Sad Scared Guilty and up at 3 in the Morning

by Daughter is Trying

My Alzheimer's mother fell and broke her hip and it has been a very difficult time since. I closed out her room at the memory care community and she has been in a skilled nursing facility for almost 2 months now. I tried to get her placed back into a memory care community but was denied because she was uncooperative on the day the nurse assessed her.

I feel so bad every time I visit my dear mom, and she looks so sad stuck in the hospital setting.

How do people get through these awful times? I am just so tired after 7 years of caregiving now.

I wish I could bring her home back to a normal environment, and I feel like a rotten daughter for leaving her in a institution. But the truth is, I am barely keeping it together myself. The toll has been huge on me and I am very weak and fragile now.

It seems so sad and so wrong that her life is reduced to this miserable existence.

I know other people have it worse, and I just cant imagine how they can bear it.

My mom is 85 and I don't know if she will live another 10 years like this. I think she wishes she could disappear.

The guilt I feel for not being able to bring her home is so big. Here I am sleepless again at 3 in the morning. Just a constant cycle of stress.

I feel sad and scared about what the future holds.

Anyone else out there like me?

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Reply to YOU ARE NOT ALONE
by: Daughter is trying

Thank you for commenting. It does help to know others feel the same.

In retrospect, I see I had enough warning that I should have given my mother a wheelchair. Before she broke her hip. I was trying to get her to get stronger by doing as much walking as she could. Wasn't worth it.

So if your elder is falling, I would suggest go ahead with the wheelchair now.

Thank you everybody, we are on the same team. I think I am unlucky in some ways to have my life hijacked by all this, but at least I know I am not selfish.

Cheers

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You Are Not Alone
by: Anonymous

According to a MetLife article, there are an estimated 10 million baby boomers over the age of 50 caring for their elderly parents. If it's any consolation, you are not alone.

I cringed when I read your seven year number. I'm almost at six years, wondering will I be here this time next year, and easily seeing it slip into seven.

It's this endless tunnel that gets more narrow as time goes by because mom can do less and less. I see my mom going the route your mom is taking - the broken hip (she's already fallen twice), the hospital, rehab. I see her small, helpless, and miserable lying in one of those beds just shrinking away from life.

Old age is terrible.

Even if mom was surrounded by all her family members on a Walton Farm setting, she wouldn't be happy because she can't see, she can't carry on a conversation, and she has no energy.
At this point, her day consists of eating, sleeping, and listening to the babble of television all day.

Honestly, sometimes I feel like I'm just here on a death watch. It gets to you. Sad to say, it's hard to be around. And then yes, we feel guilty for thinking that.

It's like they are living two percent out of one hundred and we just desperately want to be living that other ninety-eight percent for them and us, as we see that soon enough our life will be taking the same path. And yet we have to do it twice! Once now with them and then our own! I think it makes us old before our time.

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Please Stop Punishing Yourself
by: Anonymous

Most of us here are in similar situations, more or less. My mother is still at home because I'm not up to fighting her about going to assisted living.

Whenever I've brought it up, a big scene ensues. But truly, she's not capable of living on her own. She has vascular dementia as well, and her memory is as sound as a bag of doorknobs.

I call her three times a day because she doesn't remember to take her medications, which are critical to just keeping her a bit comfortable.

She's 90, still smokes, has COPD/emphysema and as a recent, added bonus, she also developed rheumatoid arthritis. She can't remember much of anything, even moment to moment.

I felt guilty for a long time but that wore off as her whining and demands increased. We can all second-guess ourselves as to whether we could be doing more. We're all doing the best we can with what resources we have, both emotional and tangible.

You are doing a good job. Beating yourself up will only make life and your responsibilities more onerous.

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