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Mally1 awesome your finding you. That’s really all that matters. I never signed up for an alcoholic I’m in 40 yrs, but I’m still hear. I never signed up for his 2 total hip replacements, but I’m hear. Not one thanks. Nope it was my job. And working 56 hrs a week , oh boy I became like a wall, stronger. The weaker he made me feel the stronger I became. I’m 60 and can cut the grass, pressure clean a house, and clean my gutters. Ha who needs a man? Every time he shot me down , I picked me backed up. And yes I pat myself on the back! Dam right! Don’t ever think you need them, they will always disappoint. Depend on your inter strength! That’s what I did, and a few good girlfriends, and a few glasses of wine. Yep I’m proud of me. ! P/S I did a hell of s job, not loosing me! Yuki
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Reply to Yuki500
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Wow Yuki! You did!
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Not able to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I am only child taking care of my 83 year old Dad who has no significant medical problems. I am 61 years old with 2 hip replacements. He refuses to give up his single home OR hire out. I mow his large lawn EVERY 4 days, clean his house, do his laundry, pick up dogs poop and cook. I am recently married. My marriage is suffering, I gave up my career and he EXPECTS not APPRECIATES all that I do. He said it is 'my job' to take care of him. He knows we are making in paycheck to paycheck. I use OUR food money to cook his meals and he never offers me a dime. I never feel happy and I don't see this coming to an end. Thank you for reading my post.
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S
sidelined Aug 2018
Dear Debkor - you have GOT to step back and set boundaries.  Elderly parents, especially those that do not have physical/mental difficulties, are not in a position to boss you around!  I have seen this before, and it is amazing how fast it can spiral out of control.... So for being so frank, but it sounds like he is self centered and thinks everyone owes him. 
You do not need to be picking up his dog's poop!!!  Also, you need to be very very careful as you are newly married - I don't think any spouse would appreciate their hard earned money going to feed someone who can more readily afford it.  I encourage you to re-evaluate your position immediately.. .  Seriously, if dad wants to pitch a fit, or give you the silent treatment, it won't kill him, he will either get over it, or he won't.  Either way, YOU only have one life, just like everyone else - be careful getting sucked in the "rabbit hole" of caring for an ingrate.
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debkor - please try to believe that you do have the right to set boundaries with your father. Just because he expects something, doesn't mean it's your responsibility. Just stop catering to him, starting with the tasks that make you most resentful or that you can least afford to do. You don't have to let him wreck your marriage or your life. Gradually withdraw from the obligations that are most onerous to you. You aren't obligated to offer the solution that works best for him. Without your help, he may be unable to stay in his big house. It's not your fault, or your responsibility.
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Reply to CarlaCB
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Denkor it’s time to set limits on what you can and can’t do! That’s it. If you don’t start taking care of you who will? And there’s nothing wrong with him you stated. Oh hell no. Stop and tell him it’s taking a toll on your health. If he doesn’t listen, then don’t go by there. If the grass doesn’t get cut, oh well. Enough is enough! You won’t do him or your hubby any good back in the hospital! Your at burn out! Talk to hubby do some research and I’m sorry put him in assisted living. That’s it! Sell the house, and get ready for freedom. It’s not his choice anymore! If he could take care of himself, he’d be doing it! Done!
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CarlaCB Nailed it. She’s not being selfish, it’s a matter of survival , it take the advice of suffer , a long stressful life! Yuki
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Above all we have to do what we have to do to survive. Or stop doing what is too much for us.

Some people will suck the very life out of you if you let them. Don't let them. My mother and sis are like that and would have me be their servant. No way!

Deb -set some boundaries to -protect yourself and your marriage. Decide what you want to/can reasonably do and drop the rest. Write it down and tell dad and give him the paper. No way you should be paying for his food or doing his lawn unless he s destitute. Tell him there is a new plan in place. If you decide to keep making food for him, he pays for the food. You could offer to help get meals on wheels, if you want to. You could offer to help him hire a lawn service, if you want to, or if he is competent, he can hire one himself. As yuki says -the lawn doesn't get mowed - oh well! And so on. If he cannot manage in his house, the next step is Assisted Living. That's reality for most of us.

