Quote:
Originally Posted by DapperButch
>Snip<
I don't expect that my mother will ever live with me though. She has a large long term care insurance plan which gives the option for people to come to her house instead of her moving into a facility. She can use her monthly allotted amount however she would like. We hope that unless she has cognitive difficulties that she would be able to stay there until the end.
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You touched on something important Dapper.
Money.
If our parents or ourselves were/are able to save/invest/have long-term care insurance; it is much, much easier to ensure needed care, than if we do not.
My parents are very well-off. They both had great jobs and my father invested and saved.
They are now in a very nice assisted living facility. My dad is now 92. He is cognitively intact but never recovered from a hip fracture from about 4 years ago. Most elderly people do not survive a year after one, so he is fortunate in that regard.
Due to their money, he receives the highest level of care for all of his needs. This ensures he does not require a higher level of care such as a nursing home. I do not believe he would survive that mentally and would give up.
My mom is 89. She is in better physical shape and requires a lower level of assistance but they live together in the same sort of apartment. All their meals, nursing care, doctors, etc. are taken care of.
As I am the black sheep of the family and am periodically "kicked out" of the family, though I am a nurse, my father chose my oldest brother as the one to make all of their healthcare decisions and my youngest brother, the total spendthrift, to be the executor of the estate.
It is what it is and though you can sense bitterness on my end, I am glad that they have money for good care.
The alternative is to do what many of you are doing: moving or considering moving parents into your home to provide the care that they need.
Even if my parents were speaking to me, I do not know that I could do it. My parents were/are severely critical of me and abusive physically and emotionally until the day I moved out on my 18th birthday. Coming out as a lesbian put the icing on that cake for me.
This brings me to myself. I fear for my own aging and health. I love my girlfriend dearly but she is lacking in the empathy gene and does not suffer illness or weakness very well.
I had health problems by the time I could afford to purchase long-term care insurance and a private disability plan. Ergo, I will not have that as my parents do.
My recent illness, including spending 5 weeks in the hospital, almost 3 weeks of 3 times per day IV antibiotics through a PICC line from home health RN's (I refused 3 weeks of a SNF for fear of greater expense and catching some other infection) brought all of it into sharp focus for me.
According to AARP: The aging population is growing, and so is the number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) adults who are moving into their later years. In the next several decades, LGBT adults age 65 and above is expected to double, reaching more than 3 million by 2030.
We face lack of family support, lack of resources, lack of money, fear of hostility by caregivers due to being LGBTQ, among other issues.
I guess I am sharing this because many of you are in your 20's, 30's, 40's. I encourage you to do what you can to plan for your later years. It is not just our families that we have to consider but ourselves. We get sick and we will need caregivers.
When I was younger, aging seemed so far away and my whole focus was on my then-partner and raising two daughters to adulthood.
It is not far away at all now.