posted
I'm interested in hearing how posters here on Allstocks think they will deal with this situation.
You need to think of Stroke's and Alzhiemer's and all the other maladies that may strike.
Can you afford to ship them off to long term care and if you can is it the right thing to do?
I will weigh in after people state what they think since I have been going through this very situation.
Posts: 3255 | From: Los Angeles California | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Well Wally you've picked quite the soul searching topic. I will do my best.
My wife's parents lived by themselves well into their seventy's. Her mom had heart problems, in and out of hospital a few times. When she passed away her father came to live with us. My wife knew this would happen more than I did. We had never really talked about it to the point of making a decision that that's what we were going to do. We have no kids and he needed someone to look after him at home. He was "old school" worked till he was seventy two but couldn't make a sandwich.
After a few months my wife quit work to spend more time with him as they were always good friends and he was always willing to go out for a drive. Lots of field trips with him and the neighborhood kids too. It was ok having him live with us. Some adjusting on everyone's part but the positives out numbered the negatives. We keep hearing more and more fascinating stories about the old days and family history. After four years we noticed the onset of Dementia\Alzheimer's. Nine months later he went into a home as it was too difficult and dangerous to have him at home. His balance was gone and he couldn't really go out any more. This was a very hard thing to do. Very hard.
My wife went to see him every day. She couldn't not go. She had him moved twice due to poor staffing and conditions in the first two places. He asked her a few times when would he be coming home. My wife questioned this decision a more than few times, and with a lot of tears.
After three months of living away from us, he passed away. We were with him in the end and he seemed at peace.
My parents are approaching eighty and I would do it again.
Posts: 105 | From: Toronto | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
It's all got to do what's best for them and what's best for you, sometimes they collide.
You personal situation has everything to do with it, money can make a differance, but more importantly is how you are able to handle them at every phase of growing older.
Unfortunately you don't have to be old to have medical problems and need help from family.
How would you want to be taken care of if you were in their situation at every phase.
If you were an older generation Asian family, i do not think there would be any questions.
That's one thing they have over us that i really respect, in many of their older cultures. We will see what happens with the new updated versions.
If you decide to keep them at home and they are on Medicare, i believe you can get some help with a hospice service several times a week for free.
Whatever your decision, you are the only one that has to live with it and that's the most important part to the issue, although they care is important to.
Good Luck
Posts: 3875 | From: ca. | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Is there really a right or wrong answer to this? It is a tough one. Go with your gut, you already know the answer you just need to act on it.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Actually CashCooMoo is not a tough decision for us at all, maybe i am just lucky in that sense.
We have gone through it before and we never hesitated, we had to change our lives some... but that's the story of life for most
Posts: 3875 | From: ca. | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:If you were an older generation Asian family, i do not think there would be any questions.
That's one thing they have over us that i really respect, in many of their older cultures. We will see what happens with the new updated versions.
Precisely. I don't understand the push for making kids "get their own place" when they turn 18, 21, whatever. My ex and her girlfriend practically boot the kids out the door...
But my kids know if they need to--or even just want to--they've always got a place with me, even if it's motel living like I was doing for a while after getting out of the hospital. In fact, that's one reason I survived the fire: one daughter was coming home to live for a few months, so I was getting a room ready; hence, only a mattress on the floor in that room... She lost her stuff in the fire, but I gained a crucial few minutes by being low... funny how stuff works.
Anyway, I think pushing kids out the door leads to making it easy to later relegate old folks to someplace out of sight, out of mind. My old mama had to be institutionalized for a while, no way around it, but she got a little better so we brought her home till the end, when she just had to go back to the hospital or lay there and suffer.
My sister and her husband, facing these questions, persuaded his mother to sell her house; then they used the proceeds to build her a nice apartment behind their house, just a few steps from their back door. She lived there several enjoyable years, close enough to check on very easily, but with the dignity of her own, nice place.
