Reply to Some take it or leave it reflections on eldercare, 18 months in

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]IMO, people should read your advice and then leave it. It's your experience and yours alone.

Everyone's experience is going to be different. There are as many different scenarios as there are people on the planet.

What I do find concerning is the underlying thread of intolerance and annoyance at caring for one's "loved" ones. I have done care for both parents and a sibling and would never think nor express the kind of vitriol I often see posted on elder care issues. But that's my experience and it's different than OPs.

Phrases like living "past their time" is an example. I am not a religious person but who are any of us to say when another person's "time" is? That they shouldn't be given standard medications for common health issues (statins, BP medications)? Aren't there people in their 30s who are on BP meds? So I guess you should not start on them, or is there a specific age the prescription should be stopped? Of course not, because it's not rational.

If there is some cosmic timeline or physical condition that determines someone needs to get put on the ice floe?

What about younger people who are paralyzed from an accident? Or have a debilitating disease? Not everyone in full-time care facilities are elderly. Should those people in their 30s or 40s fall under the same criteria? The burdens of caring for them are the same as the elderly.

FWIW, I've also known 2 people who have chosen euthanasia (living in a foreign country) and that has its trauma and effects on the family and loved ones, too.

Essentially, we as a county/culture need to revisit elder care and expand the options. Things like adult day care. But unless and until people start seeing the elderly as equal human beings, it won't happen.

The general attitude (at least here on DCUM) is to eliminate any resources, time or energy spent on people who supposedly no longer have any value.

[/quote]

I don’t know if this is really about people’s value versus their quality of life. We have a 16 year old daughter that requires total care. We will change diapers, feed her, bathe her, etc., until we find facility to place her in (if they even exist in 5-10 years with the cuts to Medicaid that will be coming). She could live for decades after we die with no ability to communicate or advocate for herself. There are people with her genetic disorder that live into their 70s. Over the decades we cannot protect her, I assume she will suffer some level of abuse with 99% certainty.

When I talk to parents in our situation, we don’t want our kids to outlive us. We would take 20-30 “good” years and then wish for a peaceful death.

In some cases, part of the challenge with dealing with intense caregiving is also seeing how much you have to put in for such little return as far as quality of life goes. I don’t know that we have done our daughter any great favors by bringing her into this world given her limited quality of life.

The truth is that caregiving is complicated even when you love someone very much. And we now live in  world where parenting has intensified in a way that leaves little space for elder care. And many people are trying to do both childcare and elder care at the same time. I have a lot of empathy for people in this situation as someone who has done intense caregiving for 16 years with no end in sight.[/quote]

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