Bring Dad back home. Any advice??
Okay, im sure I a bit nuts...but.... dad has been in an assisted living facility for 1 year now. he has gotten a lot better. he probably will never walk very far again, but he can transfer. He went it because he was drinking at home like a fish (alcoholic) and I was his enabler. Now he isnt drinking except once in a while he will order a small beer with a meal... and have half it for desert cause he doesn't seem to care.
My question today: he isn't beggin and is resigned (for at least now) to "doing what needs to be done" he feels like he is in jail and all the rest. If he is as cognizant and continues to be, I want to know what you guys think about me bringing him home (he is 92 and will not have much time left).
Also need to mention that this house is half his. He has an inlaw section of the main house--separate kitchen, living room etc.
Also want to mention I got Aid and Attendance for him and that together with his soc security almost pays for the ALA.
But... half of this house is his. I would need to get a contractor out here to widen the doorways and remove the carpet In the bedroom and lving room, but I have a brother that lives in Arizona that is in construction so he could fly out and at least start the renovation.
I would hire two shifts of home health care and could afford it with the Aid and Attendance. Then the rest of the time I could pick up. I could load his pill containers every week and just have the aides make sure he got them. Maybe I would want an aid to COOK cause that aint me, babe. But I already drive 30 minutes each way and spend about 5 hours with him as it is, so that would almost be easier for me.
I would have to tell any visitors NOT to bring him any booze but I am selling his car, so he cant run out of here when im not here. if he did start drinking I don't know what Id do.
it all sounds right except for two things: my husband doesn't like him and the booze could cause an issue. please comment
No one else but a group like us could get to the bottom line so forcefully but lovingly and no one else would I probably listen to!
Thanks for making it clear.
Linda
I was glad to read that you would hire two Aides to help, and you would take the remaining shift. My Boss had Caregivers and he took the night shift, but rarely was he able to get a full night sleep, he would come into work with only 3 hours sleep half the time... in the middle of the night he would need to clean up a bathroom accident in bed as the Depends didn't help with what was happening, put on new sheets, put the other sheets in the washer, and help his wife with a shower to clean her off.... sometimes he would be doing that 2 or 3 times a night.
Then think about this, the only people your Dad would see would be you and the Caregivers.... at the assistant living facility he was surrounded with people.
Now you can go visit him as a loving daughter. He has other people to tend to his daily needs but none of them can love him as a daughter, with all the family history and drama and tension and peace in the background.
There are lots of reasons to not bring him home, but the critical one, in my mind, is that your husband doesn't like him. Didn't you make some promises to your husband, too? You say that Dad does't have much time. A year can seem like an eternity when it is filled with stress and tension and conflict.
Listen to your head on this one. Your heart is confused.
I made a promise to my dad that he would never have to go into a nursing home unless he became bed bound and I meant that promise with every fiber of my being but I was naïve. I shouldn't have made that promise but I didn't realize at the time how bad things could get. We do our best with what we have to work with at the time. I couldn't have kept my dad at home based on a promise I made when he was healthy.
Your dad is too old to move. He's resigned to being there. Leave him be.
Do not bring him home! Enough said.
The only reasons I can think of that you would want to bring him home aren't kind. So I'll refrain from speculating.
Why are you spending five hours with him? I don't know how often you do that, but that's YOUR choice; not by necessity. If you're doing it too many times a week? You're interfering with his integration into the activities and benefits that assisted living offers.
He feels like he's in jail because it gives him something to talk about. Your dad is 92 years old, for heaven's sake. Leave him alone. You're just trying to enable him again. Stop it.