My mom has really changed mine and my hubby lives.

French, So sorry. If we could just see the future. Hoping that you can find a way to change your situation.

I lost my husband on April 17, 2016, suddenly and unexpectedly, and I live with guilt every day that I did something wrong at the end, or didn't do the right thing sooner. This is because I was a caregiver for the five years prior to his passing for my Mother. Caring for my Mother was good and my husband loved her and helped me. It was her second husband, my 'stepfather" who spent every day here, from 10:00 am to 10:00 pm, sitting next to her in my family room directly off the kitchen "watching television," which he called "keeping her company" and which drove me up the wall and eventually brought on high blood pressure. Everything that ever came up was too much trouble for him. If it involved the care of my Mother of course I handled it, no matter what it entailed. If it was his problem alone, I let him work it out. But still he believed since I was in my house I must have been available to handled these things for him. He'd play like he did not understand, say, how to call the cable company when he wasn't getting good reception at home. Could I just call the cable company? Nine times out of ten I would simply so he would stop talking about it. Mostly he displayed no emotions. It didn't help that shortly before the signs of dementia began my Mother finally told me the truth of why she wanted to move to Florida from NJ. She wanted her husband to accept an early retirement buyout so he'd be there at home with her and take her shopping "like he used to." He, he just wanted to go to work everyday, turn his power switch to ROBOTIC and then go home, where I believe he often forgot to turn off the ROBOT switch. He'd have a few beers, throw down rapidly the lovely dinners my Mother cooked for him EVERY SINGLE DAY and be in bed by eight so he could be up at five and get to his ROBOTIC job where this man (who I wouldn't hand the garbage to take out!) worked on assembling monitors and tuners and other major electronics for things like the Hubble shuttle. Wow! That's a mind blower. This man could drink anybody under a table. He was an alcoholic, undeclared, but easily could knock back 12 bottles of beer before dinner and at this level I would assume he ticks some of the boxes for alcoholic (maybe everything was all about him was the second box to be ticked) and he drank at that level for the entire time I knew him (since 1984) and would not stop drinking even when my sweet Mother cried, begging him to stop for his health. He was evil incarnate. He did eventually stop, cold-turkey, for his health reasons. Much later this 2-1/2 pack smoker stopped smoking cold-turkey after a strange stomach illness brought him to many doctors and specialists, all of whom stared silently (they did not smile in collusion as I believe he expected from these mostly older, white male medical professionals )and pointedly did not laugh in response to his comment that he'd been smoking sixty years. When he smoked it was my Mother who had asthma and had asked him to smoke in the screened porch, who caught the second-hand smoke when he refused to walk the five feet from the comfortable sectional that I had given my Mother after paying to have it shipped with our furniture from California. This couch was the second he had worn out by enjoying his freedom to do just that, (by ignoring her pleas and concern for his health), lying and lying. (Both varieties).

After my husband passed away and I lost my soul-mate, it took this, this person four days to say something to me about Bruce, and even then it was a result of my bringing up the subject. Six months after my husband passed away this person gave in to my wishes (I had asked him to go back with my Mother to their very nice condo, ten minutes from my home, where I would bring them fresh cooked dinners five nights a week as I was doing before my Mother had to be sent to the ER and then was released to me, as it said in my husband's computer, "Madeline's mother came to live with us temporarily"... That had been five years earlier. Now instead of returning to their condo, my nasty evil self-absorbed stepfather took my Mother to another state, to a town where my brother and his wife chose to settle (in NC) rather than back to her own condo only ten minutes away. Once he was safely ensconced in the home that he had helped my brother buy (my brother moved from a very cold state in the North but he didn't move to Florida because he doesn't like Florida, only his sister was stupid enough to sell her ocean-view dream home in sunny southern California , take a loss! and move to a very humid state in the South which she also hates (both the South, sorry folks but it's racist and tops the polls when it comes to all kinds of poverty that could be alleviated by good jobs for ALL people, and Florida) only to become a prisoner of Florida, where very quickly early on I had it made known that neither of them liked the area I chose, in fact my Mother didn't even like living in Florida, which had been all I had heard, how it was her long-time "dream" and so it got to me like it would to most loving daughters. I felt there was no choice but for me to help my Mother and her husband become happily settled, and then follow through on returning home to California, in two-three three years. What could go wrong? Yes I know I was duped. And worse it was I who made disappear my husband's career and the good life we had together in LA. Gone! I tried to have her move near us in a beautiful ocean-view condo a mile from our house. No, California has earthquakes. (Please don't even mention hurricanes to me). Sure I was lied to by my Mother. But I would never lay the blame on her. Her husband left her little choice. He made her quit a job she loved and which brought her into contact with tons of people, old friend and new, and perfect strangers who became friends. He liked to brag that his wife didn't have to work. But little did he care that she loved to work. She pined for the loss of that job, and the person she was in that job. But then my husband was misdiagnosed at the Mayo Clinic here in town and that malpractice cost us many thousands of dollars and the pressing need for a hip replacement surgery (in Belgium) for my poor Bruce, and the beginning of a long downward spiral in his health but not before it caused the end of his career which he loved. (Not to mention the end of the very nice income/life it had provided for us.)

