Living in own home

And the needle returns to the start of the song thread…

Nicer for whom and how much should other people sacrifice and for how long in order for that to happen?

That sounds horrendous, so much nicer to be in your own home.

I don't think any care home forces you into jollity - or eating in the dining room - there's always the option to have your meals in your own room if you don't want to mix with others. One person on this board has commented eating in the dining room was compulsory at their home. And “encouragement” is common

I am that poor bugger. But I can see it from my mums side too. It’s one of the reasons it is such a tough situation.

Fair enough its not your idea of a great time, but the alternative is expecting your spouse, children, grandchildren to make huge efforts to keep an elderly person at home.
Years ago you got old, then ill then you died. Now we can live on in poor health for decades, with some poor bugger doing the donkey work just so granny can have an illusion of independence.
its not something i want my kids doing for me.

I think once someone's at the stage when they're dependent on a carer's timings for meals or the choice from Wiltshire Farm Foods the menu at a care home becomes much more enticing! The elderly people I shopped for in one of the lockdowns had got beyond food prep so it was all steam bags of veg, white bread and ready meals. Same with gardens - no matter how much they loved it, once they're at the point when it becomes overwhelming to maintain it, or organise someone else to, that's when a care home with a lovely garden maintained for you becomes
a great prospect.

Certainly the one we used got interested residents into potting on seedlings type activities. I don't think anyone was forced to eat with someone they didn't want to - they seemed to be grouped into friendship groups. Some of this is finding the right home - my relative would have loathed Bingo or watching Strictly, for instance, but loved the daily discussion on the newspapers, the book group, the weekly visit and service from the vicar and a local sixth former who popped in to play the piano.

But some of that is also about having the money and the time in advance to find the home that's right for you and to be able to pay for it. Too often it becomes an emergency decision and wherever there's space.

I don't think any care home forces you into jollity - or eating in the dining room - there's always the option to have your meals in your own room if you don't want to mix with others.
My MIL went into a care home after she'd had a stroke and couldn't get to the loo on her own any more (she was 97). She'd had care with housework, meals delivered etc. for years. She (and ourselves) hoped she'd improve enough to go back home but she never regained decent mobility despite physio. With hindsight, perhaps if we'd thought to arrange intensive private physio she might have improved a bit more; however with her in the care home the relief from stress for her safety and from time having to travel over an hour each way to sort out niggling problems at her house was tremendous.
The home had a nice big garden and good lounge areas. It had been purpose built as a retirement home for nurses but is now run by a charity. What would have made it perfect would have been a swimming pool. She'd have been able to exercise without her mobility being such a handicap.
She used to keep an eye on the carers and give them marks out of 10 (the agency staff called in could be so-so) and complain forcefully if she thought they weren't up to standard. She was very sharp up to the end at 101 - no dementia.

@SeriouslyAgain I didn't get round to doing the diarising... Dad was just too tired. But sadly I've put off my lessons/exams for the next couple of weeks until January which gives me more breathing space to get Dad sorted. Will be working through his specialists one by one and calling them to make sure I am the main contact now re appointments.

I just know that seeing my Dad how he is, the pain and discomfort, the lack of mobility, and the effort that even sitting down or getting up requires, makes me hope I do not reach that age!

Today we spent about 40 minutes with one of the many consultants he sees, and I have to say the man had the patience of a saint. He listened to my Dad talk about many unrelated ailments and woes, and kept trying to steer Dad back to find out what the actual issue we need to resolve is.

I'm learning that my Dad will only do something if a consultant suggests it. Eg, he is thirsty and has dry lips at night. I've suggested drinking more during the day (he has less than 5 glasses of water), and turning down the heating slightly (it's like a sauna). When I say these ideas, he says we need to wait a few days until we are at the appointment. The consultant suggested both these things (as I'm sure would any of you lot reading this), and my Dad agreed instantly to do both.

I'm feeling like if he took me up on some of my ideas, we could save a lot of trips to the various specialists. Clearly I'm no doctor, but some of it is surely common sense?!

Forced jollity and having to share a dining table with someone I didn't want to be with would be high on my list of things I didn't like

me too, now. It was great at 18 when I was a student in Halls of Residence, but I do value my own space very much in my middle age!

I think it’s a gradual journey to that loss of autonomy though Mere - with carers visiting 4x a day, mum already eats to their schedule not her own. I'm sure you're right @funnelfan That's why my bedbound father is actually content "I'm warm, I'm fed, I'm comfortable - I'm happy" whereas my 80 year old DH says "don't ever put me in here, I'd rather be dead".

Forced jollity and having to share a dining table with someone I didn't want to be with would be high on my list of things I didn't like.

