Reddit Caregiver Wants to Move Her Family in
'I Put My Own Life on Agree': The Pain and Joy of Caring for Parents
Daughters said they s acrificed careers when their relatives wouldn't. Others said hiring assist sapped finances. And more than a few found treasured final moments with loved ones despite the overwhelming work of caring for them.
After The Times published a pair of articles on elder care — one almost a Connecticut home health aide and another about women forgoing careers to care for older relatives — hundreds of our readers shared their own experiences with the hardships of trying to brand the final years of a loved one's life comfortable.
Many of the readers said they had parents and other relatives who fit squarely in a growing demographic in the Us of elder-boomers who want to spend their final years at home.
Below is a choice of the reader comments, which take been lightly edited.
Sacrificing prosperity for crumbling parents
What I thought might exist a few weeks of caring for my mother turned into four years. A few months after she died, my father deteriorated rapidly.
When I was finally able to look for a job, nobody wanted me. I got a lot of nice words from potential employers, told that I was a hero and told that my reward would be in heaven, but nobody hires heroes and heaven doesn't pay my bills on earth.
— Linda J. Marshall, Perry, Okla.
Choosing to intendance for my mom for 25 years influenced every job I took and had a negative effect on my career. I spent very picayune on myself and all of my extra earnings went toward her living expenses and care.
I handled (and mishandled) her mental illness and numerous physical injuries, which required long recovery times.
I sacrificed my personal life and general happiness in order to exercise this. I would do it again, besides. Information technology was the right thing to do.
— Eric Stein, Toledo, Ohio
I began caring for my mother full time but a few years after getting dorsum into the work force when my children were in elementary school. I have a law degree and used to work in a big firm in New York City. Although my salary was relatively large, as a immature attorney I couldn't afford both kid care and housing near enough to be home at the end of the day.
And so I left N.Y.C. and my career. I started a new career, 1 which afforded me some flexibility as a parent.
But when I was hitting my stride, almost iv or five years in, my mother could no longer live alone and moved in with me. Neither nursing homes nor assisted living were affordable, even if they were skillful options for her, which they were not.
I went back to a part-time schedule. At 62, I take not lived up to my earning potential nor have I been able to save enough for my own care when my time comes.
I have daughters, then I suppose the bicycle will go along as they sideline their own careers to treat their children.
— Gloria Maphet, Fort Collins, Colo.
I moved back home and took care of my parents for four years until they died iv months autonomously.
They were wonderful people and I don't regret it. But I put my own life on hold, including professionally, and had to start over from nothing in my mid 30s.
— Suzanne Burke, Savannah, M a.
Joyous terminal moments
For nigh 20 years now, I have been the sole caregiver for my wife, who is totally and permanently disabled from a stroke she suffered in 2000.
I also am a virtual prisoner in my own home and now, at 66, certainly not living the life I imagined my retirement would be.
Only my wife does non endure from dementia or incontinence. She knows who I am, and most importantly knows what we mean to each other. That goes far in compensating for the losses.
— Dennis 50. Smith, Des Moines
Later my mom had a stroke, I cared for her 24/7 until she died in her ain home two years afterward. It was the hardest affair I ever did in my life.
But mom and I had many moments of enjoyment, existence together. We laughed. We cried. We were closer than ever before.
— Mary McKim, St. John'southward, Newfoundland and Labrador
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The high toll of abode aides
I went through Craigslist, figuring without an agency taking a percentage, the caregiver and I would come out ahead. This involved me vetting each caregiver using online tools. I was lucky enough to find one caregiver for weekdays. Only for weekends? I must have gone through over 30 caregivers, each with a unique set of issues.
I found that one caregiver, for example, had been smoking crack cocaine during her shift (a house cleaner found her pipe). Another was leaving mom alone for hours at a time (a neighbour noticed). Yet another had an unchecked temper, and punched the weekday caregiver in the mouth, knocking out some of her teeth.
My mother wanted to age in identify, and then I helped her to practise this. But it was a horrific experience.
