I have made the painful decision to place my husband in a nursing facility. He was in the hospital with acute renal failure and CHF. Advice?

When you care for someone whose health is gradually, continually declining you take on more of the load gradually and continually so that it becomes difficult to see when that burden is about to break you, and you don't want to allow yourself to reach that point. I know that a spouse is totally different from a parent but I did allow myself to reach the breaking point in caring for my mother and it damaged my relationship with her, our days had become a mix of love and hate that I was reluctant to change because I thought "surely she can't go on much longer, can she?" She could and she did last another year and a half in a NH, and I know I never, ever could have given her the level care she needed during that time. You can still visit him every day all day if you want to, but all the "heavy lifting" can be handed off to someone else, and you can go home to get restorative sleep at night, and that is a huge blessing.

I'm so sorry your husband's health has declined to the point he needs the full time nursing care only a skilled facility can provide. I know placing him in a facility is a very difficult decision but there comes a point in the dementia journey where your LO needs more care than one person can provide. Your husband's CHF and kidney problems sound serious enough alone to need skilled nursing care. You have made the right decision.

The hospital should have a social worker to help you find a good facility; if not please call your local Area Agency on Aging for a social worker to help you. SWs know all the facilities and payment methods so they can really help you find the right place. I suggest asking the SW for 2-3 facilities in your area that could meet your husband's needs, then take a tour of them to pick the one you like best.

Well, I've learned to not second guess myself. The last couple of months of my husbands life I moved him into one of our rentals that was unoccupied, it was fully furnished, only rented during season. I hired 24 hour hospice nurses. I did this because I could no longer be his caretaker, needed to rest and am not clinically trained. The last week of his life he was in a hospice facility. It was the absolute right thing to do... for him, knowing that he was well taken care of told me that my decision was correct. I am sorry about your husband, listen to the doctors, they have given you good advice.