Elder care BS......
 

My wife and her sister here in the Jax Fl. region went out to the ancient family home town in Alabama...and brought wife's mother and an aunt/mom's sister here to NE Florida,.....so they split up the care....Wife's mom passed last winter/spring.....so buried next to her hubby/wife's father.....but now we stuck with the aunt and due to age/wear and tears.....it's a bit mutch for us to look after the aunt now.....similar age 90.....totally helpless, chair/walked to from bath/bed/food......

Wife if suffering badly with the lifting/elder care going on for some ten years now, mutch less ME tired of the routine dragging down our lives with it.....

SO the .gov here is not helpful one damn bit, burying wife/sister in bureaucrapic BS just silly crap....

SO I have said for wife to call ER, have the aunt picked up OR just drive her to the ER, and let it go from there, get the hospital to access a nursing home.....and get it OVER with.......nurse stops by once a week to check vitals.....

:issues::issues::issues::issues::issues::issues:

anyone with any experience with this crap??:sadangel:

My uncle went into a rest home or whatever they call them these days for his final days. He had some kind of deal worked out they got his house when he passed for the care.

Does she have any assets?

Assets?? no, both of her sons passed long ago...and husband too, she to be buried in Alabama with them......and so it's SO stupid of wife/SISTER to drag her here from Alabama....

damn sad/shituation from word go....

:sadangel:

That's not a good situation, first off who is in charge of her finances and benefits.
I'll ask a friend who's dealt with this a bunch.

The government does not provide for Long term care(LTC). They put you on Medicaid and seize all your assets to pay for it.

To the younger people here get a good insurance policy that covers LTC. Many Universal life insurance policies are convertible to LTC when you reach a certain age.

If you are older talk to an accountant and have your assets put in a trust so it can be protected .

Friends response, he's dealt with several times and got screwed a couple of times financially.

First I’d make sure that they can’t come after them to pay. Because it’s $6.200 month easy or it we’ll be state run facility. You can sign her in but it’s easier to have a hospital put her in one. But if she own anything they get and sale it and the state will go back a year to get it. And be ready for the back lash of other family members saying they’d help but don’t and get mad at you for putting her in a home.

[emoji666] Show quoted text

I wasn't going to say anything here, but what the Hell. I lost my Mom a couple of months ago. I had been taking care of her in my home for almost 5 years straight, first to recover from heart surgery, then when she developed dementia. It was this year when she really dropped off and got bad, so I've done plenty of bathing, diaper changes, and all the other fun stuff. It's exhausting, it's grinding, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. No ****ing way was my mother going into a home. I had a good friend help me with her during the day, a few hours in mid day for most of the time was sufficient, but when she really got bad, she needed more hands on care. Thankfully I'm self employed because I spent a lot of days not working, taking care of her....if it was a bad day, I never left.

Gene, I realize that 1) this is an in law for you, and that 2) y'all have already done some very hard work with your wife's mom, but shoving this aunt in a nursing home, especially now with the covid lockdowns, it will feel like prison for her. My Mom was in a rehab unit for a week and a half after being down with an infection. She ****ing cried on the phone, begging me to come get her, it was so awful. She was supposed to spend 14 days there, but I withdrew her AMA after about 7 or 8 days. They're practically kept as prisoners in their rooms and no one can visit, and they can't visit with each other.

I would be looking at how to distribute this load. This is your wife's aunt. Did she have kids? Those kids need to nut up and come up with some kind of schedule, one takes her for a couple months, then the next one, etc.

For me, I'm an only child, so there was no one else to care for my Mom. I will say, I don't know what your wife's aunt's medical situation is, but I had hospice care for my Mom for most of the year. They were great. They sent out a nurse once a week just to kind of keep track of the situation, and then were a great resource when Mom needed something, vs. making an appointment with her doctor. When she could no longer walk and I couldn't bathe her in the tub anymore, they had an aide come out several times a week to give her a sponge bath, wash her hair, etc.

