I am 23 and am a caregiver to my grandparents. My grandmother has Parkinson's and has anxiety attacks throughout the day and my grandfather is a diabetic and seems to be depressed and anxious all the time. Both seem to be going down hill in the past few months. I have tried to get a nurse in the home to help but they are not okay with letting anyone in their house. I have no other family members close by to help. My grandmother can no longer leave the house to even see a doctor and my grandfather seems to have given up all hope. Both of their doctors have been no help and claim they are getting healthier but I see absolutely no signs of that at all. I simply just do not know what to do to help them.
Remind your grandparents that you are there to help them but you can't if they won't let you and if they won't let you why are you there to begin with?
Get the number of your gvmt senior services office, call them and ask for an evaluation of your grandparents to see what services they may be eligible for. Tell them you are overwhelmed and want to extricate yourself from this impossible situation if they will not accept outside help.
Do it tomorrow.
Please note that 40% [up from the 30%] of caregivers die while caring for their love ones. Those are not good odds. My gosh, you are only 23, you have your whole life in front of you, it wouldn't be fair if it was cut short.
Curious how you were appointed to be your grandparents caregiver, and not anyone else in the family? Was it because you lived the closest?
Where are your parents and how are they involved, if at all? How did you become caregiver? You wrote that no other family member are nearby - how far are they, and what's their role in caregiving, if anything?
Are you living with your grandparents?
Patrice is right - there are more facts that should be shared so anyone who responds has the benefit of knowing more about the situation.
So... live your life with yourself as the priority and help your grandparents as much as you can. They will need to bring in help, but if you are doing everything, they won't need to. I would say to decide what you can do to help them, then help them line up help to do the other things that are needed.
I think that you are going to need to make a plan to get out of being trapped in this caregiving role, which is beyond any human being ' s capacity. You need a real social worker to help out here. I would start by calling your local area agency on aging and seeing where they point you. You tell them that you are caring for two vulnerable, ill, elderly adults and that you can't carry this burden any longer. Start there, and let us know tomorrow if you got any help from them. And remember, this is NOT YOUR FAULT.
If they succeed in refusing all help but yours, or even visiting a geriatrician instead of the current physician who has his or her head in the sand, you are stuck waiting for something bad to happen that forces one or both them to go to an ER and/or get Adult Protective Services involved. We have heard of cases on here where the caregiver is holding things together well enough that there is no imminent danger and APS does not feel they can do anything.
I think there may be some mental health issues and an assessment would be a first step towards understanding the heap of poo you have found yourself in. Once you know the size of the beast you will be better placed to help them and it my be that the courts can relieve you of the pressure and address the individual issues. Grandad can go into care for sure but it would be better if they both did but would that leave you homeless? My concern is for you honey. You need to gain professional help they are trained to handle 'ornery folks and they will get in to see them so don't worry on that score.
You need to stop thinking so much about them and think more about your needs - because that is going to be the lasting legacy and you have to be ok with everything that happens.
Please don't put blinkers on and think I can do this - it really is too much for you xxx