Always keep in mind that you and your hubs and marriage come before your dad. He sounds like a real self-centred tyrant. Don't let him run the show. You take charge of your time, your money, your resources. (((((((hugs))))))
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the decline in memory that causes issues. It's almost like the decline creates it's own reality. He forgets that he ate, therefore he wants something else. then we give it to him. He then complains about it ruining his dinner or that he is gaining weight. It's almost like you are fighting a losing battle no matter what. What I have the most frustration is the affect of the condition on everyone else in my home because he gets so adamant that he is right and everyone is wrong. The simplest to the most complex is a problem with this disease. What or when to Eat vs did I pay a bill or who am I making my beneficiaries or whether or not I need care. Is this person in front of me related to me? They seem nice. (all of this is frustrating).
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Muddie38
I share your feelings. Going through the same thing with my mom. She does not want to eat my supper. I just don't want to get into the nitty gritty. I am looking into taking her to a senior center for people with dementia from 8:00am to 2:30pm. Also planning a vacation because I will really need it. It is very exhausting. Take care of yourself and your family.
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Reply to Celmira9
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My life as I once knew it is over.
The damage from caregiving, physical and emotional, seems permanent.
And I hate myself for resenting caregiving so much.
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Reply to Dana235
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Dana, you said the damage "seems" permanent; are there any changes you can make this week that would make things different for YOU? If you let the resentment get to you, how will you go on?
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((((Dana))))) You are not alone in hating caregiving.

Anything really traumatic is permanent to a degree. My youngest son was killed at age 23. I will never get over that, but I do have a life anyway. Do I miss him? All the time! I was brought up by a mother with mental illness - Borderline Personality Disorder. Has that affected me permanently and negatively? You better believe it has. But, I still have a life. I am POA and distant caregiver to my mother, who caused me many problems. Do I like it? Not at all, but I still choose to have a life apart from caregiving. So can you.

Why hate yourself for resenting caregiving so much?

Yes, your life as you knew it is over. The life I knew before my son was killed is over. Lives can be rebuilt into something worthwhile.

I like mally's question. Is there one thing you can do this week to make life better for you? That is how lives are rebuilt. One step at a time.
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Debkor, set your boundaries and reclaim your life. You're prolonging the inevitable if you fill the gap for your stubborn father. So let him decide for himself that he won't move and he won't hire help. That doesn't make you the picker-upper. If you have to, feign an injury or illness. I'm serious. That way he can't be mad at you, but you simply cannot do the work. You're only prolonging the inevitable that he will have to make changes, and you're doing so at great cost to yourself. Lose-lose situation.
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Reply to AliBoBali
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Dana, I'm no longer a caregiver, but due to all the intensity of caregiving life and all the negative emotions, I knew that my life would be a situation of "Before and After Caregiving." I knew my life would be greatly changed, and it is, and I thought it would be forever worse than before. But so far, my After is turning out to be better than I expected, so don't sell yourself short. Can you do some things to start reclaiming your life now, as an active caregiver?
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Reply to AliBoBali
