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Please note that 1 out of every 3 Caregiver dies leaving behind the love one they were caring. Those are not good odds.

Also a lot depends on the grown child's age and health. If you look at continuing care facilities, majority of the workers are quite young. There is a good reason for that. Plus the workers get to go home, enjoy their family, and get a good night sleep to awake fresh in the morning.

There are a lot of wonderful retirement and continuing care facilities. Let the parent enjoy being around people of their own age group. That way the grown children could be spending quality time with the parent, instead of being too exhausted to enjoy being around them.

One time I asked my parents that when the time came that they needed a Caregiver and an agency sent over a person who doesn't know CPR, doesn't know how to read blood pressure, doesn't know how to listen to one's heart, who dislikes cooking, is scared silly when driving, and is pushing 70 years old, would you accept this person as your Caregiver.... my parents said of course not.... well, that person would have been me. Oh.
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Lisabeth, in PRINCIPLE I have to agree with most of what you said, because that was my ideal too; I picked a home that would be accessible to my parents if they ever needed to move in with us. In reality, we also ended up with facility care when the limited supports my mom would accept in-home were no longer enough, and I chose not to leave the rest of my family and colleagues to move to Pgh PA when she then refused to consider moving, or even letting my dad move...and he really wanted to, but she was POA at the time. Its not so much paying them back for having taken care of you, because that's a thing that was meant to be paid forward. And of course, using a facility can't mean dumping and failing to supervise and be as involved in their care as humanly possible. Bear this in mind too: Some people have a good positive experience with caring for parents - not always easy, but overall the right thing and inherently do-able - but many of us who don't end up posting here about it.
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Sorry if I send the wrong idea, I did not know how to do CPR, or how to be a nurse, but believe me you learn how to understand the little changes in their lives. I did not ask to do it but here in Mexico City and everywhere else is difficult to trust leaving your parent with strangers, specially if they are not used to it, because that would end their lives faster. Now if you have a family I would understand, I don´t have a family to take care of, and my brothers are in US and cannot be here with my mom helping me.
I learned since I was very young that families should be together no matter what, in illness and in health because my mom did it with her mom, although she had the help of her brothers, but that was how I was raised. I love my mom, I wish I could do different but I can´t. I put myself in my mom´s shoes and I would not like if my children thought I was a problem and had to be sent away to a nursing home.
But everyone has different ways of thinking and I respect them.
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My father passed away today, aged 71. He had rallied marvellously from the sepsis and multi-organ failure, and though weak was doing very well, sitting up reading the newspaper and trying to swing it so we'd bring him nice things to eat (he was on a feeding tube and was allowed water only!). He deteriorated rapidly today (he was bright as a button last night) and thankfully held on until my sibling showed up so that we and our mum were with him when he died. It was very quick, and I have to say for all my bellyaching about coming home I am so glad I was able to spend his last few weeks with him.

There would never have been enough time to say all we needed to say, but these weeks helped immensely. Where we go from here I don't know, except that it's going to be one day at a time.
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Glasker, my condolences at the passing of your Dad.
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Oh Lisabeth, you can't just LEAVE family with strangers if you use a facility, whether in the US or Mexico I would think- though maybe Mexico is different. Here, you would not even consider a facility that did not want you around and involved. I eventually brought Mom to a facility where I could visit daily and then later when there was not much more we could do and she moved to hospice, I was able to stay almost all the time with her when I did not have to work and even sleep over (though she found that annoying when she knew about it.) I think that being able to care for parents in their own home or yours would be a great blessing and a gift if it is possible and reasonable and I am glad you have that blessing! I wished for it and even tried to plan for it myself for mine, but it would not have worked out. I had plans to move my dad after my mom clearly could not be POA any more and resigned that, so it would have been up to me, finally (he had wanted to move, she had said NO, had him placed, and did not even want to be around him after a while...before that I would have felt like I was breaking them up if we had snuck around and moved just dad. I fantasized about the things we would have enjoyed here in Little Rock and maybe the railroad museum in Pine Bluff that he only got to see once when they had visited when the kids/grandkids were little but had really loved. I was going to use my Spring Break off-service vacation to actually make the move, get the medical van from Eastern Royal but that February was when he got his last episode of pneumonia and passed on. I drove all night in the snow after getting someone to take over for me at the hospital...

My mom used to commute and give care for my grandmother in her (GMs) home and my great-grandmother in a facility - she was too immobile, cranky, and impaired after a stroke to be managed at home. GM was depressed but could physically manage in a wheelchair after she lost her legs. Both were mostly sad times but there were some good visits too. But, the relationships had not really been close and it was more out of duty on my mom's part.

My other issue besides not moving my family was having to be the one to work and support the family - hubby took early retirement, with relatively few years of paying into SSI, and a business failure...and we would not have managed on his 700 a month, nor did he think he could physically provide the care even with lift equipment, etc. Mom was pretty total care including bathing and bathroom; she could feed herself with set up and put on her wig with help and that was it.
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Glasker, so sorry about your Father's passing. Am glad you were there.
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Glasker, I am glad that you were there with your father, too. You were a wonderful son to the end. I know your mother is also glad that you are with her. Hugs to you during this difficult time.
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Glasker, I'm so sorry for your loss. Be comforted by your memories, especially those of the past few weeks.
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Glasker, I am sorry to hear that, I did not have your problem since my dad had passed away before my mom got incapacitated. my brothers are both in the States and cannot come to help me. I also have money problems since we have almost exhausted all our emergency money and mostly live from the VA´s pension my mother got from my father who was a veteran. We just need to make the best or it and hope that one day we just do not have to worry about anything. Wishing the best of luck to you and your family
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