My husband has been in a care home since January. He wants to come home and tells me that I can just provide him a little more assistance and we will be fine. He has several chronic conditions & excessive incontinence, as well as very limited mobility - maybe walking with a walker 10 yards. I can barely get him in and out of the car with the wheelchair and he needs assistance into bed and a shower.
How do I give him encouragement that if he gets stronger, he might be able to come home with me - knowing that will not happen?
My husband has fallen several times and I called 911 to get him up in bed or to the hospital. He can only walk a few steps. Any advice?
I do everything around the house, but am exhausted.
He says that we married "....in sickness & in health" and expects me to do everything. Our family agrees that he should be in a care home due to his extensive needs & medical issues. How do I convince him?
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What we "prefer" to do in life and the honest reality of what we're not able TO do often collide. This leaves you with a no win situation that others are now trying to guilt you over, including your husband who expects the "vows to be honored" regardless of the toll his health is taking on YOU! Super selfish and tone deaf attitude he has, imo.
Whether your dh gets strong enough to come home again or not isn't relevant.....whats relevant is your inability to properly manage his care at home. Do you and your own human limitations not matter in this equation? I can't lift up my 175 lb dh so why delude myself otherwise? We'd both wind up in the hospital if I tried, so it's not an option.
Tell dh if he regains the vast majority of his strength and ability to function INDEPENDENTLY w/o full time help from you, and his doctor agrees, THEN you can revisit him coming back home to live. But in the meantime, AL is best for both of you. Not as a punishment but as a way for him to live safely and receive the help he requires. You can visit him often and spend time together there w/o compromising your OWN health in the process.
AL is not some horrible torture chamber some insist it to be. My suggestion is to encourage dh to join in the activities there and stop fighting so hard to come home to burden you with his issues. Acclimate, relax, make friends, work with the PT to get stronger, try new food items on the menu, sign up for the mini bus trips, live his life, in other words. A life that often hands us a situation we don't like, so we have the choice to make the best of it or rail against the moon about it 24/7. Either way, it won't change the fact our bodies are disabled and require more help than our spouse's can give us.
Good luck to you
Is he working with any therapists in the care home?
This is just me (you OP must follow your own ideas about this), but I absolutely hate lies. I hate being tricked, I hate being given false hopes about things that will never happen, I hate being lied to.
I prefer to be told honestly what's going on, and I know my husband also prefers this. We discussed it. No matter what anger we might feel about the truth, he and I prefer the truth. He and I deserve the truth.
I also prefer the truth, however, I understand the need to not dash ones hopes, in some cases that is what keeps a person going, especially when dementia is involved.
Soon he will not know the difference, it is the nature of the disease.
I noticed that you posted last in January and must have found DH a bed soon thereafter.
Did he have PT or did he just move to a care home w/o having therapy?
Therapy is very helpful to those with mobility issues. If he has traditional medicare, ask his doctor to order him a home health evaluation at the care home. This will give him more interaction with other health care workers, help with his baths, meds and possibly give him access to physical and/or occupational therapy. Medicare pays for this. He may also have it with one of the advantage plans. They are all different and I’m not familiar with those. His doctor office staff might know.
I would skirt the going home issue. Perhaps you will come to the care home when he has his exercise and work with him? I’m sure he misses the rhythm of your home life. I would avoid talk of going home but encourage strengthening his body so he can go for an ice cream or a Sunday drive, assuming you can manage him for that. Small things are wonderful to share.
We have to do what is best for the patient, redirect him, eventually if he dementia he will forget all about it.
My Mom was in her late 70s when she finally got frustrated with my Dad, a yr older. She had waited hand and foot on him their whole married life of 50+ years. He retired on disability at 52 for heart. He had asked her to do something and she asked him "when am I going to get to retire" he said "never". I walked in after the never, I thought she was going to have a stroke. See they don't realize the spouse is getting older too and is not capable of caring for them. With Dementia, the one suffering from it doesn't think they are old so either is the spouse.
If your husband is competent, you need to say "no I cannot care for you. I can no longer do the heavy lifting. You need help I can no longer do without hurting myself or even u"
Just blame the doc then change the subject. Redirection is a strategy for people with dementia. Keep distracting and changing the topic. I'm so sorry for your circumstances. Many people on this site have been there, done that... so we get it.
If he starts thinking that you could hire home aides, I'd nip that in the bud. It would disrupt your life, he'd require care around the clock and one aide wouldn't be enough, and he'd probably still not have the help he has where he is now.
I'm very sorry. This is the kind of thing we never want to happen, but all too often it does.
He is mourning this change, and so are you. And this change is worth mourning. He will never stop wanting to come home. You will never stop wishing that this never happened, and that it is reversible. All of this is WORTH mourning. Allow yourself to embrace this grief and allow him to honestly do so as well. Assure him you will visit, you will not abandon him and that you still care for him.
Not everything can be fixed. Some things can only be endured. If you need help with the grief you are feeling do consider seeing a license social worker in private counseling practice for a few sessions to help you. This isn't your fault. You didn't create it and you can't change or fix it. I am so sorry for the grief of it, but you need to keep yourself clear of using the other inappropriate g-word, which is guilt. It is very important the words we tell ourselves.
I am so very sorry for this grief for you both.