Almost 2 years ago my mother had 2 heart attacks and both times she ended up in comas. The last heart attack she was without oxygen for a long enough time that when she woke up from the coma she incurred an anoxic brain injury. Now she can’t take care of herself at all. From the hospital the second time she was placed in a care facility. I would go and visit her to check on her and I was trying to team up with most of my 10 siblings to get her endeavors in order because she no longer could. Nobody wanted to help but most of them lived with her. During my visits to the care facility, my mother would be super drugged up to the point she couldn’t remember who came to visit her. She fell on her butt a few times trying to get out of bed. During the times where she was coherent enough to explain things to me, she said they took forever to change her or get her to the bathroom so she tried to do it herself and that’s how she fell. I was greatly concerned I even shared my concerns with my siblings. Okay so, she was in the nursing facility for about 7months. Her mother in law came to visit her one day and saw she wasn’t looking so well, so the facility sent her to the hospital. I am the oldest out of 11 of my mother’s children. I have the most stable and secure living. I have two teens and I have been married for 15 years, together with my husband a total of 17 years. We have not always had the best marriage but we manage to last as long as we have. I didn’t grow up with my mother. I grew up in foster care. Me and 5 of my other siblings. Without me going into full details, I had a really rough childhood. I reunited with my mother when I was 18 years old and everything I was told it would be it wasn’t. Over the years prior to her being sick there has been so many other issues between childhood trauma with my mother and my siblings. I knew when she had her first heart attack that someone was going to have to step up to the plate and be responsible for her. At the time she had two teens who hadn’t yet turned 18 years old and they didn’t have the best life growing up with her to be equipped to go out into the world on their own. She lived off section 8 with no consistent job, no bank account with savings and her medical insurance through the welfare system. So, she gets moved to a temporary rehabilitation center after the last trip to the hospital. She didn’t want to go back to the facility that was covered under her insurance. Time wound down and the social worker at the facility asked me if I had a place for her because her insurance didn’t approve of her staying any longer. During the time of her first heart attack, I had been talking with my husband about her possibly coming to stay with us. He agreed with stipulations. My two siblings could not come. My husband is not fond of my family at all because over the years he has seen how I’ve been treated. It’s been a year since she’s been with us. I turned my living room into her bedroom. I take care of all of her business, take her to doctor’s appointments, I am her care giver and POA. I do everything for her, my 2 teens help me as well. I don’t ask my husband to do anything. My husband does not want her here at all. To the point he’s threatening to leave. He said he wants his family but he doesn’t want her here and he’s tried but he can’t shake how he feels. In my mind, I feel like he might as well leave because if he makes me choose I will hate him and our marriage will never be the same. I talked to him about her coming numerous of times. If he didn’t want her to come he should have told me and not have said yes and a year later put me in this position to have to choose. I don’t hold my past against her. I think about when I get older, if I got sick, I would hope someone wouldn’t hold my mistakes against me and have a heart to care for me if I needed. I have forgiven her and choose to honor her because that’s what the Bible tells me. I don’t want to lose my family for caring for my mom.
Often people / family in your position are motivated by feelings of guilt or a sense of duty, and/or a kind of love, in making the decision to move the loved-one into their home.
Yet, they (YOU) do not realize the immense amount of time, energy, work involved which will deplete you in every way: emotionally, psychologically, physically, and spiritually. And then what will you do?
You need the separation that a nursing home provides. You can help / visit / support her as you set boundaries of your time, which is ESSENTIAL.
Plus she will get 24/7 care, or as close to it as is possible.
Unless you are able to spend $5,000-$7,000 a month for caregivers perhaps around the clock, she will be much more well cared for in a nursing home.
In addition, with her medical history, you will not be able to do what is needed in some situations ... she will be in a 'revolving door' going to the emergency room (and this will exhaust her, too) and after a time, perhaps be in hospice.
You say you have teens. That is your immediate responsibility and enough on your plate. If you bring your mother into the picture, you will definitely NOT be (as) available to them, as they need.
You cannot run on empty ... and believe me, even the best of us knowing how much we can do and can set boundaries, you will not be able to do that if she is there in your home. I am extremely aware of boundary setting and I became exhausted (although I was a fiduciary / handled all finances, too), I was exhausted for two years. And, after 1-1/2 years of grieving, I am STILL exhausted.
Your husband doesn't appear to be a support or as supportive to you as needed - to take on this responsibility. Basically, it will ALL fall on YOU. That will create / build resentment from you, and I would imagine also from your husband and teens.
Consider your needs - and hers - now. Do not concern yourself with the 'what ifs' when you are older and needing care. You may end up with the 'best' person caring for you in a nursing home ... an aide, a nurse, an MD.
Keep focused on current needs.
Gena / Touch Matters
What a lovely woman you come across as being. Your husband and children are surely blessed because of you.
I totally understand how you feel in this situation and the best advice that I can give to you is to pray about it. Take it to the Lord and spread it all out before Him until you have a solid conviction about what to do.
It's not wrong to place your mother in a nursing home or whatnot, as long as she is being properly cared for. Caring for a loved one at home is not the only answer. BTW, I am not suggesting that you place your mother - I'm caring for my mother in my home for the past 7 years and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I can tell you this - whatever The Lord calls you to do this situation, He will equip you to do it. I wish you peace and blessings.