stubborn senior declaring she would rather die falling at home than go into a nursing home
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Anonymous
You didn't answer what we're supposedly jealous of. When we are talking about taking responsibility for our own aging, it does fall on the next generation. It's good to make a plan for that. Just saying you don't have kids doesn't get you out of that. |
Anonymous
I think there are four main groups of elderly people that we are discussing: 1. Elderly, generally kind (or at least trying), recognizable as the same person even if older, with minimal to no need for assistance 2. Same as #1, except more moderate need for assistance and cares and/or more forgetful or with some mild to moderate personality changes 3. Same as #1 but severe assistance needs (unable to toilet or feed self, possibly on ventilator, complex medication needs such as multiple IV meds and port access) 4. Outright abusive and/or combative elderly people with severe verbal abuse, or escape risks with dementia (but can open locks and for fire safety reasons cannot keep them safe at home, and a physical hazard to others (biting, physical assault with serious bruises and broken bones, unrecognizable as themselves, not safe to be around children) I don't know if some of the people posting find #3 and especially #4 to be invisible, but alas, your not acknowledging these circumstances doesn't make it go away for the people you are so quick to cast shade on. |
Anonymous
| Most people I know who have gone into assisted living/continuing care have done it because they’re thinking of their spouses and/or adult children, not themselves. They’re trying to make things easier for their loved ones, it’s not because they’d rather be in a facility than at home. |
Anonymous
| Look, if your parents are good to you, you want to do everything for them in the end. If they’re abusive and neglectful you have already removed your self emotionally from end of life care so nursing home it is. In our directives, and because we don’t want to over burden our children, they have been instructed that given certain issues with our help we will go to Europe as a family and end our lives with dignity and peace. We’ve planned for this and have prepared our adult children as such. BTDT with both sets of our parents, happy we were able to handle their aging/deaths with dignity and grace, will never put our children I. That position. I love them too much. |
Anonymous
| In our family we take care of our elderly and we're paid to do so. If dementia enters the picture and it becomes too hard, they are then placed in a facility that can handle this. |
Anonymous
Do you realize how privileged you are that this was even an option? Not every job can be "rearranged" to a different time. Not every elderly person has multiple adult children and grandchildren. Some elderly people's grandchildren are all babies. |
Anonymous
People are fragile and have their own challenges and health emergencies. My mother just assumed I would be available at the drop of the hat at all times and if not me then a sibling would fill in. One of my siblings has passed away. I was there at the drop of a hat dozens of times and now after dealing with her impossible entitled behavior I have had to step back to deal with my own health crisis. Other sibling is too busy in a contentious divorce while also in a feud with her neighbor and her workplace. (That was mom's favorite). All of us just want our parents in a safe situation where we don't have to constantly upend our lives. Also many of us from generation X were left to fend for ourselves dealing with parents who got away with verbal, emotional and sometimes physical abuse. There is none of this, but they raised you and changed your diapers BS. My mother made her personal therapist while I raised myself. She demanded I be potty trained at about 14 months and was livid when i had accidents so don't talk to me about all the diapers she changed. Many times before that I was left in dirty diapers. The list goes on. |
Anonymous
+1 my mom is 76 and doing well. My MIL is 86 and doing well too. We haven’t yet had convos with either. Expecting decline isn’t helpful because you don’t know how it will play out. Wait for a diagnosis or change in circumstance. But, still you can’t ever make a perfect plan. |
Anonymous
I guess that’s the difference between your approach and the rest of us. There will be a decline. It’s inevitably. We’d all like to avoid a catastrophic fall being the reason for the change in housing. |
Anonymous
Why? I would rather live at home with my garden and neighbors for x years, have a catastrophic fall and then go into AL then preemptively do it and languish for years and years. |
Anonymous
With all due respect, this is another way of saying "I don't want to have to think about it in advance at all, so I'll let my children (or nieces and nephews, or whomever, unless you have absolutely no family at all or are completely estranged) be forced to drop their own commitments and deal with it for me in a crisis." Is that your prerogative? Absolutely. It is certainly one way people play out the last few chapters of their lives. I had parents who loved me so much that they would do anything to spare me any great pain and heartache, and they did the hard work of making what plans they could in advance. I knew this was a gift to me, a beloved child. Not everyone gets to experience that. |
Anonymous
| ^^By the way, they did not move into AL; they just had a plan for downsizing and knew how long the waitlists were, etc. They also had advance directives in place so I wouldn't have to make those choices for them without some clear guidance. |
Anonymous
Who do you think is going to get your broken self into a new arrangement during the crisis? |
Anonymous
Thank you for this. I also wonder though if those of us with stubborn parents are also somewhere on the #4 spectrum where they have always been difficult and have ventured into abusive territory quite a bit. It could just be my small sample size. Those I know with truly pleasant parents who were raised in loving homes without more than run of the mill occasional dysfunction are not grappling with this issue. The parents planned and retired in ranch houses in communities where everyone progresses along to where they need to be when needed AL/memory care. The friends I know with these parents deal with the heartache of the call that mom is in the hospital, but mom willingly had an aide so it's just a matter of visiting her, not being the one to leave work, race over, discover her, stay with her in the ER and advocate yet again. Their parents have many friends and welcome help so they don't expect their kids to be a personal therapist, BFF, and servant. Most importantly these parents have empathy and self awareness. Just an entirely different universe from what many of us manage. |
Anonymous
I"m the PP in this thread who advised that OP should have POA. The 'diagnosis or change in circumstance' can happen literally in an instant! I know because it happened to us- the second the phone rang with the call that Mom (who is Dad's caretaker) was in the ambulance was when everything changed. I'm so grateful I had POA (because Mom was incapacitated, my POA for both of them started) because I needed it over the next few months. Once Mom recovered mostly, then she was not capacitated and I am not excersizing POA. I plan to have a POA when I'm older, so my kids will be able to handle things if something happens in an instant. |