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Dana, life is over if you choose that. I choose  not to let it get to me. Listen the last 2 yrs where hell on me. But after seeing the great changes in my DH, and knowing his life would forever be changed by his 2 total hip replacements , I see the light. He’s finally making changes in his diet, he’s not drinking anymore, he’s up and around, and seeing he’s trying makes all the difference. With all he’s been though, I’m getting used to the life changes. And it made me stronger. After first I was a mess, I put all this pressure on myself that everything had to be perfect, NO it doesn’t! You do what you can, tomorrow is another day. I no longer work till I drop getting him everything, now he see’s that I was a big mess trying to do everything. And he doesn’t get on me when I can’t do it all. Stop putting all that pressure on yourself, stop breath, and take a step backwards, and say tomorrow is another day. Go do something for yourself, be it a bubble bath, a pedicure, or just going to a movie, call up some girls-friends,make a date, or just get out of house. Make those plans, for you! Your going to be alright. We’ve all been there, That’s why we vent hear. We’ve all hit that caregiver wall! Stop your going to be alright! Yuki
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Aetain, I absolutely hate when people compare an Alzheimer's/dementia patient/parent to a child. It is not and never will be the same. A child can improve and learn new things and become less dependent. There is hope. With a dementia patient, there is only tolerance. You have to learn to tell half truths or white lies almost everyday because the truths will create an argument or sadness. It will not get any better just worse. Your child will understand and appreciate that you doing things to help them, your child will want to do things to make their life better and will at some point trust that you are doing what is best for them.
An Elderly person most likely won't. They will see you as their child and resist you telling them what or how to do something. They will say that they have been doing things for x amount of years and even go there about how they did stuff before you were born. Sometimes they actually succeed in doing stuff but as the disease progress you have to watch them get more confused about how or why they are doing. You step in and try to help and they resist. A child can or will in most cases go to school and has an experience to share, an elderly parent may not have anything to do or want to go anywhere and will instead share the exact same thing that they shared 5 minutes ago. Children learn and adapt. Elderly dementia can't or won't.
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Reply to muddie38
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Thank you for being honest. I totally understand where you’re coming from. I’ve been taking care of my mother with cancer for five years. The thing I hate most about caregiving, is that she puts meaning on every single aspect of caregiving. If I visit her two hours instead of five hours, then I get a clear message from her that I’ve been a disappointment. More is never enough, because she will not face dying alone. She communicates in a way that makes me think she has a secret wish that we would all die with her. I end up only talking about her ailments and how hard her day has been, rather than telling her how great mine has been. I end up feeling guilty that I’ve had a great day. I’ve found it helpful to limit my time with her and to tell her ahead of time that my time is limited.
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I have my own family whom I can't spend any holidays with. I honestly do feel like a servant, maid, hired help and wait on her family had and foot. Then I get the invitation that I can join them at the dinner table. No thanks....Not to mention I will set a time for dinner and everyone has their own agenda coming whenever they please. Or they will say they are bringing certain dishes and come with nothing. The best one was the son was going to bring a deli plate for sandwiches....NOTHING. I had to fly to the store and put one together. They can be very rude and inconsiderate.
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At the moment, it’s answering the phone calls in the evening and trying to reassure her, when she has no logical thought processes. Tonight she decided there was a choir singing outside her house, a boy from the choir was hiding in her attic and his parents were at the door shouting for her to open the door. Obviously I can’t reason with her but she said she wouldn’t go to bed until they had all gone away. It’s going to be a long night!
I think we are heading rapidly towards her needing to go into a care home, but during the day, when she’s ‘reasonably’ lucid, she says she’s not ready for that.
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Reply to AngelaBr
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Angela, that's called " sundowning". Is she on any meds for anxiety and agitation?

