My husband & I live together in our own home. We are very happy here, Doctor insists that we look into ass't living and move somewhere by winter. We don't want to move, I have short term memory loss from Alzheimer's and my husband has grade 2 diabetes. He is 80, and I am 75. We get meals on wheels 5 days a week, we have paid help that does the laundry, and cleaning every 2 weeks. She is a certified person and available for more hours. We have a person that cuts the grass and blows the snow. I also have copd and scleroderma. I can take care of myself dressing, washing hair but need help with the shower getting in and out. My husband helps with that. We get along very good. We have been together for about 55 years and married for 53. I pick out my clothes, wash my hair and comb it, and make my bed in the am. My husband does the same and still drives. We go together to the grocery store, great clips for haircuts, Walgreens, Salvation Army for clothes, etc. We don't understand why we should give up our home at this time. Her response is that one of us could fall and end up breaking something. She said if we don't do it on our own the authorities could insist if one of us got disabled and then we might not be able to pick where we want to go. We are actually disabled now anyway. My husband's doctor says he's in good shape and going strong. We both passed our drivers exam in 2013. I could still drive if needed. I have a brother and nephew close, and my husband has a niece close too. All are willing to help some. My brother takes care of the flower garden and bushes so the place looks real nice. I do the checkbook each month and most of the bills come out on auto-pay. I put together a Sunday newsletter that gets sent via email to hundreds of members. I don't know if I forgot anything, but I think that's enough for now. Oh, we have a dog too, a little Rat Terrier that we love, and get loved back. We couldn't part with him. He is part of our family, like a child. We do have a 44 year old son that left many years ago and is in Florida. We haven't heard from him in years. We need help in convincing her that we plan to stay at home for now at least. Thank you for all help and ideas.
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I would imagine that if you're already in a place where people are looking out for you on a daily basis and meeting your needs, then a traumatic intervention could be avoided if the time comes that you aren't able to take care of certain things.
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If you were my folks, I would be worried to death about you.
Continue to wait and you will be in too bad of shape for assist. living. My mother tried it. She was a one person lift at the time, but she thought that she needed more care than that. She actually loves the local nursing home, because of the great care that she receives.
Do the right thing and go try it. Then, you have control over what you take with you and what you sell. My mother is leaving that mess for me and I live 1500 miles from her.
I'm not one to take a doctor's advice for institutional living as a mandate, for a variety of reasons. First of all, he/she's not paying for it. But beyond that, I think if you view it as others suggested, as a contingency plan, then it's a good idea to have that kind of forward planning mapped out if the time comes that you need it.
You and your husband seem to be very organized and thorough in finding resources to stay at home as you age, and you're to be commended for that.
You can view the alternate living arrangements as something that might be necessary, or might not be necessary. One never really knows how life will progres or at what rate, even with memory and cognitive related diseases.
My father is 95, has had 2 hip fractures, lives alone, is a tough man and is still going on walks daily when the weather is good. He has multiple support sources in teh community and in his church. He will never consider a facility placement, and unless he becomes unable to walk neither will I. We've worked, as you and your husband have, to provide alternate sources for what he needs so that he can stay at home.
I know that if he did have to move to a facility, he would go downhill faster than an Olympic racer.
One dear lady I knew lived there for 5 years while her husband declined. She said that it was hard to watch him move towards the end, but she would not have had as much freedom to have her own life if she had to be at the house constantly watching over the help. At this home, she was able to have meals with her friends while her husband was fed by the nurse. After he passed, she moved to a home in FL to be near her children - they wanted to be in their home town while he was alive but she was ready for the change.
It was good. I wish that for you!
By the time you will need help, you won't know it and won't be able to do this kind of planning work. You need to build the help in around you ahead of time.
I had to put my life on hold for the better part of a year, use up all my vacation, and go to great lengths to get my mom out of her filthy, disgusting house and into a facility where she can get the dementia care she's needed for the past 10-15 years. This was REALLY unfair and I have a lot of resentment about it to this day.
She would only say that she was not ever moving, saw no need to ever make changes in the house, and was just fine thank you, right where she was. I guess she thought she'd be 65 forever with no changes until the day she dropped dead. So she didn't have a long term care policy. She didn't put any of her money in trusts or anything. She didn't let anybody help her stay out of collections and keep her bills paid when she couldn't do it anymore. She just let everything go to h_ll, all while insisting everything is just fine, just like normal. This turned into almost a full time job for me to clean up after, on top of my real job, family, and life obligations. I will *never* do this to anybody.
My mom refused to plan ahead. She refused to think about tomorrow in any sense, and put herself in the position of having NO CHOICES. It had to be what I could do on my own with no help from her side whatsoever. She did not get to pick what facility she ended up in. It was the one near me with an opening. She is lucky it's as high quality as it is.
By the time she was moved out of her home, she was on the fast decline from so many years of neglect and obstinate refusal to do anything the doctor said. She stayed in her independent apartment for 6 months (which was probably 4 months too long), and is now in a care center for the rest of her days. If she had worked with me, the doctor, the bank, and an elder lawyer years ago, she might not have degenerated so fast from being a shut in who didn't get to her appointments, wasn't taking her meds, and was eating rotten food. She might have more good years if she had downsized and moved from home owner to townhome to senior apartment when the time was right. She might still be in an senior apartment or even assisted living, and might still have choices in her life if she had done what the doctor told her all these years, but that is not what happened.
Her stubborn refusal to see the reality of aging and that change is GOING TO HAPPEN, like it or not, and her refusal to plan for those changes versus being a victim meant that she did not get to decide anything along the way.
This is my answer to anybody facing these choices in life who has any hesitancy. Your needs are going to change and you can be ready in time or you can be a victim and just have to put up with "whatever".
As the others have said, look around at other living options for if/when the time comes when you cannot function so safely and pleasantly in your own home. Short term memory loss may go on for years as a minor problem, but it can also develop very quickly into a serious problem.
But it sounds like for right now you are doing fine. Plan ahead and be prepared to accept change when it is needed. For now, don't let anyone bully you into changes that you don't need yet.
I've been trying to get my parents to move to such a place, there are really nice ones around the U.S., some are like a 5-start resort. But my parents won't leave their home. I can no longer help them with their yard work, that ship has sailed. They do have someone to mow on a weekly basis. And I can no longer help them with chores around their house, because I need that energy to do the chores at my own house. Do they do what they can on their own or they talk about hiring someone which means fix it items and major cleaning never get fixed or done.... [sigh].
We are all aging, each at a different speed, and each with our own medical problems.
It is best to plan ahead for those times when your husband can no longer drive... when your brother can no longer tend the garden... and when the niece and nephew are caring for their own parents or other older relative. Better to do it now, then find yourself scrambling later.