Issues to consider when inviting very ill FIL and wife to live in our home

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work for APS and investigate elder abuse. I haven’t read the full entire thread but I have this recommendation for you:

Don’t.

Medicaid may for some partial in home care but it will never be enough and they do not pay for care at night. Which means someone will have to be there to redirect him, change him, tend to his needs for a condition change, etc. There was mention that he may be sharing a room with your children? Don’t. That’s completely inappropriate. When he comes bed bound and soils himself, how are you going to change him in front of your children? Adult BM and bodily fluids smell terribl.

Even the best and most well equipped caregivers and families who have the resources for out of pocket care struggle to care for an aging parent. It sounds to me like your FIL has minimal resources and this would be a significant strain on your family. This sounds like a recipe for burnout and he will be harder to find care for once he’s in your home as the state and case managers see it as less of a priority if he’s housed with family.

Look, not all nursing homes are bad but do your research. Try to find a nursing home that accepts Medicaid but is not mostly occupied by Medicaid residents. Look on nursing home compare and review inspection reports. Accept that your FIL will not get a private room as Medicaid does not pay for it. Look at the food (which is a huge contributor to quality of life, helps reduce weight loss and promote wound healing, etc) and the smell. If you walk in and immediately smell B.O and poop, it’s not going to be a decent facility. Talk to the director of nursing and read Yelp reviews with a grain of salt.

Your best bet is for your FIL to sell his home if he owns, and for both of them to buy into a continuing care community that provides independent, assisted, and memory care who will transition him to Medicaid once he “spends down.” I’ve seen the best care in continuing communities.

You do not need to sell the house for medicaid. Medicaid will put a lien on the house when sold but MIL can stay in it. She can keep certain assets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are they dialyzing someone who has advanced dementia and Parkinson’s? That is cruel and crazy. It is time to move to a hospice, stop the dialysis, and let him pass peacefully. No one wants to live like that. It is no life.

You are in a sense lucky with dialysis, at least you are given a way out. We did that with my mother and I still think it was the kindest thing we could do. We probably should have done it sooner but we wanted to exhaust all reasonable avenues first.

+1

[Anonymous]

Do not do this! Your first duty is to your husband and children. I repeat, do not do this! You have a very kind heart, but it will not work. Use your kindness to go visit him in nursing home frequently. Your cannot fix this. My very best wishes to you for being so thoughtful, but take care of YOU,

[Anonymous]

My elderly aunt has Parkinson's and she has round-the-clock health aides because it is impossible for the family to manage otherwise. She lives in Asia so this is affordable but it will be very difficult for OP to take on this responsibility by themselves espcially with young children.

[Anonymous]

Don’t do this to your kids OP. Childhood is short and fleeting.

Don’t do this to your marriage either. Marriage is hard enough already.

FIL should go into a nursing home.

[Anonymous]

My father passed away last summer and had similar issues, no dialysis. Decline can be rapid, one week walking next week immobile. Dad wasn't violent at all. It took my mom, full time elderly assistant and day time nurse to take care of him. Plus my sister, me, when I was there, and my BIL. Incontinence becomes worse. All three caregivers were exhausted all the time. And extremely stressed. I think your heart is in the right place, but that you don't know what you would be taking on. Your whole family will become hostage to FIL, not his fault, just the way things works out. You might become resentful towards him and MIL too. Human nature too. If you have money, you should think of paying for a better facility.

[Anonymous]

You sound like a good person, OP. If your oldest child is only 6, there’s no way you should even consider it. My kids are tweens and teens, and hosting my elderly, incontinent parent for just an occasional visit is hard. I can’t imagine dealing with dementia too. While it’s admirable that you want to help, your priority should be your children. It sounds like FIL needs 24/7 care in a facility.

[Anonymous]

After having been through dementia with my dad, one person alone cannot care for your FIL. You will need to hire caregivers, which can get expensive. Also, my dad paced back and forth all day long. There’s no way I could have kept him out of a home office so I could work from home. He would have been in and out of the room 100+ times an hour.

[Anonymous]

When my two kids were small, my uncle and aunt moved in to be near a hospital where my uncle was being treated for cancer.

My aunt had previously had a stroke and she was sweet but needed a bit of help herself.

OP, they only stayed a few months, but in that time I realized I was being crushed by the sandwich situation and way over my head.

It became impossible to figure out how to get them OUT of my house.

