Me and my wife got together 6 years ago, at some point we got married yada yada shortly after her parents were in a wreck, her mom (now passed) shattered her leg into 50 pieces and her dad snapped his leg and broke part of his neck but apparently not enough to hinder him? Anyway fast forward several years, either one or both of her parents have been living with us and my wife herself is very ill herself and on disability and I do work but my back is messed up and my left shoulder has about 30% use.
Back story out of the way, recently my wife's dad (my father in law) has been having issues getting around. His old house is in ruins literal ruins and so he has been living with us while he recovered and just never left. I don't mind he is good conversation. Lately though he has been falling and doing so more and more often. The issue is this man weighs 450lbs or so and I cannot catch or counter weight him or even pick him, up it's not possible. This time around he went to the hospital and he has been having memory issues from thinking he is on a ship to in school so yeah. He cannot even walk anymore. The hospital is trying to force us to take him home because he does not have insurance, the nursing homes wont take him unless we pay for the full stay up front and hospice was mentioned but he can't afford it.
We are 22 years old and 26 and he went from doing not good to very bad in a literal week. We are not prepared for this have just barely enough money to support us and pay bills. Even if I took him home we couldn't get him inside, we cant lift him up the stairs. The hospital is saying we have to pick him up. We can't get him in our house, he can't go anywhere, he has no insurance and none of us have money to spare and I am doing my best to handle this situation and failing.
My wife is stressing and it's making her flare up almost every day from stress of dealing with the potential loss of her last parent and dealing with the hospital. No one will take him to help him and he isn't old enough for Medicare or anything like that so I don't know what to do. Like most I'm posting here looking for some kind of microscopic thread of hope to grasp for or advice because I don't know...we didn't have time to prepare for this and we are in the times of getting our life started. Before you ask, no his family won't help they are not on good terms. So please if you have any advice on either how to get him to stay in the hospital or how to help getting him into a facility or something.
Here’s the situation, you and your wife are caring people. That is admirable and very kind of you but the bottom line is as you say, you simply can’t afford it.
Be strong and tell the hospital that you cannot afford to care for him so you will not be picking him up.
Have you spoken to his social worker at the hospital? Insist on speaking to the social worker. She can advise in situations such as yours.
I am so sorry you and your wife are dealing with all of this. I wish you well. Take care.
Let us know how you are doing. We are here. Vent anytime.
You need to tell the discharge person he cannot come back to your home. Your wife cannot take care of him and you work fulltime. They need to find a place for him with Medicaid paying the bill. Tell them the State will need to take over his care. You cannot afford to care for him.
Samuel, there are RNs on this forum who will give you the exact words to say to the hospital so that they won't be able to pressure you to take him in. You can't and shouldn't! And don't feel guilty about it. You FIL needs waaaaay more help than you and your wife can give or afford. This is his issue, not yours. You have your immediate family to think of, and you've helped greatly up to this point. Just keep saying no to the hospital (and your FIL) -- he needs to go into a care facility. Also, he is way too young to have memory issues that are age-related unless he has an underlying unrelated ailment (like CTE from concussion from accident? Parkinsons? early onset ALZ? could be many things... )
Did FIL fill out durable PoA paperwork? Do you or wife have any legal control over what happens to him (not that you may want it!) Also, he will need to fill out a HIPAA info release form in order to exchange info with his doc. Again, you/wife may or may not want this responsibility. Good luck!
It's got a whole list of possible resources, people you might contact for help and advice about where to start. The magic number seems to be age 60, but in any case your FIL should be eligible for support because of his disabilities and ill health.
Apart from being eager to discharge him as soon as possible, what has the hospital said about what they've found?
- Your FIL (father-in-law) is morbidly obese, is experiencing lingering effects of an injury, and may have memory issues.
- Your FIL usually lives with you and you have trouble taking care of him because of his weight.
- He is currently in the hospital and you think they are pushing to discharge him because he doesn't have health insurance.
- Your wife is not well and y'all can't afford to pay for his care.
- You can't find a nursing home that will accept him.