Anonymous wrote:Retirement was designed to be 8 years after 65 then you die around 73, now boomers are retiring at 65 and taking 25 years to die, where do you think the money comes from? Their children's future and current earnings.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have watched 3 parents/in laws have long agonizing deaths involving years (in two cases) of bedrest. It is a miserable existence. I will not take any meds after the age of 85 - I hope I go quickly.

But the thing is that unless you get an aggressive illness you probably won’t go quickly. And if you don’t take any medications at all, you’ll probably be in pain and miserable during your long, drawn out old age.

I don’t want to be old either and I hope to never be a burden on my kids or spouse in old age but it’s not like any of us get to decide when we die (unless we kill ourselves)

Good point! I was just venting honestly and understand that I have the genes to live a long time and doing so incapacitated for years at the end is my greatest fear. Maybe I should start smoking.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do know it’s possible to live into your 90s in good health right? Look up fit mom of 7 on Instagram and the amazing things her 91yo mom is able to do.

Instagram only highlights good aspects also on average most elderly have low mobility and high ailments.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is living too long.
People are dying too long.

100%

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My father, a lifelong alcoholic, was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia (AKA “what Bruce Willis has”) at age 75. He died an agonizingly slow death culminating in being “locked in” - he was completely unable to communicate verbally (could not utter one sound) yet was fully conscious and immobile.

He lived/survived for nearly four years in a nursing home. My mother insisted that he be fully resuscitated and so one year in, he “coded” and was “brought back” to an even more diminished state. He continued to receive BP meds and I think a diuretic (he had high BP for decades).

So he lingered on a in a progressively more vegetative state; it wasn’t until he began refusing food that I got my mother to bring in hospice. Hospice advised a DNR needs to be in place and began palliative care in lieu of BP meds. My dad died 6 months later, in his sleep.

I am dealing with a parent with PPA now - although we are having trouble getting a definite diagnosis. Where did you go for the diagnosis?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think if you are wishing for her death, it is time to put your mother in a nursing home paid by Medicare even if it is not common in your culture.

I spent the last two years being a respite caregiver to a mid 90s woman who was being cared for in her elderly (70ish) daughter's home. Daughter was a nurse by profession so very well skilled for the tasks required.

They BOTH wished for her death, and talked about it fairly frequently. It was not an abusive situation at all. She was adored by her whole family including two generations of grandkids she'd helped raised before becoming infirm. They grieved her death but also celebrated it, because she spoke every single day of the last 5+ years of her life about her desperate wish that God would take her.

I've been doing eldercare for nearly a decade now, much of it hospice status and many hospice clients who lingered for years - doctors can say your condition might kill you in six months, but that means nothing to mother nature.

Life gets very difficult when you are barely mobile, stuck in chairs and beds and needing somebody else to wipe your anus while having lost most of the bodily function that would allow you to participate in any of the life activities you used to love.

We should have MAID in the USA, everywhere.

I am curious, several posters have mentioned elderly people stopping their meds. It does seem unlikely that most people living that long are doing so without statins, etc. Was that woman on medications? Does going off them late in life hasten death? Is the option to just never start taking them and late nature take its course? Some of us were meant to live long lives of quality, while others not. I am in my mid-50s and started taking BP meds a couple of years ago and sometimes I wonder if I should just not and let my end come when it's meant to. I do not want to get to an age and condition that makes my kids dread being around me, the same way I feel about my mother now. She was a loving mother who I adored when I was a child. But my entire adult life has felt like I am dealing with a child and I cannot stand it. I don't want my kids to feel that way about me.

Anonymous wrote:No one is living too long.
People are dying too long.

Anonymous wrote:You do know it’s possible to live into your 90s in good health right? Look up fit mom of 7 on Instagram and the amazing things her 91yo mom is able to do.

Anonymous wrote:I’m 59 now, taking care of my mom 89. She’s still in good health, mentally there. I’m just sick of her being in my house, I know this sounds terrible. My culture you don’t put parents in a nursing home, she/we can’t afford one either. No other siblings to help care for her.

Just venting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My father, a lifelong alcoholic, was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia (AKA “what Bruce Willis has”) at age 75. He died an agonizingly slow death culminating in being “locked in” - he was completely unable to communicate verbally (could not utter one sound) yet was fully conscious and immobile.

He lived/survived for nearly four years in a nursing home. My mother insisted that he be fully resuscitated and so one year in, he “coded” and was “brought back” to an even more diminished state. He continued to receive BP meds and I think a diuretic (he had high BP for decades).

So he lingered on a in a progressively more vegetative state; it wasn’t until he began refusing food that I got my mother to bring in hospice. Hospice advised a DNR needs to be in place and began palliative care in lieu of BP meds. My dad died 6 months later, in his sleep.

I am dealing with a parent with PPA now - although we are having trouble getting a definite diagnosis. Where did you go for the diagnosis?

Anonymous wrote:My father, a lifelong alcoholic, was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia (AKA “what Bruce Willis has”) at age 75. He died an agonizingly slow death culminating in being “locked in” - he was completely unable to communicate verbally (could not utter one sound) yet was fully conscious and immobile.

He lived/survived for nearly four years in a nursing home. My mother insisted that he be fully resuscitated and so one year in, he “coded” and was “brought back” to an even more diminished state. He continued to receive BP meds and I think a diuretic (he had high BP for decades).

So he lingered on a in a progressively more vegetative state; it wasn’t until he began refusing food that I got my mother to bring in hospice. Hospice advised a DNR needs to be in place and began palliative care in lieu of BP meds. My dad died 6 months later, in his sleep.