Hi there. Haven't been on for a while but things with my parents have got to a heartbreaking point and I need some support! My mum is 91 and my dad is 100 in two days. 18 months ago they had to go into a care home together as my mum had shingles and my dad couldn't look after her. She was very ill and her behaviour got most peculiar and she ended up being hospitalised and a brain scan was done. This showed fronto-temporal variant of Alzheimers.When she came out her behaviour deteriorated and she started wandering and banging on windows. She was desperate to go home. She bullied my dad, standing over him and demanding he do something. At 99 my dad is reasonably well but very deaf and frail. He could not cope with her yelling. If she was not yelling she was crying.
So last July we had to move my mum to a dementia home as the care home they were in could not keep her anymore. We had to separate them after 71 years of marriage and it was awful.
At first we took dad to see mum but as the months have gone on it has become impossible. My mum gets so distressed, then my dad gets distressed and we have to take him away. My dad is philosophical about the situation; he misses mum but he likes his care home and quite frankly he doesn't miss the nagging. Mum was always rather bossy and controlling towards him. We have asked him many times if he wants to be in the same (non-dementia wing) home as mum but he is adamant he doesn't want to go.
So, after a particularly distressing visit, we have made the decision (and the care homes have agreed) that we can't take him to visit her anymore. The thing is that although mum's memory is terrible (she has no awareness of where she is most of the time, thinking she is on a cruise ship on in someone else's house) but she knows that she is apart from dad and she is heartbroken. Her brain tells her he has left her and 'gone to London'.
In two days it is my dad's 100th and we are having a family party at his care home. I have wracked my brains to think of any way I could bring mum, it seems so wrong that she won't be there, all her children, grand-children and some great-grandchildren are attending but it would be awful. She would completely break down on seeing dad and he would get upset and the whole thing would be ruined.
But I still feel terrible for her. What a cruel disease this is.
People keep telling me she will 'settle' but they don't know my mum. She was never a 'communal' person. She had few friends. Her life was my dad since she was 14 years old. Her worst nightmare was to be put into a care home as i am afraid she does have a rather superior personality. She is desperately unhappy and I am the one that sees it the most as my siblings don't visit often and I visit twice a week.
I wish she would pass away so she could be at peace.
Thank you for listening.
So last July we had to move my mum to a dementia home as the care home they were in could not keep her anymore. We had to separate them after 71 years of marriage and it was awful.
At first we took dad to see mum but as the months have gone on it has become impossible. My mum gets so distressed, then my dad gets distressed and we have to take him away. My dad is philosophical about the situation; he misses mum but he likes his care home and quite frankly he doesn't miss the nagging. Mum was always rather bossy and controlling towards him. We have asked him many times if he wants to be in the same (non-dementia wing) home as mum but he is adamant he doesn't want to go.
So, after a particularly distressing visit, we have made the decision (and the care homes have agreed) that we can't take him to visit her anymore. The thing is that although mum's memory is terrible (she has no awareness of where she is most of the time, thinking she is on a cruise ship on in someone else's house) but she knows that she is apart from dad and she is heartbroken. Her brain tells her he has left her and 'gone to London'.
In two days it is my dad's 100th and we are having a family party at his care home. I have wracked my brains to think of any way I could bring mum, it seems so wrong that she won't be there, all her children, grand-children and some great-grandchildren are attending but it would be awful. She would completely break down on seeing dad and he would get upset and the whole thing would be ruined.
But I still feel terrible for her. What a cruel disease this is.
People keep telling me she will 'settle' but they don't know my mum. She was never a 'communal' person. She had few friends. Her life was my dad since she was 14 years old. Her worst nightmare was to be put into a care home as i am afraid she does have a rather superior personality. She is desperately unhappy and I am the one that sees it the most as my siblings don't visit often and I visit twice a week.
I wish she would pass away so she could be at peace.
Thank you for listening.
