Dad is 90. In 3 years has gone from living happily with his girlfriend of 15 years, playing golf, driving etc to being in a nursing home, on a constant rollercoaster of chest infections and delerium on top of dementia, near blindness, incontinence and very limited mobility. But still bright spots of lunches and coffees and chats, finding stuff out about him and feeling like it was/?is all worth it.
The decline started when he fell and broke his hip in 2017 and the day after his Partner was diagnosed with terminal illness and died within months. I miss her so much too.
Dad couldn’t go back to their home after his hip repair due to her illness and so we emptied out our front room and he lived with us for 6 months.
It was a struggle - delerium pneumonia incontinence, unable to be left alone for the first few months, broken nights etc. He accepted Carers for his morning wash ( my chance to leave house for 30-45 mins) but otherwise we were both housebound. If I left him I could not trust him not to try and wobble into the garden or go to loo on his own. I had 3 of my teenagers still at home as well and had to stop my work (self employed).
Finally got him rehabbed enough and well enough to move him into sheltered housing with a care package. But he kept sacking off the Carers because he ‘didn’t need them’. But relied on me to go daily to help ... I couldn’t and wouldn’t turn my back on him. He’s been a great dad and most of the time just a couple of hours of my time every day enabled him to enjoy his ‘independence’.
But he kept getting chest infections ( has COPD) with inevitable delerium - long periods of me getting phone calls at 2,3,4am, finding him with no bottoms on drinking his tea out of the milk jug. I’d get the GP out ( have to queue outside the surgery from 0730 to 0830 as can’t get through on phone) and the steroids would lift his delerium so he was then safe to leave ... but he would need nebulisers 4 times a day and the district nurses would only come once and the Carers ( if he had them) Wouldn’t administer them. So 3 visits per day from me during each crisis.
Crunch point was finding him on the floor having fallen 12 hours before - wouldn’t wear a falls bracelet as ‘they are for old people’
Another rehab period in hospital and discharged with a care package in place ... heart in my mouth all the time as he still had some delerium and was alone in flat overnight. I caught him leaving the flat in his pyjamas and said that’s it, full time Carers or care home.
He’s now in a nursing home. Dementia more advanced and still on the rollercoaster of frequent infections and delerium when he doesn’t know where he is, why he should take his meds, etc and I’m often the only person who can get him to so cooperate when he’s like that. The care home is 5 mins up the road. We still have nice chats when he is well and he’s still ‘Dad’.
The love I feel for him when I button up his cardigan and tuck his hanky up his sleeve is an echo of caring for my dc when they were little.
As is the bone crushing weight of anxiety that is always there. What’s going to happen today? Another fall? Another hospital admission? A nice normal visit?
I just don’t know how to get off this rollercoaster. He’s my Dad and I love him and want to do my best ... but my own life is on hold.
Feel so guilty for wondering how much longer this will go on for. Terrified he’ll die - terrified he never will.
Sorry that was long but cathartic - can’t talk to anyone IRL as people don’t understand unless they’ve lived it. So easy to say just step back. But I can’t.