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Without children and nieces and nephews to visit for company or go food shopping, do some laundry, help with showering, and general hygiene even our hair.
For me it will get lonely and hard to have necessities without someone to help me get and have what I need.
Nieces and Nephews will be busy raising their own family or moved away to far to visit it will get lonely and hard to have someone come just to pitch in with laundry, showering, doing our hair, for us ladies this is where LTC helps but not everyone can afford that.
When or if the time comes we need to be picked up from the chair in a careful way without hurting the person assist lifting they could get hurt, we need our azz wiped and medication creams and medication to remember to take that will require more than friends, family.
It's ok to have children help out until it get's to where you need special or advanced help. I think most people end up in a facility and need in home or a facility then if they live long enough and become ill it will be hospice if they live long enough and depending on what happened to bring them to a slow death.
The only way to be prepared that I know of is have LTC set up and never cancel it. Save what we can for food and bills. I agree with you don't rely on children when or if I get to the point that I require more advanced care that isn't just house cleaning, laundry and things like that.
I should have had LTC set up in my very early 60's or 50's. Now, from what I've seen, it's beyond my budget. And that was before I was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer (5 years ago, currently very much under control).
My parents didn't need special help until the last few months of their lives, because my mother managed my father's care, being younger and stronger than he was. I don't have anyone. On the upside (if there is an upside to metastatic breast cancer!), I am not sure that I'll make it to 85, much less 90 as they did. They didn't have cognition problems until the last year or two of their lives, and not major problems either.
I don't have anyone. I'm investigating independent living at CCRC's, and finding that most of them that are near my medical care (which is first-rate) are expensive enough to use up my assets within 10 years or so...I'd have to move well out of state, to places far away from the few friends I have, to economize. Thankfully, I don't have to make decisions yet, at least not within the next month or two. I may have to move within the next year, but not necessarily to a CCRC...
I don't think it's asking too much for adult children to help their elderly parents. The adult parents shouldn't destroy their own lives to do so, i.e. totally give up their jobs, etc., but they should be willing to take some time to relocate their parents, help them move, find them a good place to move, check it out, visit them frequently, etc. After all, didn't their parents take time out of their own schedules to have the kids, nurture the kids, raise them, socialize them, educate them, etc.?
At 81 I have given a lot of thought on this. While I have family, I do not wish to be a burden on them. I also have enough money to take care of myself though it is not and endless stream. Bottom line is when I can not live the quality of life I desire to live, I will end my own life.
This is not a cry for help. It is just a simple statement of fact.
At 81 I have given a lot of thought on this. While I have family, I do not wish to be a burden on them. I also have enough money to take care of myself though it is not and endless stream. Bottom line is when I can not live the quality of life I desire to live, I will end my own life.
This is not a cry for help. It is just a simple statement of fact.
Sounds logical to me. I just can't imagine myself, while being unable to be mobile or take care of myself or even wipe my own azz, wishing and hoping that I can have more days of the same... or even worse.
And clearly it isn't going to get any better at that point. It's only going to get worse. So, if a person is suffering or in anguish at their condition or state of being, why would they wish for it to continue?
Katharsis, I am an extrovert but would find living with someone awful unless they were my partner. Now that I no longer have a partner even if I found someone new he needs his own place). I think we get set in our ways in our later years.
There is something called the Village Model which is just now in the planning stages for our community, although it is a "done deal" with a paid coordinator and assistant already hired, so I would think it will become an actual reality within the next couple of years. This is a kind of "exchange" program like you discussed. This is more info:
From what I understand, this model is flexible for the kind of community it will service -- so that a community of many townhomes and apartments will be slightly different from a rural community of seniors living in SFHs.
That would be awesome and I hope it catches on. Right now what we are doing is little more than warehousing people but for extraordinary expense.
Katharsis, I am an extrovert but would find living with someone awful unless they were my partner. Now that I no longer have a partner even if I found someone new he needs his own place). I think we get set in our ways in our later years.
Well, if it came down to living with someone in your own home, or having a roommate in a nursing home, most people would prefer to try it at home. I am also extroverted loner so to speak it’s even hard having my bf around all the time lol. So I get it.
Sounds logical to me. I just can't imagine myself, while being unable to be mobile or take care of myself or even wipe my own azz, wishing and hoping that I can have more days of the same... or even worse.
And clearly it isn't going to get any better at that point. It's only going to get worse. So, if a person is suffering or in anguish at their condition or state of being, why would they wish for it to continue?
I say the same thing now, too. However, I have worked with people in that condition for many many years, and very few of them actually want to die. Many are afraid of death too. When they get very sick and the nurse asks if they want to go to the hospital they almost always say yes. Sometimes they demand to be sent (this happens frequently with patients with COPD. They feel like they can’t breathe (thats what COPD does) one night even on three liters of oxygen and they ask to be sent out, they get steroids and breathing treatments and get sent back. Till they ask to go back to the hospital a month later. It’s a revolving door.
I should have had LTC set up in my very early 60's or 50's. Now, from what I've seen, it's beyond my budget. And that was before I was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer (5 years ago, currently very much under control).
My parents didn't need special help until the last few months of their lives, because my mother managed my father's care, being younger and stronger than he was. I don't have anyone. On the upside (if there is an upside to metastatic breast cancer!), I am not sure that I'll make it to 85, much less 90 as they did. They didn't have cognition problems until the last year or two of their lives, and not major problems either.
I don't have anyone. I'm investigating independent living at CCRC's, and finding that most of them that are near my medical care (which is first-rate) are expensive enough to use up my assets within 10 years or so...I'd have to move well out of state, to places far away from the few friends I have, to economize. Thankfully, I don't have to make decisions yet, at least not within the next month or two. I may have to move within the next year, but not necessarily to a CCRC...
I don't think it's asking too much for adult children to help their elderly parents. The adult parents shouldn't destroy their own lives to do so, i.e. totally give up their jobs, etc., but they should be willing to take some time to relocate their parents, help them move, find them a good place to move, check it out, visit them frequently, etc. After all, didn't their parents take time out of their own schedules to have the kids, nurture the kids, raise them, socialize them, educate them, etc.?
As far as that last paragraph, that assumes that the parent is cooperative. My mother would not even consider “relocating” even though she lived 90 minutes from me in a row home in a declining neighborhood that had the only bathroom on the second floor and laundry room in the basement. She’d say she’s not selling the house till she can get the roof fixed, then I’d say okay I’ll find some reputable roofers she’d say “ I can’t afford to get the roof fixed right now”. It was all due to fear of change.
In the meantime, I’m driving three hours round-trip at rush hour after working 8 hours because she’s in a panic because she forgot to get her prescriptions filled. I would say the majority of elderly people are more like my mother than a cooperative person who will move when they’re told they need to move. If you spent time on the Caregivers Forum you’ll see it’s often not so easy.
At 81 I have given a lot of thought on this. While I have family, I do not wish to be a burden on them. I also have enough money to take care of myself though it is not and endless stream. Bottom line is when I can not live the quality of life I desire to live, I will end my own life.
This is not a cry for help. It is just a simple statement of fact.
We have two long-time friends who don't have children who have decided the same. I am not going to try to talk them out of their choice. Many things can get in the way of the best plans and I hope whatever their final days are that they are something that's amenable to them. I'd like something better for them than that.
But after seeing the way my dear father had no choice but to starve himself to death in hospice I get really angry that we don't have better medical end-of-life choices.
And it's upsetting to me to think that two good people who have had constructive lives have to commit illegal acts and leave unpleasant thoughts behind. Wretched for survivors.
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). I think we get set in our ways in our later years.
