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There are a lot of people around here who have, with heavy heart, had no choice but to put their loved ones in managed care. There are a wide range of reasons why this becomes "the decision" and it is rarely ever made thoughtlessly or without great despair.
Please refrain from using terms like "glue factory" even in jest. It is disrespectful to those who have had this hand forced on them.
Plus, you never know when your own situation might change. I hope it doesn't, but you never know.
Peace.
Good lord, thank you.
Couldn't rep you so I had to say it out loud. Ye gods!
The Caregiving forum is for issues related to caregiving. It is also a safe space for caregivers to vent, hopefully free from judgment.
At least that's the way I understand it.
Except being judged for choosing to caregive, in many cases. There is not a single thread where people don't come in and say 'don't do it!' Regardless of any detail in an OP.
It's called gallows humor. It helps some people to cope.
Well, as someone who, with a very heavy heart, had no choice but to put my mother in a memory care center, it didn't strike me as humorous, but I guess humor is subjective.
Valid points. All I will say is that we can’t control other’s behaviors. The decision I described is primarily about supporting wife in best way possible, and secondarily about taking care of MIL.
In a perfect world everyone would do the right thing, but we don’t in a perfect world.
I don’t see how your wife leaving you is the right thing? And if she was caring for the MIL previously, then I think the BIL needs to suck it up and do his part. Maybe another option is to help pay for a full time aid at the BIL’s house?
There are a lot of people around here who have, with heavy heart, had no choice but to put their loved ones in managed care. There are a wide range of reasons why this becomes "the decision" and it is rarely ever made thoughtlessly or without great despair.
Please refrain from using terms like "glue factory" even in jest. It is disrespectful to those who have had this hand forced on them.
Plus, you never know when your own situation might change. I hope it doesn't, but you never know.
Peace.
I stand by what I said, make no apologies and understand that some families feel like they have no other options. I get it....but, understand that Horses are treated better. I've seen how people from America's greatest generation are disposed of in some of those places. Euphemisms only distort the reality. . One of the caretakers i use described the conditions as horredous, understaffed, and barely liveable. My brother, a mortician, has hauled many abused and neglected bodies out of homes. It's a damn shame how people who end up in them get treated. The best care for my parents is in my home. I don't like it, but that's what it is.
My only point is that the OP's feelings are not selfish (and so what if they are).... He just wants his wife back and who can blame him for that?
Dmills: Your wife may be eligible to get a stipend from the state to be the primary caregiver. That would help defray the cost of the apartment and some of the loss of her income as you near retirement.
I stand by what I said, make no apologies and understand that some families feel like they have no other options. I get it....but, understand that Horses are treated better. I've seen how people from America's greatest generation are disposed of in some of those places. Euphemisms only distort the reality. . One of the caretakers i use described the conditions as horredous, understaffed, and barely liveable. My brother, a mortician, has hauled many abused and neglected bodies out of homes. It's a damn shame how people who end up in them get treated. The best care for my parents is in my home. I don't like it, but that's what it is.
My only point is that the OP's feelings are not selfish (and so what if they are).... He just wants his wife back and who can blame him for that?
Apparently you haven't had an experience with a quality facility. There is a wide range when it comes to quality, staff to patient ratio, amenities, activities, etc. Contrary to your statement, not all facilities treat their residents poorly. Not all facilties are "horrendous, understaffed, and barely livable." Not all residents are "abused and neglected." Not all people who "end up" in assisted living or a memory care center are treated poorly.
I hope you end up with a situation in which your parents can live safely, either independently or in your home, but I assure you that this is simply not possible in some cases. Some dementia patients in particular are truly a danger to themselves and others. Some are flat out destructive. Some are violent. Some are too heavy or disabled for their loved ones to care for them without injuring themselves. Sometimes it's simply not in the best interest of an elderly parent or their older adult children (or other family members) for them to live anywhere but in a facility with a trained staff who can meet their needs 24/7.
