Google 'caregiver burnout' and see what you find...you will find a great deal of sites that want you to 'take care of yourself, rest up and find the time to gather the strength to carry on' Big deal. What about the sites that show how angry you are? What about all those sites that tell you that it's ok to fight and yell and scream and hate your life because everyone around you talks about how great theirs is??? There are a million advice sites that tell you to go take a walk, go get some retails therapy and basically tell you up the wazoo to 'take time for yourself' but what about the sites where you can write about how really miserable you are? The sites about how no matter how much you've done for the person you got stuck caring for that they still tell you that you don't do anything for them, that you are completely selfish and a terrible person for thinking about no one but yourself? Show me the websites that say it's OK to wish the person you're caring for would die because you see no other way out of this life. Where are the sites that say it's ok if you really wanna scream at the person you're caring for about how fucking LUCKY they are to have you there? Show me those. There are a million sites that say, breathe and find your inner strength to carry on but what if you have none left? We're supposed to be moving out in a month and yet nothing has been done and no decisions have been made which is really tangling with the notion of making me stay but I refuse. Show me a site that tells me 1. Not to feel guilty 2.one that tells me that my siblings are rotten selfish individuals for not helping me all these years 3. one that tells me its ok to think about MYSELF for a change 4. one that doesn't tell me what a saint I am for doing this...
These great folks here step up to the plate when things get difficult, usually without thinking about themselves first. We do the best we can with what we have handed to us. We could walk away-wash our hands of it because it is "too hard" or we are "too busy"..................
Money helps a lot. A real lot. But it doesn't provide love................
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As I said before, NH's are SO much better than they were 30 years ago, but, they are still NH. A stranger is caring for your loved one............
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An example: when my kids were young I always wanted to stay home with them. Lots of reasons, love, compassion, happiness, responsibility, but one point that is rarely spoken of,.............at home I knew the quality of care they would receive. If they got yelled at, I knew what was said. If they got a lousy meal, at least at home I knew what that lousy meal was and I knew how much they had eaten. If they scraped their knee, I knew that it was cleaned properly and in a timely manner, and there was a kiss and a hug given. This does not mean that I hate child daycare........I have used daycare and my kids were really happy to have other kids to play with, but my daughter, for example, had diarrhea almost every Friday for months and months. The daycare was adament that staff wash their hands properly, had signs and a handwashing station, was not overstaffed, clean staff, friendly, lots of laughter in the halls, clean place, clean kids, but when she did not go to daycare, she stopped having diarrhea. So, she stopped going to daycare and she didn't have diarrhea anymore.
Folks who keep their loved ones at home think like that. Government services are not going to change that. Family and friends stepping in to help, really help, is what is needed. No government can ever do that.
However, much of the healthcare our elderly receive is pretty good.
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In my opinion, many of our elderly would have died long ago without this good healthcare, so now, we have older, sicker, more dementia than we used to. It is not that the system doesn't value older people, it is that the system is overwhelmed with needs it has never faced before.
Think about it. When you were young, did you even know about Alzheimers? Did you think that they would give chemotherapy and radiation to an 83 year old woman? Thirty years ago a broken hip was a virtual death sentence.
I dealt with geriatric care almost 30 years ago. I was in and out of hospitals and nursing homes with my grandmother. - in the big city.
This go-around, the difference is like night and day, so much improvement, so much better, gentler, cleaner, faster, overall better medical care, actual improvement and more comfort and less pain for the patients. - in a small little town in Florida.
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The nursing home is clean all the time. The nursing home does not smell!. My mom is clean all the time. The patients in the halls are aware, friendly, they smile and they are wearing their own clothes. There are activities, a dining room that isn't horrible, pets are allowed to visit, and so on. A huge improvement in 30 years. Thirty years ago the patients in the nursing homes were really, really sick and frail and usually were not mentally sharp. Now, excepting dementia patients, their old bodies are giving out long before their minds. Dementia patients seem to be almost opposite.
The folks on this board are doing a very hard job that their parents probably never faced. I have been doing some reading on the board and I don't get a lot of complaints about the crappy medical care. Folks are generally dealing with the 24/7 care that is overwhelming them and smothering any life/fun they had before. They generally seem to just want a little help, a break, a vacation, someone to share the burden with. The folks on this board are, generally speaking, doing the day to day care at home. Single payer won't help.
If you think other government medical care systems are better, make sure you have done your reading. Read about Canada denying older people surgery because the cost-benefit ratio is not good (too old, won't get many years out of that knee replacement). Read about England that has been helping old people die without their permission. Little countries like Sweden have so little in common with the US that their system would never work here (small population, quite homogenous population, different culture).
And you may want to ask: What do other countries with government run healthcare systems do with Alzheimer patients?
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I'll take heat for this comment, I'm sure..
I admire all that you do for your elders. I took care of mine for 7 years and just a couple of weeks ago placed my dad in nursing home care. It was a very hard decision to make and I dreaded doing it. I now see him all the time and he is making the adjustment. I feel bad, but his 24/7 care was taking it's toll on our health and my husband and I needed to have a life too. We retired 8 years ago and are now, for the very first time, realizing that we have an opportunity to have our own routines. We are going to have to figure out what those routines will be because from the time we retired, it's been all about my parents. My mom has passed and my dad is getting very good care in the nursing home.
I know everyone has their own journey. I hope all of you can find a way to take care of yourselves. Mary, I do worry about you. You've done so much and I wish you could recover your life. I know you will do what you can, but if you ever want to talk, just post on my wall.
Love to all of you, Cattails
Wanda
2. Don't know your siblings, but if they're not helping you and supporting you then shame on them! They should feel guilty!
3. It IS okay to think about yourself. You can't help anyone if you're dead of flat on your back in an ER with a heart attack.
4. I don't know if you're a saint, but certainly a decent, caring individual! (and if you're like the rest of us, a little bit of a naive, gullible doormat - use this as an opportunity to wise up and get tough! [I tell myself the same thing])
an 11 year old. He had strokes in 2005. Phys. he gets around good but strokes affected him mentally. He now has frontal vascular dementia/ azd. He also has seizures from brain injury in wartime. He can be a real hand full.
I understand all that the others are dealing with. Wanda
I understand I am supposed to ignore the bad names.
I understand I am to Detach with Love.
But damn, when she calls me names it brings back my teenage years when I got so many mixed messages - you should dress nicer so the boys will like you/you have so much blush on you look like a hussy.
I am an adult, I understand this. She is in decline, I understand that. Sometimes people in decline lash out and who knows how to hurt you the most but your mother? But when she does this it brings back old memories and feelings I thought I had outgrown and gotten past. It goes down into that very sensitive place in me. ........
As someone already said, some of us have these problems because of abusive families and/or boundary issues in the family. I agree. I spent years in therapy to learn about boundary issues....... A lovely, clinical diagnosis, but what to actually do with that information today???????
The one program I really found helpful was Al-Anon. For the family of addicts. Al-Anon does not deal with the caretaker issues most of us have, but they do deal with the dysfunctional family, the emotional toll of living with family that does not communicate normally. Al-Anon is where I learned about Detachment with Love - a concept I still have trouble understanding, but I am better than I was 5 years ago. I have applied much of what I learned thru Al-Anon to my current relationship with Mom, but I think I have broken down (or, she has broken me down, but Al-Anon encourages me to avoid blaming others)