I'm saying this because the nature of all traps are that they are one-way situations...you go down that road, and you think, if I don't like it or if it doesn't work, I'll have options. But this is, in a practical sense, not true. The effort required to get ourself OUT of this situation, if it's not working and they are living with you, is unsurmountable. You and your DH will be so overly swamped, you won't have a second to figure out how to escape, let alone make the Plan B happen.

OP, my mom was a geriatric nurse and I've seen a lot of elderly in my life. I'm older now and have had to deal with a lot of elderly in my family. This is a really big thing, because (for better or worse) modern medicine drags out the lifespan of someone who can be in seriously bad shape. In the old days where family took care of family, people could not possibly linger in the horrible quality of life conditions they can nowadays; they would have passed. The toll of this is terrible on them and terrible on those who care for them.

[Anonymous]

OP is not offering to help with care, just housing so given that its a near impossible situation. She's not as good as she's pretending as if this is going to work she needs to step up and caregive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP is not offering to help with care, just housing so given that its a near impossible situation. She's not as good as she's pretending as if this is going to work she needs to step up and caregive.

OP and her husband both work full time and have three small kids, 6 and under, who also need care. They aren't going to be able to provide the kind of care FIL needs any more than SMIL can. FIL needs 24/7 care and will progressively get worse. Someone will need to be dedicated to him full time, be able to lift him to keep up hygiene, and stay up nights to care for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP is not offering to help with care, just housing so given that its a near impossible situation. She's not as good as she's pretending as if this is going to work she needs to step up and caregive.

Agreed. Especially since OP says the Step MIL needs to move out once FIL dies.

[Anonymous]

OP, it is completely unrealistic to think that you can limit your role to just giving them a place to live as your ILs live with you. If this truly is your limit, then you need to help them find a place (help rent, look for affordable housing etc) that is not your home and not even particularly close to your home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, let him go to a nursing home. He will get better care in a nursing home than you can provide. Spend your time, energy, and money ensuring that the nursing home is providing approrpriate care. You're describing a very sick individual who is going to require 24 hour attention. You work FT and have 3 kids under 6. It is NOT being a good person to accept care of someone that you don't actually have the resources to care for.

+1 - You sound like you have good intentions, but you simply aren't going to be able to give him the kind of care environment he needs without being heavily involved yourself. Even if the facility isn't top notch, it will at least be clean and staffed with certified caregivers. Step-MIL and your family visiting frequently will help.

Also, with 3 kids under 6, you are right in the middle of the house being "safe" for them. Your FIL and likely your MIL won't be able to adjust to that standard. I would worry about medications being left out and who knows what else. When my kids were little my in-laws couldn't even be bothered to keep baby gates in place on their very steep stairs when we visited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work for APS and investigate elder abuse. I haven’t read the full entire thread but I have this recommendation for you:

Don’t.

Medicaid may for some partial in home care but it will never be enough and they do not pay for care at night. Which means someone will have to be there to redirect him, change him, tend to his needs for a condition change, etc. There was mention that he may be sharing a room with your children? Don’t. That’s completely inappropriate. When he comes bed bound and soils himself, how are you going to change him in front of your children? Adult BM and bodily fluids smell terribl.

Even the best and most well equipped caregivers and families who have the resources for out of pocket care struggle to care for an aging parent. It sounds to me like your FIL has minimal resources and this would be a significant strain on your family. This sounds like a recipe for burnout and he will be harder to find care for once he’s in your home as the state and case managers see it as less of a priority if he’s housed with family.

Look, not all nursing homes are bad but do your research. Try to find a nursing home that accepts Medicaid but is not mostly occupied by Medicaid residents. Look on nursing home compare and review inspection reports. Accept that your FIL will not get a private room as Medicaid does not pay for it. Look at the food (which is a huge contributor to quality of life, helps reduce weight loss and promote wound healing, etc) and the smell. If you walk in and immediately smell B.O and poop, it’s not going to be a decent facility. Talk to the director of nursing and read Yelp reviews with a grain of salt.

Your best bet is for your FIL to sell his home if he owns, and for both of them to buy into a continuing care community that provides independent, assisted, and memory care who will transition him to Medicaid once he “spends down.” I’ve seen the best care in continuing communities.

You do not need to sell the house for medicaid. Medicaid will put a lien on the house when sold but MIL can stay in it. She can keep certain assets.

MIL and FIL should probably consult an elder law attorney regarding this, but if the family’s goal is to move MIL and FIL into some kind of a care setting, the proceeds from the sale of their home would help them get into a nicer facility if that’s the concern re: sub standard care.