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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, I posted previously - my father has Alzheimers and I found your original post almost unbelievable. In your followup posts you have offered more detail but what comes through is an incredible lack of sympathy for your mother. Before you criticize her, you have to understand what she is dealing with on a daily basis. Alzheimers is a horrific disease - it robs patients of their lucidity and their dignity and eventually their basic skills of self care.

I speak with my father multiple times a day; I am an adult who appreciates the disease (my grandmother had it also, and lived with us when I was a kid) but it still breaks my heart every time. Your mother is living this. She is seeing the most important person in her life reverted to an infantile state, and she is responsible for his daily care. Can you not understand why she might want a little help with taking out the trash?

I'm guessing from your post you are relatively young. And since your father is only 64, I should mention, my mother died at 63 of cancer. No one should suffer and die at this age. It's awful, and you are probably grieving yourself over what is to come. But please, find a more healthy way to process your grief than heaping blame on your mother. Invest yourself in trying to find high-quality care for your father, either as a respite or in a nursing facility. And recognize that what your mother has done is heroic; try to support her instead of criticizing her for being negative during your visit.[/quote]

I think what Op is saying is that she IS trying to think of things like respite care, nursing homes, etc but her mom is having none of it.  It is hard to be thousands of miles away with something so major going on with your parents.

It is then difficult for Op to see her mom struggling so with the care giving. It is obviously taking a toll on her mom.  But what can Op reasonably do to help when she lives so far away, has kids that need her and her mom refuses any kind of respite help, whatsoever.

This is the part that is going to be hard:  Sometimes life truly gets horrible and you just do the best you can with a horrendous situation.  That is what Op's mom is doing.  There is no way to make the loss that she is enduring any better for her.  Sometimes all you can do is hold their hand as they walk through it.

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