Sorry this got longer than I expected, it’s early Sunday morning and stuff just started to flow:
Hey everyone, I’d like to say thanks for all the positive feedback, the well wishes, prayers and comments. As I said in the original message I didn’t want it to come off as a “woe is me” situation even though it is difficult....more difficult than I had expected. One of the hardest things are the “little white lies” we need to feed him regarding his family and many other things. I really need to get to confession soon.
Just to touch on a few of the responses you guys gave, it is very tough on Barbara. I feel bad when he doesn’t know who I am and I’ve know him for 26 years, Barb and I are married 25 now so I can only imagine how it feels to not have your own father know who you are especially after the very close relationship those two had.
Before her mom passed I had a feeling we would end up with Pop so I was semi prepared for that and after her mother’s funeral it was evident her siblings were not going to step up and one of Barbara’s sisters lives 10 minutes from us. Her 2 other siblings live in Virginia, her oldest sister and her brother.
Barbara’s oldest sister lost her 18 year old daughter in a car accident 10 months before her mother passed and offered to move back here but we couldn’t let her do that and take on this so soon after the death of her daughter while her other daughter was pregnant with her 2nd child. We wanted her to be able to enjoy being grandma and get her life together again. This sister has been the only one to check in on a “frequent “ basis. Barbara’s brother basically came out and said “sorry I can’t help” and the sister who lives 10 minutes away from us doesn’t offer any kind of help. The man is basically a forgotten person. After years of working his ass off to support his family and make sure the kids were well cared for, went to good private schools, had a good home to live in and food on the table every night there is no sense of respect or responsibility from them and no moral support or comfort for Barbara.
As for his medication we has him on an antipsychotic but that seemed to make things worse. One night he thought our house was a military base and he had to get behind our couch, in that small little opening to build bombs to blow up women. He had pinned Barbara up against the front door while she was blocking it so he couldn’t leave but she handled it beautifully. This episode went on for over an hour.
We’re trying to keep from having him too doped up, so he’s not a walking zombie even though his personality now can be very abrasive. There seems to be a very fine line there. He also has congestive heart disease and needs at least 6 stents for blockages 70-90% closed and has a valve that only opens about 20%.
We’ve looked into several Memory Care facilities but all of them within a 1 hour drive are in the $10k - $12k per month and that doesn’t include “everything”, there’s a lot of extras you learn about especially in the personal care aspect.
In October we sold his house so to those of you going through that I understand completely. We bit the bullet and had a company come in 5 times and do the clean out. We needed the house sold. We did get a better than we expected result in the final selling price but it’s still not enough to keep him in care facility longer than 2 years and he does have a decent pension and SSI and still would not be able to afford to be in a care facility. He would have to be completely destitute for help from Medicare and that takes almost 2 years to kick in. We’ve decided to keep Pop here until he gets to a point when we have no other choice but to relocate him.
With us he’s with family. He gets great meals and we make sure we communicate with him as much as possible. We shower him and keep him shaved. His clothes are washed and he has clean clothes every day and every night for bed.
One thing I really want to say, if anyone makes it this far, please keep posting everything. I do come into the website when I can and I read as much as I can. I love the ride reports and all the great pictures. The political back and forth banter is fun to go through as well as reading about what’s going on with everyone else is good too.
Live the good life people and remember do the right thing in life and nobody ever said doing the right thing was easy.
Cheers