I'd say she's well past the stage where she can live alone without help.

Talk to her doctor about the sundowning.
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Reply to BarbBrooklyn
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Absolutely understand things discussed here. Lost days/weeks/months/years. Ours is the first generation to handle this in such complicated extremes. Ask your legislators to establish a mandate for elders to have access to simple nursing home care, funded in the same way that the Head Start programs are mandated for children. Demand that Certificates of Need for opening medical facilities be firstly approved for simple nursing homes -- and not some other "trendy" medical facility.
I know how long the wait is and how devastating that "money talks" is the only "quick-pass" entry folks can get. And, that's it's heartbreaking that your elder would have to sustain a devastating illness or injury to be considered acceptable for long-term care. Tell your legislators this is just the beginning of a need for proper elder care. Care of those currently 80 yrs old and older has been a hard enough lesson. The Boomer Generation is coming next, and I'm sure most of you will agree that our health and resources have been greatly depleted by our taking care of our elders. We are good people and we've tried, but we've found that elder care has gone on for many more years than we ever expected. It's definitely not like child care when we had the youthful energy to care for a person gaining ability and the tasks got easier. Don't you all think that we should be allowed to "retire" after we've reached 65 years old? Legislators, State Senior Services, and Medicare should acknowledge this.
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Hi BarbBrooklyn, it is really concerning, so I’m trying to get as much in place as possible. Social work have been in touch in the last few days because she left the house at midnight in her pyjamas because she thought she had a burglar. Thankfully she managed to wake a neighbour who called the police and brought her home. Things have been a lot worse since she was in hospital in December.
She has three carer visits a day, so social work have arranged for the third one to be later, to try and settle her, GP has prescribed diazepam and I’m speaking to her geriatric psychiatrist tomorrow to see what other meds we can try. Also had antibiotics incase it’s an infection but they made no difference.
A door sensor has been added to her community alarm, so they phone me if the alarm is triggered after 9:30pm.
It’s a really worrying time, when I visited at lunchtime today she was hallucinating, telling me there were people outside her house shouting out my phone number.
It’s not easy being an only child, and I feel frustrated (although I do my best not to show it) but I really feel for her as her distress must be so disturbing.
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Reply to AngelaBr
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Dear, Onlyoneholly, what you say is spot on. But with the knew tax bill, things are only going to get worse for the boomers. Basically if you have assets you must sell everything before your going to put them in a nursing home, because Medicare doesn’t pay for anything. It’s called the claw back rule. Medicaid is the one that pays. So you have to be dead broke to afford nursing homes. This rule should be changed. Another rule is people vote with there hearts, and need to look down the road to see the effects of there vote. Example 1) Trump was going to make America great. Well with the new tax law, the 1% will be great, the other 99% will be dirt poor. What do I mean? It’s called pay as you go. Or pay go. Please look this law up. It was put into place in 2010. As we add to our debt, automatic cuts come to social security & Medicare. So we are talking Defunding of the earned benefits. They will steal our safety nets, yes steal! How we vote has a lot to do with how we boomers will age. So I do agree with you, if your taking care of a senior or will check out these laws. In 2010 John Banner  (house majority leader) R made sure that little clause was put in at the time, because we had just added a stimulus to our economy , pay go was to stop adding to the debt. President Obama never thought it would be used, but come 2019, or 2018 in October the debt ceiling will be raised these cuts will be automatic they will pull from Medicare, Medicaid,and Social Security . Again how we vote has everything to do with how we will be cared for.Yuki
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For me, it is the inability to fix the situation. By nature and profession, I have always been a person who wants to make things right. Seeing the most important person in my life going through a downward spiral with no control to stop it is the worst feeling. No matter how much I try to give to help, it will never be enough for my ailing, soon to be 92 year old, mother.
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So True; all about them. Just said it to myself while trying to keep up with my homebased position. "Linda can you come here a minute?" It's never a surprise because she's in the bathroom calling to come to wipe her!
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sidelined Aug 2018
Oh God....  I dread that moment.
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Another one! My ear is itching! Don't stop there. My lip is itching and it ain't the lips on her mouth... My escape is to watch mindless sitcoms; live in my head and wish for alternate ways of living. Read "Roz Chast's book recently and realized it could be worse. Her book is Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?". It will help to make it another month.
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When she cries that she’s sorry for being so difficult or declares her love. It always follows her comments about wishing she were dead, “oh lord! Please take me now!”, or saying I enjoy hurting her or that I’m mean. She’s not sorry. She’s working me and/or anyone who’s around. Instead of trying to help herself or even give me insight on what’s wrong with her she wants to belabor how bad she hurts and that she can’t possibly move in her own. OR it might be when she refuses to let me help her because she doesn’t want to hurt me. She would rather wallow in her own piss.
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Right now, the horrific downs. This past Thursday was one of Mom's best days, after months of bad/good days with the bad outnumbering the good. She ate hearty and us three girls and Mom played the card game Rummy, and we all laughed a lot. Mom even came in second place (with Sister 1's help)! At 8 p.m., we put her to bed.

Now, 44 hours later, Saturday, she's been solid in bed practically asleep. Nothing to eat and about total of 1/2 cup of fluid. We've started her on Ativan to calm the jerking so bad she was sweating and a hazard to herself, almost like constant seizing or horrific TIAs. She groaned and grimaced in pain so she's now on morphine too.

I don't know if she'll have another good day.
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Loss of my life. My husband had two strokes. He uses a walker and a wheelchair now. He's 12 years older than me. I take care of him at home. I thought he should go into assisted living for awhile.. my kids wouldn't hear of it. It has damaged relationships with my kids (grown) it's MY job. His last stroke was 2 1/2 months ago that left him in a wheelchair. Since then we've been to 48 appointments with various drs and therapy.. and he keeps making more.
The resentment I feel is tough to handle. I will give up years of my life that he just got to enjoy of his. I just want to run away. He is the center of the universe now and seems to be loving it. He's become a child that needs constant attention. We're no longer husband and wife. There is not one thing he can do for me now.
I also have a son who was severely disabled just last year and have had to put hubby first.. that I really resent.
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Reply to CinD56
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---No privacy
---the guilt that even when I have done all I can do, feels like I could have done more.
---Knowing one day she won't be here, and how I will regret any ill feelings I have now, and miss her terribly.

I do love her dearly.
May God bless all of you caregivers past/present/future.
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