make), doctor's appointments (usually with worse and worse news), psychiatric evaluations and involuntary commitments (not for my husband or me, though sometimes I feel like I might need a little of that!), legal proceedings, funerals, estate settlements, moving elderly folks from out of state, from house to house, to apartments, to assisted living facilities, to rehab hospitals, to memory care centers, to hospice, etc etc etc.
In between those events, with our parents, we've had sporadic stays in our home, near catastrophes, falls, broken hips, UTIs, fights over medication, having to be the one to take dogs to be put down because we couldn't find homes for elderly and unhousebroken dogs, crazy accusations that we're trying to kill people, extended family actually trying to steal thousands and thousands of dollars, family dynamics that have blown up when various people died, estrangements from extended family, hours and hours for months on end meeting with doctors, nurses, therapists, CPAs, financial advisors, bankers, attorneys, brokers, you name it.
I've spent days on end sitting in hospital rooms, sleeping in a chair in various hospitals, sitting in ERs for hours, etc.
My husband has been met as he got off a plane several states away and told to please turn around and get on another plane right back to Texas since his dad died an hour ago. We went about three years without going away for even a night because it never failed - we'd get a call from one family or the other saying that we were desperately needed at a hospital somewhere, as medical POAs.
Three days before my FIL died, an aunt got an illegal POA signed (also illegally) by my totally out of it FIL, and used it to bar my husband from visiting his dad in the hospital. The last words my husband heard his dad say was his dad screaming "I want him to stay, I want him to stay" as hospital security actually escorted my husband from the hospital. (This was the same aunt who tried to steal $50,000 from my FIL's retirement account using the same illegally obtained POA. She also tried, illegally and unsuccessfully, to bar my husband from his father's funeral - till she realized that she couldn't pay for the funeral and couldn't access my FIL's funds so she needed my husband and his brother to pay for it.)
(Finally last year, we went on a fabulous vacation since both my parents seemed to finally be stable, and thank God we did that because a week after we got back, my dad had a stroke and was dead a few days later, leaving my mom who cannot drive and who hasn't even written a check or opened the mail in over 20 years, and who has had a stroke and, just a few months earlier, a broken hip.)
This has been going on for five years.
And don't even get me started on the grief of losing one parent after another. And having to take on more and more responsibility (since both fathers passed away, leaving our mothers who needed/need a lot of ongoing care) both of the personal care of various parents, as well as the care and settling of estates.
And one of my daughters, the mother of four of my precious grandkids, became so mad at me because she didn't approve of my "boundaries centric" attitude toward my mother (who is mentally ill and who was abusive to my brothers and me as we were growing up and who attempted to be abusive even when we were adults) that she has cut off all contact with me. So now I have the grief of losing my inlaws, my beloved father, and now my daughter and four of my grandkids - all within a two year period.
I had to go to about four months of counseling to figure out how to process all this. Thankfully, my counselor (and my family doctor, who knows me well) reiterated that I'm not mentally unstable, that my responses have been normal, and that I don't need meds (not that I wanted them) but that I do need to continue to reinforce healthy boundaries and to focus more on my husband and the relationships with friends and family who appreciate me and who aren't critical (while they are literally doing NOTHING to help - NOTHING).
As I read the stories on this forum, I am constantly struck by the stories of people who I consider to "have it worse than me." The fortitude of many people is amazing. Also, it's nice to read of families who don't turn on each other - though my husband and I have not turned on each other, and though several of our kids have been great, as well as our siblings (thank you, God, seriously, for those folks), we've had one child twist off (very painful) and several cousins and aunts and uncles (sorry - not so painful - just infuriating). So when I read about healthy family units here, it often makes me smile.
And regardless of whether I can relate to all of what various posters say, I get some sort of valuable information from this group nearly every day. And I hope that mine and my husband's very difficult journey over the past five years can be used to help others. It's already helped us - my dad was smart enough to apply what we learned through the disastrous events with my inlaws, so that when his time for help came, he at least already had most of the legal framework in place and had walked me through most of it. But I've come to realize that I was lucky in that regard - lots of people don't have that sort of infrastructure in place, so hopefully I can help them and return the favor that so many people have given me on this forum.