Now I live alone with my dog, I feel like I wasted every day of every year I have been forced to live in this state, a state where I could even fulfill my husband's plea to "don't let me die in Florida" (and where my doctor is now worried about new heart symptoms that have cropped up) and BTW if anyone besides me is counting they know that's seventeen years of life robbed from me right at a time that a husband and wife deserve to have each other to themselves, in order to start caring for themselves and for each other. As for my Mother: the bottom line with my Mother and stepfather is my stepfather won't speak to me and won't allow me to see my Mother and my brother is siding with him. My brother is a recovering alcoholic and maybe that's one of the reasons. But I've been left to fend for myself, penniless except for my home and its mortgage of course and thank God, I have my husband's corporate pension or I'd be in the street. And those two men in NC, one of whom I thought I could depend upon, would probably sooner run me over in the street than turn the other way.

That's probably really the kind of stuff you're worrying about when you say your life has changed for your hubby and yourself. So I say to you, Good luck, God speed, do all you must to find a nice nursing home where they will care for your Mother, and close enough so that you can visit her whenever it strikes you to do so. But please don't throw away your life and your husband's if that's truthfully how you feel being a caregiver for your Mother. Because if that's truly how you feel, stress will build and build and people will get sick in ways they never had before and truly much stronger bad feelings will start to come out than for you just stating the honest and quite simple truth that your life has changed (and in all likelihood not for the good, is my one editorial note), and it will continue to change if you do nothing at all but long for the way things used to be. As I say, good luck to you and your husband, and of course, to your mother. I will keep all three of you in my prayers.

My mom has lived with my husband and me for the past 9 years. And yes, she has definitely changed our lives...some for the better, but also has made many things harder. Actually, she is now almost 102 and in okay condition. She has dementia. Up until this last month I also watched my granddaughter who turned 2 in Feb. Life is okay. I don't know what else I would do with mom now. She says she is lonely..she said, "it would be better if I went to bed with her"....I will go sit with her....

I believe that is the question also. Great question. I had to go look it up and review in more detail. If parent does not have private funds to fund an assisted living with memory care center, what are options are there? Two things I found. medicare.gov, do a search on 'dementia'. But another good source was alz.org, but more importantly:

http://alz.org/care/alzheimers-dementia-medicare.asp

Also, sounds like to me contacting the private insurance provider, if have one at all, could help. Also, I think if never applied for long-term health insurance years ago, due to age, possibly, even in late 80s, one would not be approved for long-term health care insurance. But best to study in detail Medicare A,B,C and D options as pertains to your situation. Also, official diagnosis of dementia is a must. Sometimes they think they had dementia, but do not have official confirmation of it, and can wait too long to get the support you need to help parent, but I am sure there are things you can find out. Research, study, repeat. At least she has the two of you.

reported

On your profile is what I think your actual question is, which is  
" can a dementia patient with just Medicare be admitted to a nursing home.?"

The answer is complicated. MEdicare dies not pay for long term care. It WILL pay for 20 days of Rehab after a qualifying 3 night hospital stay


Would your mother qualify for Medicaid? Do you have Power of Attorney for her? Does she have funds to pay privately for care, either at home or in a care center?

She would also need to have medical need of being in a nursing facility. Does she have physical problems besides dementia?