TL;DR:

Get all the aunt's kids involved with this. Everybody needs to take their turn taking care of her, not just drop this on Mrvette and Mrsvette.

Get her on a hospice service if applicable. Medicare picks this up completely.....never got a bill from the hospice service.

If you have a friend/neighbor/someone you trust, make a deal with them to pop in and check on your wife's aunt, so she's not left alone for more than a few hours at a time. If she's still ambulatory, there are lift chairs, you can probably find a used one on Craigslist or other secondary selling sites.

I know exactly what you've gone through, and how overwhelming it must be to be seeing things repeat. This is a burden that needs to be shared if there are other kids/nieces and nephews, etc. Family takes care of family. Good luck, and stay strong.

Well said Bill. You’re a saint. :angel:

Dumping an elderly person in a nursing home is one of the cruelest things possible.

Yeh, I agree, BUT.....this aunt, and her mother are in the same shituation, dunno anything, total out of it dementia......wife goes out on a job/errand and I feed the old ladies some cookies/drink that my wife leaves on the table....not like I DO anything, she takes care of the heavy shit....and it's really though on her, lifting them in/out of the walker chairs down the hall to the bathroom and then washing them up they both weighed maybe 80 lbs by now.....the thing with the aunt is that both her sons died off years ago....on in a RR accident, one from cancer....hubby long gone so damn depressing....

been going on for some ten years now between her mother and now the aunt.....

much rather be traveling a bit while we still able like we did our last trip, lamost 8 years ago, down to Key West, for a week's trip....

:sadangel:

Does she have grandkids? If so, then they are adults, and need to get in the game.

We had my wifes very sick mother with us for 14 years...wife had two brothers and two sisters and 2 son-in-laws (not including me) and a daughter-in-law and not one person lifted a finger or contributed a penny to her care with us.
I supported her for 12 years protecting her big $100,000.00 nest egg until one day she sat wife and I down at the kitchen table to tell us she wanted to distribute her $. We thought that was a good move on her part until she said she wanted to give everyone $ ....except for us !! I laughed and she said no really...none for you or my daughter !
When I asked her why she said that because I was able to take care of her and supply her with a nice home and everything she ever needed I was well enough off that we didn't need any of her $ !!!!!......
I looked at her and then to my wife and said....as of this moment you will pay for everything you need and no one will get any of your $ until you die.
A year later she got so bad we did need to hire a live in...using her $ and then a few years later a nursing home...using her $ and when she died there was around $3,000.00 left to give to the useless bastards along with copies of every receipt for every thing that was ever bought with her $ and the live in charges and the nursing home charges.
I also gave them all a run down of all the $ I spent for the first 12 years taking care of their mother.

I did the same with both of my parents. It's tough doing 24/7 care for an adult. One of those 'Walk a mile in my shoes'.

I also understand Gene's point of wanting to live his life while he is healthy enough. Is it fair to sacrifice his life and enjoyment to provide care to the ladies?

It's a tough row to hoe getting older and taking care of someone who needs constant help. It does get to a point where it's unhealthy for everyone involved let alone the stress ghat comes along with it.

I travelled by myself out to Ca. and Md....3X, to see my grandsons when new....one of them came south with my daughter to see me.....shown in one of my avatars, here or 'there'.....:dance:

I just would like to take wife with me to Ca. and see San Fran/etc.....show her what a valley is with 3500' elevation.....she is a sandbar native.....largest mountain in Fl. is probably 100' ......:rofl:

Grand Son #1 is shown here.....#2 is at the other place.....in my vette.....

My parents did all they could to care for their parents at life’s end stages. One outcome of that was they refused to put that on me and my sister. They entered assisted living in Jan of 19. Dad passed in Oct of skin cancer that got in his brain. Mom struggles with dementia, but has chronologically outlived her parents and brother by two years so far.

Even though their wishes are being fulfilled, I feel some guilt for not being more involved.

Well, bury her and get it over with :seasix: