If you are elderly and poor, prison is better than a retirement home

[lunatica]

47. I kept my mother at home for 5 years before she died

The short time she was in a retirement home was because it was also a rehabilitation clinic to which her doctors sent her after she nearly died in a hospital. I was there for hours every day doing my best to care for her needs. When she came home she basically took to her bed for 5 years before she died of pancreatic cancer. She suffered from Dementia. In the end she had palliative care at home because of the pancreatic cancer.

I took care of all her physical needs and my son took care of feeding her. She died peacefully at home. I never had any problem with the nurses or doctors, even when she was in the hospital because I took care of her. I spoke for her and I made sure her medication was given to her. The nurses learned very quickly that my 'nursing' skills were actually a help to them. She was one less patient they needed to take time out to feed or change. Nurses are very hard working and they simply can't spend a lot of time with any one patient. So are the people who work in retirement homes. When it came time to change her sheets I knew how to move her so I could make the bed by myself. I bathed her and I cleaned her and made sure she was comfortable and fed. The palliative care people all agreed that my son and I took very good care of her and that we could be trusted to do so.

I agree with some of the posters here that I would rather die alone than go to a retirement home. By the time I get that old, if it takes that long, retirement homes are going to be too full without enough help. I am a boomer and I expect to work for as long as I have to and take care of myself, because I don't want my son to ever have to care for me the way he cared for my mother. It look years of his life. I hope I never need him in that way. If it's possible to make that promise, I've made it.