My MIL had Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. She developed bizarre delusions about her family members - that everyone was trying to kill her. She would get up at night and tiptoe into the kitchen and turn burners on. She would try to cook and burn up pans. Several times, she got out of bed very quietly in the night, went down the hall to the guest bathroom, ran a bath, got into the bathtub, and then couldn't get out - and sat in cold bathwater naked till family found her the next morning. Eventually she couldn't make it to the bathroom, she couldn't dress herself, she couldn't feed herself, and she couldn't bathe herself. But even then, she could and would occasionally manage to get out of the chair or bed or wherever, and go on an absolute rampage - even to the point of trying to throw vases out of windows and that sort of thing.
She was not in her right mind. This was not how she would have ever acted prior to the dementia. But family members, myself included, simply could not give her the care she needed. We even tried hiring round the clock care to come into the home (to the tune of $300 a day - which comes to around $109,000 a year - not many families can afford that), but within a few weeks it became obvious that wouldn't work, because it takes five caregivers on the payroll to run that sort of schedule - and one or more of them invariably called in sick, or had an emergency of their own, or whatever, every week, and then guess who was on duty at the drop of a hat? One time my husband and I drove 12 hours straight through, cutting a business trip several days short, simply because there was no one else who could or would sit with them and a caregiver had called in sick - and my inlaws simply could not manage living without that level of care, all day every day.
So before you judge every facility and every family and every situation so harshly, I hope you will consider that you're probably painting way too wide a stroke with that judgmental brush.
I thank God every single day for the good, clean, responsible facility my mother, with her debilitating dementia, lives in. I also thank God that my parents were responsible and affluent enough to save the money for this possible need, because it's expensive - but necessary. And it came into their lives. Even before my dad passed away, he and I were scouting out facilities for my mom's future needs, because we could see it barreling down on us, and her, like a freight train.
Sometimes it simply isn't feasible, practical, or even SAFE for an elderly person to live at home. Sad but very true.
Ha! Perhaps, but only to the extent that they can stay out of the urine-stenched (yes, I know stenched is not a word) managed care facility (Have your priced those?) We can get away. That's why I have help that comes in twice EVERY day. Yes, every day of the year I have people in my home. My home. Not my parents. I cant have visitors because they take up my two guest rooms. Furniture that I love is in storage ($160/month). My father shuffles around on his walker scuffing my polished stone flooring. My walls are scratched up from where the Hoyer lift to move my mother around bumps into the walls and doors. They bathroom that they use has had the door removed so in the hopes that I could drop my mom in the shower and on the toilet. That didn't work. The $700 bidet toilet seat (a decadent experience if you've never tried one) that I purchased for my father to help ensure his ass gets clean doesn't get used because he refuses and leave poop streaks on his sheets...
There's more to the story, but I think you get the picture. Bottom line: I love my parents. . .but They're a burden financially and mentally. I can't have visitors. My dad yells at me. My home has been invaded (yes, I know I invited it), they listen to the TV too loud.
So sorry you have to live like this. It sounds awful.
I stand by what I said, make no apologies and understand that some families feel like they have no other options. I get it....but, understand that Horses are treated better. I've seen how people from America's greatest generation are disposed of in some of those places. Euphemisms only distort the reality. . One of the caretakers i use described the conditions as horredous, understaffed, and barely liveable. My brother, a mortician, has hauled many abused and neglected bodies out of homes. It's a damn shame how people who end up in them get treated. The best care for my parents is in my home. I don't like it, but that's what it is.
My only point is that the OP's feelings are not selfish (and so what if they are).... He just wants his wife back and who can blame him for that?
Patrick, you sound very bitter. Can’t say I blame you, as the whole caregiving experience often isn’t very fair. As you have said a couple times, it’s not about fairness. I hope that you can look back on this whole experience one day with cherished memories of the time you were able to spend with your parents.
Dmills: Your wife may be eligible to get a stipend from the state to be the primary caregiver. That would help defray the cost of the apartment and some of the loss of her income as you near retirement.
Thanks. She was receiving that when she was doing the caregiving here. Right now, that’s how the aide (who’ll continue to be the respite provider) is being paid. It really isn’t a lot of money.
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