No Respite?

Probably the hardest thing for Chris and I about taking care of Dad is that we have no respite. The only family we have in the area available to help is Mom, and she is physically unable to take care of Dad. Also, she does not pay any attention to his diabetes, often forgetting to check his blood sugar before feeding him and feeding him items he shouldn’t have.

This makes it difficult for Chris and I to even go out to dinner. We can lay him down while we’re gone, but then we have to get him back up. (We try to do that as few times a day as possible.) Once we put Dad in a nursing home over a weekend so that we could attend an out-of-town funeral. For $135.00 per night, when we got back and picked him up they had not given him one of his insulins because “they thought it was excessive and he didn’t need it.” When we arrived, he was ‘dirty’ and had been laying in bed that way for at least two hours. We could tell this because his urostomy bag was full and it takes that long to fill.

You can hire people to come into your home to watch your family member, but really, who trusts anyone to do that? Even if you put up “nanny cams” to make sure there’s no abuse, I worry too much about theft. That and I just don’t like people in my house when I’m not there – even good friends.

So, what do you do for respite? Do you have family members that help out, or is there a provider that you really trust to stay with your loved one? What kind of negative experiences have you had?

The Purpose

It’s a fact of life that we are all going to get older, and that as we do so, our bodies will slow down and we will start to have health issues.  If we are lucky, these are minor issues and do not affect our overall quality of life.

Unfortunately, many times these health issues are more severe and require expensive medical care.  There is help available out there, but many times the application process is confusing and the eligibility requirements are prohibitive.  It’s an unfortunate fact that if you wait until you need help, it is generally to late to get that help immediately.

The information on this site is based on my experiences and research, and I hope that any readers will share their experiences.  I hope make at least one weekly post on a specific topic – nursing homes, medicaid, home health, caregiving issues, as well as posting about my personal situation.