Have any of you experienced trying to date while being faced with the care of aging parents (and still parenting your own children)?

This is my latest dilemma. Mom is still in the hospital. Her kidneys are now one of the bigger worries--apparently the dr. thinks she's had some kidney function decline over the years and it may now be part of her problem. She's totally freaked out because she's afraid of going on dialysis (which from what my sis and I can tell so far from remote conversations with the nurses, is not necessary).

Dad is at home...with Alzheimers...alone. He's double-medicated himself with Aricept, we're fairly certain. He's very confused. He probably asked me 2 dozen times in my hour with him yesterday evening if Mom was in the hospital and if it was serious.

I feel very guilty because I'm scared that they neither one have any business living alone down there on the farm. However, as cold as this may sound, I'm not ready to move them in with me either. It would put an end to any life I have. Mom and I aren't close--never really have been. She'd be in ALL my business. She does that well enough from 80 miles away. And my dad is very frail physically--badly arthritic and unstable on his feet. I have a 2-story with all the bathing facilities on the 2nd floor.

But...my sister and I have talked before all this happened, sort of just hypothetically if anything ever happened and mom and dad couldn't live alone. I get the feeling that it sort of falls in my lap to take care of them, since I'm the oldest and since I am single. She has a husband to take care of. I don't.

I love my parents, but feel sort of torn because I also want a life of my own. I was feeling like I was finally looking at getting that. Now that may not be the case.

Mom and Dad are also financially poor, because she mismanaged what little money they had. So yesterday I found myself funding them again on the way to the hospital, because I stopped at their bank and sure enough, they were overdrawn. I don't really have the money to do that, but they took care of me when I was little, so it's my turn now.

I'm feeling a bit pinned in. Hopefully this little ordeal will resolve itself, but it does bring to light the bigger issue which is that my parents are elderly and fairly frail, and I will be faced with this situation sometime in the future--whether now or a year from now.

What do I do?

LL

Hi LL!!

Well, I am very sorry for this situation. However, you may want to consider finding an assisted care facility or nursing home near you. Frankly, while working full time, you are not able to take care of them yourself. Your dad's Alzeimers is only going to get worse and your mom probably is not able to take care of herself, much less him.

If you had a husband working full time, you might be able to handle having them live with you, but since you work full time just to support yourself, it is just too hard. As always, JMHO.

You could look at Medicaid, which would basically take all of their assets in order to put them in whatever assisted care they needed. Their home would remain theirs until they passed away and at that time it would become the states to pay for all debt and if any monies remained it would become the heirs, but usually that is unlikely. There are some attorneys who specialize in the elderly finances/medicade who can give some advice as to what you can do.

Also, you had this thought that your sister had a husband and therefore she couldn't help, I think that makes her more qualified to help. My wife has helped tremendously with my mother and with her mother when there has been problems.

You should contact some of the state agencies for the elderly and they should be able to assist you with information.

One could make the argument that your sister, with her husband and (hopefully) stable homelife pattern, would make the better choice for your parents' caregiver. There would be two adults (sis and hubby) to help with your parents needs. If they have kids, even better (assuming they have the room) because the kids would learn to appreciate their grandparents in a way they might never have otherwise. Please don't let the "mantle of the oldest" force you to do something without fully exploring other options <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

You might want to talk to your sister about having legal papers drawn up to allow y'all to make decisions for them (both health care and possibly power of attorney) if they are unable to do so. Has anyone put the thought in your mother's head about considering moving? I know that's difficult for them to think about...but might have to happen. This would be an opportune time to bring it up - when she's incapacitated. And the sale of the farm property would help them financially, and could either fund an addition to your sister's home to house them, or help fund a move to some sort of assisted-care living situation.

I know thinking about these kinds of things are never fun for anyone - the subjects or their family members.

Do you think your parents would even want to live with you?

My father has lived on his own since my mother died & as much as he would hate to live in a nursing facility he'd hate it more to "have" to live with me. He wouldn't want to move to where I am & leave his friends & Drs. number one, but he would also not want to intrude on my life. Even if I wanted to do it, felt I had to, or was forced to it's not what my father would want.

Check into what home care may be available. You may find they need 3 or 4 hours of care a day with meals on wheels to help with meals.

Good luck, it's very difficult to be in this position.

Good news! The immediate crisis has been averted. My sister should be getting Mom home from the hospital at any moment, provided everything went as I heard it was supposed to this morning.

My mom went from so-so, to very poor, to unbelievably good all in about 4 days. The endoscopies found fairly severe inflamation in her esophagus along with some type of fungal infection, and more inflamation and a couple polyps in her intestines. But no evidence of cancer. The problem became her kidneys...they were functioning very poorly just two days ago. She was fit to be tied--scared she was going on dialysis and my sis and I were telling her "No, the Dr. is just having you see the kidney specialist to find out what's up, but dialysis is a last ditch thing. You're not there."

In fact, when my sis talked to the Dr. today, he said he was concerned that she WAS going to end up on dialysis, as bad as her function was. But as of today, it's completely turned itself around. He thinks a drug issue combined with her fungal infection may have caused the collapse. At any rate, I think the turnaround was almost miraculous.

So, she's going home. She'll be able to take care of Dad. And my sister and I now need to take this very seriously and start making plans so that if something happens again, it's not a crisis. We need to know what our plan is.

In answer to "would she want to live with me or my sis". Yes, I actually think if they had to give up their home, she'd like nothing better (not as sure about Dad). She had a hard time letting us go. She still calls both my sis and I almost daily just to check up and if she thinks something is up with me, she'll call my sister and try and find out and vice versa. And heaven forbid she finds out I'm out after dark. I get near daily advice in the darker months about how bad my "dirty city" is and how it's just not safe to be out and how I should do my shopping, etc. on Saturday afternoons and just stay in at night once I get home.

She would be 100% in my business if she lived there, probably calling all my friends, etc. trying to find me if I wasn't home. It would drive me nuts.

But I can't shake that feeling that it's my obligation, as the oldest, to make sure she has a place to live if anything should happen where they couldn't keep up a home.

I wish she'd not frivolously spent what little money they had. It makes things so difficult when they have no assets, yet Dad's pension and their SS puts them in an income bracket that is not total poverty, so it will be very hard for him to qualify for much. (Actually, even their house and acreage which is in life estate in mine and my sis's name isn't worth much.) Mom has made a mess of the finances and we haven't been able to control it. We found more debts she's charged up just this week when we were at the house going through the mail.

So not only has it been a "taking care of them" obligation, but both my sister and I find that we have had to take care of them financially as well.

I think that adds to my resentment of the situation in a way.

LL