My mom is stable right now, after a very trying year and a lot of effort on her part and mine. I understand that some people don't consider me to be a caregiver, and that's their prerogative. However, I know that my mom could not really survive on her own for long. For starters, she would be taken advantage of financially, and probably ruined financially in pretty short order. She would lose properties because she would have no idea how to transfer them to her name, pay taxes on them, insure them, sell them, etc. She would not take her meds and her bipolar disorder would overtake her life and shorten her lifespan significantly (per her doctor). She does well if she is monitored closely, helped a lot, etc. but there is simply no way she could live independently.
I mean, she might get lucky and have someone like my oldest daughter step in and take care of her, or my husband, but the point is, she cannot make it on her own. She needs a LOT of help, even though she lives in a senior living facility. She's high maintenance to say the least. My husband works out of state for two weeks out of every month, my two brothers live out of state, so does my daughter, so the care of my mother is my responsibility and really only mine.
So I don't apologize for calling myself a caregiver, though right now I'm in a less taxing situation than I was a few months ago. I've been down this road three times already - I know that this reprieve is temporary. I do not expect my mom to go gentle into that good night. I expect things to become very difficult again, so I'm enjoying the stability we finally have at this moment.
You're a caregiver cubed, FFS. I have the best possible situation in which to be a caregiver, and I'm losing my ever-loving mind. You're on your FOURTH go-round with this and dealing with all kinds of crazy.
I think your daughter is going to eventually figure out she's acting like a nutjob. Boundaries are the only way you can deal with someone like your mom, and she's lucky you're even involved. I'm so sorry you've been cut off from your grands. That sucks, and they are missing out just as much as you are.
You're a caregiver cubed, FFS. I have the best possible situation in which to be a caregiver, and I'm losing my ever-loving mind. You're on your FOURTH go-round with this and dealing with all kinds of crazy.
I think your daughter is going to eventually figure out she's acting like a nutjob. Boundaries are the only way you can deal with someone like your mom, and she's lucky you're even involved. I'm so sorry you've been cut off from your grands. That sucks, and they are missing out just as much as you are.
Hugs to you, KA.
Thanks, JRZ and I just read your thread on your talk with your dad. My heart goes out to you. It does sound like your dad's dementia is progressive and therefore I really don't think things are going to get consistently better for you, but I do think that you have some time to put together a contingency plan.
You've got a tough row to hoe in front of you and I feel for you and your dad. But wow, you are a good daughter and he is lucky to have you!
You're a caregiver cubed, FFS. I have the best possible situation in which to be a caregiver, and I'm losing my ever-loving mind. You're on your FOURTH go-round with this and dealing with all kinds of crazy.
I think your daughter is going to eventually figure out she's acting like a nutjob. Boundaries are the only way you can deal with someone like your mom, and she's lucky you're even involved. I'm so sorry you've been cut off from your grands. That sucks, and they are missing out just as much as you are.
Hugs to you, KA.
Last year, my husband and I went to monthly caregiver meetings. I didn't feel that I was a caregiver since I didn't live with my mom. True, I helped her with all of her banking and taxes, and most of her outings (grocery shopping, doctors' appointments, eating out, etc.). I was her go-between for any types of business and did some things for her around her house. I was told by the professionals at the caregiving meetings that yes, I actually WAS a caregiver!
I realized that there are different types of caregiving. There is the hands-on, living situation type (which would be difficult for me to do with my mother), and then there is the organizing type - less hands-on, but caregiving nonetheless.
Unfortunately for me and especially for my mom, my role has been reduced this year due to my sibling who lives with my mom. So I no longer consider myself her caregiver even though I still do her taxes and help with her money.
If I was a caregiver last year, KA is, as JrzDefector wrote, a caregiver cubed.
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