I think it’s a gradual journey to that loss of autonomy though Mere - with carers visiting 4x a day, mum already eats to their schedule not her own. She eats what I buy her, which hopefully is what she likes as I try to buy things she’s expressed pleasure at eating in the past. She’s lost interest in the house, the contents and garden. It’s not such a big step for her at this stage of her life compared to how it would have been a few years ago.

i think for my mum it’s still the privacy that’s driving her decision, and things will have to get quite bad before that would be overcome. When she was in rehabilitation care she shared a room, and also had other patients wandering into the room. It was more hospital than care home, but it put her right off, even though she improved immensely while she was there. She’s always been a bit of a loner and happy with her own company so I think the idea of potential forced jollity and socialisation is not an attractive idea at all to her. I can’t say I blame her on that point.

Understand completely! I was so glad my house has stairs both back and front. Dad is trying so hard not to be a nuisance, but we’d drive each other mad within a day

What is the big concern with going into a care home? You can’t eat what you want, when you want. You can’t get up when you want, go to sleep when you want, get up in the middle of the night if you want. Most of your belongings will be got rid of. You lose the house you love, the garden you love. People patronise you. Things need to have got to a pretty pass at home before a care home seems attractive. Yes, I’ll end up there eventually, but I view it with as much enthusiasm as the knee op and cataract ops that I will also need.

Seriously, that's a very interesting point about it being so new in our human evolution. It's like the fact that we now have enough food and no longer have to work hard to get it - we're biologically evolved for one life and we're living very different ones. Add to our longer lifespans, the fact that we don't now tend to live in multi-generational households.

And I totally concur about the guilt and justifications. One of my closest friends has both a high-powered job and her elderly mother living with her. I'm always justifying to myself the fact that my mother couldn't cope with the many, many stairs in our house, but you could argue that we could move to a totally different sort of house but which would probably involve having to move areas, move the kids from their schools etc, etc.

But mostly, I don't want my mother living with us and I don't want to look after her. And now that her dementia is progressing at pace, I don't know that I could even if I wanted to.

Agree with all @EmotionalBlackmail says above - my relative had a new lease of life for a good 3-4 years before their health started to deteriorate further. Amazing the difference eating, drinking, company and actually taking your medicines makes! All things they forgot or were convinced they’d done but hadn’t when at home on their own.
They had their own mini bus, and had trips out to all sorts of places. They used to say it was like being back at boarding school!

I also agree with both of you. My Dad is now at home, with his carer. All his recent arrangements have been cancelled. If he was in a home (& he could afford a fairly nice one I suspect), then I actually think on his 'good days' he would quite enjoy it.

He is an intelligent man, and although it is very early days as we only lost my Mum earlier this year, he was in the past a real ladies' man, and I think he would enjoy the chat and company in a home. He has a lot of stories to tell and is an interesting man.

I think he, understandably, views it as a total loss of independence and also privacy. I guess it is easy for us to say that these places can be very nice, supportive, and give them some very enjoyable time, but if I think about myself, living at home, alone, peace and quiet, and peaceful mealtimes etc, vs being somewhere with noises, and strange people constantly, I can understand. Perhaps I need to start getting my head around it now!

I agree Emotional, there's so much unnecessary stigma around care homes. Even the way people talk about children 'putting' their parents in a home as if they have no agency of their own. I think my mother will go into a home eventually and it will be a relief, but for the moment things are working, she still has lots of friends loyally visiting and it's only recently that my father died.

She lives in a lovely family house that should be filled with people rather than an immobile octogenarian and a carer.

What is the big concern with going into a care home? They're [mostly] not bad places and it removes a whole load of this stress.

One of mine chose to move into a residential one before needing nursing care - she'd got frail, was finding it difficult to manage at home and was very frightened about security, bulbs going, house maintenance, shopping etc. She'd got to the stage of getting freezer meals delivered to microwave and couldn't really go out on her own so it wasn't like she was getting much enjoyment from being at home.

The home she chose was amazing and she got several years of really enjoyable living there before her condition deteriorated. They had lovely food, obviously all maintenance and shopping taken care of. Hairdresser visited weekly. People to take them to appointments (charged for). Activities every day which she enjoyed whereas she'd got very isolated at home.

that sounds a good thread too... I'm guessing with elderly parents we must be similar in age.

I use (& v happy with) a Charlotte tilbury foundation, also the erborian creams, and a foundation I found online in lockdown by il makiage.

I need to broach the subject today of asking Dad what appointments are coming up / need to be made in order that I can liaise with consultant secretaries etc to make appointments to suit my diary too! x