— Jackie Naiditch, Los Angeles
In the past vi years, we've had four parents dice. All required extensive caregiving. Three had a combination of care from united states of america and somewhen nursing homes.
For one, we were able to care for her in her home until the stop by tag-teaming with my husband'southward siblings and hospice. (She was also the just 1 who didn't have dementia, which made her care much easier.)
None had in-dwelling house health care aides because nosotros couldn't afford them. That'south the irony here; fifty-fifty the low wage of $160 per day is way beyond most of us.
— Lauren Holmes lives near Detroit
Anguish and anxiety while caring for the dying
My father had a stroke and I took care of him for the side by side 5 years around the clock. The strange combination of tasks mixed with the abiding uncertainty creates a level of anxiety that is impossible to depict. I have to applaud anyone who does this equally a career.
When you're related to the person involved, it merely sort of happens and you lot never know for how long (and you practice tell yourself, just one more day, calendar week, month, year).
— John Pagan, Highland, Ill.
For only x months, I took intendance of my mother who had dementia. It was not similar taking care of a baby.
Often it was a question of getting my mother up to go to the bathroom, or peradventure getting five hours of sleep and doing three extra hours of laundry the next morning because she wet the bed. She went through an approximately ii-month phase where she got upwardly four times every night.
I idea I would lose my mind from exhaustion. It felt like I had two people in my head all the fourth dimension, as I was thinking and acting for her every need.
I had quit my job to take care of her in the prime number of my working life. I came shut to existence broke. I had no health insurance during this time. I barely got out of the firm. Just getting out to grocery shop was such a relief that I would come close to crying in the store.
— Jessica Newman, Istanbul
I'thousand the caregiver to my 85-year-old mother. Lucky for me, she's merely come to a signal that she needs someone at that place to melt, clean, mow the yard, etc.
However, information technology'southward difficult work. Y'all watch the person you're caring for slowly weaken and become frail. That lone is excruciating — to lookout someone you honey very much slowly grow old and die.
Years ago, when I was 17, my aunt was dying of lung cancer. On her terminal twenty-four hour period, I went into the hospital, with a pack of cigarettes and two bottles of beer.
My aunt was never a large drinker but she liked a cold beer and her L&M smokes.
I went in, sabbatum down and opened her a beer, opened a pack of smokes, lit one for her, and me (I was a smoker so in the belatedly 1970s. Who wasn't?).
We sabbatum there talking nearly life and loss over our cigarettes and beer. I told her how much I loved her and how I will e'er retrieve her and how much death sucked.
She said, "You volition surely abound old and die," but not for a long fourth dimension.
She died with me holding her mitt.
— James Young, Redmond, Wash.
We continued to work, to raise our 2 sons and to endeavour to have our normal family unit routine while going through this difficult journeying of seeing the best parents in the earth slowly die.
I had to resign in 2016 to take care of mom. Lost income was hard, but losing yourself is worse.
I failed the depression screening in February of 2017 and was told by my doctor I needed to commit myself. I couldn't because not 1 family member could commit to taking time off from their jobs to help my mom.
— Martha White, Rogers, Ark .
Using facilities when dwelling house care overwhelms
While keeping mom at home would take been nice, in reality, as her dementia advanced, the benefits for her of being at dwelling decreased as she became less able to recognize her own abode and go out.
We placed her in a nursing facility after a fall, and she really seems to be "living her best life" now, enjoying activities and interacting with the other staff and patients. There are limits to what even the nearly dedicated family unit members can do in a dwelling setting.
— Amy Raffensperger, Elizabethtown, Pa.
I was unable to carry out their last wishes to live out their lives at home. After 18 months, the care team was burning out and I was having to rely on agencies, which charged $fifty per hr.
I moved my parents from their home near Yosemite to a grouping domicile around the corner from my house.
Dad died vii days afterward, and mom 8 months to the day after that.
I bear some guilt for moving them, but remind myself that for their last Christmas, my parents were surrounded past family unit.
— Doug van Aman, Reno, Nev.
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/reader-center/taking-care-of-elderly-relatives.html
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