Common denominator? All we kids always knew we could "go home again," anytime, no questions asked. In fact, when my first wife and I returned to Texas after she got out of the Air Force, my mom had added on a room for herself at the west end of the house so that my wife, our daughter and I could have the three bedrooms on the east end to ourselves.
I like the "Walton model": G'night, JohnBoy, G'night Grampa...
posted
"...the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped. "
Last Speech of Hubert H. Humphrey November 1, 1977 Washington, D.C.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
First of all let me say I was always very found of and a great suppoter of the egg,Humprey.
Having had the opportunity off being close to two cultures in my life Ours and the Mexican. I say the Mexican culture has a lot of superior qualities to it when it comes to the treatment of old and sick. They take care of them the best they can afford to. The idea of putting your mother or father in a home unless there is no way around it would almost be considerd a criminal act. I have my 86 year old mother with us now and I cosider her a real contribution to our family. I certainly enjoy having her around.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise. Posts: 3827 | From: beautiful California | Registered: Sep 2008
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posted
If there comes a time when one of my kids has to wipe my ass I would rather they put a pillow over my face and end it. But that's just me.
Posts: 492 | From: new york | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Tell me about it. I might not last long enough for the ass wiping. I've gotten a couple calls for work but nothing big certainly not like I used to have. Ran out of the reserve cash a month ago. Everyone has dropped their wages down to prices from maybe 8 years ago so were going backward in time. I doubt this spring is going to change much. The only good thing to come out of any of this is that when there was a strike or a layoff in the paper industry evryone was suddenly a contractor. They won't be doing that anymore since it's so dead here.
Posts: 492 | From: new york | Registered: Jul 2005
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"Tell me about it. I might not last long enough for the ass wiping. I've gotten a couple calls for work but nothing big certainly not like I used to have. Ran out of the reserve cash a month ago. Everyone has dropped their wages down to prices from maybe 8 years ago so were going backward in time. I doubt this spring is going to change much. The only good thing to come out of any of this is that when there was a strike or a layoff in the paper industry evryone was suddenly a contractor. They won't be doing that anymore since it's so dead here."
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Wages drop prices on most everything else stay the same or go up.
Seems to be the story of our lives lately.
I hope things pick up for you and others in the near future. It tuff for so many families in these times.
Posts: 3875 | From: ca. | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I brought this subject up for 2 reasons. First, to see how many people have even thought of this occurring and secondly that I believe this will become a crisis in the near future. The baby boomers are getting older and Alzheimer's is on the rise. http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_facts_figures.asp
What many don't realize is that Medicare/Medicaid and insurance companies don't cover it. If your parents have any assets, they will all be spent prior to any assistance. I found out the hard way that medicare doesn't help a whole lot when nursing home care is required. A couple of years ago my father had a stroke. After his hospitalization he was sent to a nursing home. As long as he was making improvement toward a recovery, medicare and the supplemental insurance covered his stay. As soon as he reached a point of recovery where the staff evaluated him as having no prospect of recovering further, medicare/supplemental Insurance stopped paying. I didn't have the choice of bringing him home since I was already caring for my Mother with Alzheimer's. I did look into the modifications I would have to make to the house in order to be able to bring him home but by the time I finished looking into it, it was too late.
Nursing home care is very expensive and Home health care is expensive too. I can tell you for a fact that most elderly will live longer and happier at home with their loved ones. Yet, depending on the circumstances it's not always feasible. People with Alzheimer's need 24 hr care as the disease advances. Which means that you either need to be in a financial position to pay for someone to be there when you're not or you have to quit working.
This is something that the country in general and the individual needs to prepare for. There are other illnesses that aren't covered that need to be thought about as well.
I hear and read the talk from the far "Right" about doing away with Medicare and Union retirement benefits and wonder how will the Elderly fare under those circumstances. Will they just put them on the streets and let them die?
Posts: 3255 | From: Los Angeles California | Registered: Jan 2006
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