As for any Daughter, it is hard to watch their Mother decline!
She has short term memory loss, she is incontinent, very weak and now in a wheelchair, cannot hear and refuses to wear her hearing aides. I use a whiteout board to comunicate with her now.
She has had numerous falls, one very serious.
She has been under Hospice Care for the last year after that last serious fall. They have been wonderful ❤️!
Now that her health is declining, she needs to have skilled nursing 24/7. And they don't have where she is at now, it was ok at first cause she could get around on her own.
She has long term care insurance and I want to bring her home...cause she keeps asking to come home. The Home Care people that I contacted said they don't handle skilled nursing, just regular home care such as cleaning, cooking and companionship.
Hospice would come in 3 times a week and a CNA once a week to check on her.
I was thinking about getting someone for the day and I would stay at night time.
My 90 year old Stepdad lives there too...he has been living there alone and getting by, but no way he can take care of my Mother.
It breaks my heart when I go see her. She cannot participate in any functions or comunicate with other ladies there. I know my Mom is declining fast... she keeps asking to go home. She's a very private and quiet person misses her Husband and just wants to go home.
I am having a hard time 😥.. knowing what to do and what would be Best for her!
Thank You!
I called her Doctor of 30 years and she told me to bring her home.
We brought her home and the first 3 months were very difficult.
We hired help and she had a nurse visit every week and physical therapy for 3 months.
But she started to gain weight and get stronger.
Today she is up to 105 pounds and exercising by walking around our house with her walker and spending 30 minutes per day on a recumbent exercise bike.
Sometimes they can come back and get much better.
She was 93.5 when I brought her home.
It might have been a miracle. IDK
My point is that there is still a chance for you mom.
She is also back to bossing me around, so that's a good sign.
Can I ask what kind of hired help you had besides the physical therapy.
Private or ?
Also....Thank You for the encouragement!
If she can see him there, leave her there. Moving her now will cause additional rapid decline. It will be hard for you to care for her there.
I would find out exactly why she needs skilled nursing and start from there. One on one home care might be enough with a hospice nurse coming in. Someone, maybe her husband will have to give her meds, aides are not allowed to give them.
When my dad was in skilled nursing care, he was given his meds by a nurse or Med tech and everything else was done by a CNA. The NP came in daily for about 60 seconds to ask "how ya doing?"
One thing to consider, if she doesn't sleep well at night, will you be able to manage your life with minimal sleep?
I think that you should follow your heart and use your head to make certain it is doable for everyone involved.
If she does have “short term memory loss” and/or dementia, what indicators are you getting from her that her desire to be “home” is actually the place where she lived previously with her husband?
Many very elderly people in residential care talk about going “home” without necessarily meaning the last place they’d lived, or even any specific place in their pasts.
My own grandmother had come from another country at the age of 14, and never lived anywhere besides there and the “home” she entered the day she married my grandfather, yet poignantly pleaded to be taken home for several months during her seemingly endless cognitive loss.
When my mother became a victim of dementia, she too sought frantically to go home, and one day I took her past the home she left after 45 years when her hip had been broken. I regretted that outdoor visit for the rest of her life, because it jogged an uncertain but also longed for recollection that I couldn’t fulfill.
Do you have any way to determine what your mother’s specific expectations of “home” actually are?
If you know that her husband can “….no way…..take care of” her, will it be possible for you to access all of the support survives they’ll BOTH NEED?
If there’s any risk of any kind that circumstances could go from bad to worse for your mother OR her husband you will most likely be more comfortable yourself by considering BEFORE you make such a major change in all of your lives.
One of the hardest issues that hit us as caregivers is sometimes the fact that there is NO good or fair or kind or comfortable choice available for our LO, and when that happens we wind up having to make the choice that is the LEAST NEGATIVE.
If that’s where you are, make your choice based on alternatives that are the safest for her, least disruptive for all of you concerned, and least time consuming as possible potential decision making criteria, in addition to your thoughts about her needs.
Ultimately it comes down to doing the best you can.
My present LO used to say -
“When in Life You Do Your Best,
God, with Love, Will Do the Rest”.