Hi,I'm a bit at the end of my tether so I hope you don't mind me letting of steam!
I have been looking after my 96 year old grandmother for the past 8 years and prior to that I looked after my father in law for approximately the same amount of time, in an annex in the garden.Caring for both of them was a roller coaster, but on the whole the good out weighed the bad, which at times could be horrendous. Putting my father in law into a home was one of the hardest decisions we ever made, but in the end he needed 2/3 people to lift/move him so we had no choice. He did not take it well and died less than 2 months later, on the first day we couldn't visit him, consequently the thought of putting my gran into a home fills me with dread.
My mum and dad take minimal responsibility for gran ( at most a couple of hours a week) and spend most of their retirement holidaying and my sister is a nurse with 2 kids, who has a lot to say about grans care and welfare but in reality also only comes once a week for 3 hours when it suits her.
Gran has been really ill on and off on a regular basis, but the past year it has escalated to the extent that she is not strong enough to live in the annex, so I have moved her into our family home. Initially I coped really well, but it sounds crazy now she is getting better it is so much harder. In the past week she has had 2 falls in the night, has trashed her room, tipped her commode up trying to sort herself out (she won't ring her buzzer) and she has started getting annoyed if I'm late with cups of tea or meals, or have visitors. Now her strength is coming back she's walking more but half the time won't use her zimmer ( we have flagstones, so potential disaster)... it is like having a naughty toddler again and I am exhausted and it's less than a month. I have 2 teenagers doing exams and a husband who is depressed because our business is on the verge of going under. I can't afford to lose the plot but I am really really struggling...sorry for the vent
I have been looking after my 96 year old grandmother for the past 8 years and prior to that I looked after my father in law for approximately the same amount of time, in an annex in the garden.Caring for both of them was a roller coaster, but on the whole the good out weighed the bad, which at times could be horrendous. Putting my father in law into a home was one of the hardest decisions we ever made, but in the end he needed 2/3 people to lift/move him so we had no choice. He did not take it well and died less than 2 months later, on the first day we couldn't visit him, consequently the thought of putting my gran into a home fills me with dread.
My mum and dad take minimal responsibility for gran ( at most a couple of hours a week) and spend most of their retirement holidaying and my sister is a nurse with 2 kids, who has a lot to say about grans care and welfare but in reality also only comes once a week for 3 hours when it suits her.
Gran has been really ill on and off on a regular basis, but the past year it has escalated to the extent that she is not strong enough to live in the annex, so I have moved her into our family home. Initially I coped really well, but it sounds crazy now she is getting better it is so much harder. In the past week she has had 2 falls in the night, has trashed her room, tipped her commode up trying to sort herself out (she won't ring her buzzer) and she has started getting annoyed if I'm late with cups of tea or meals, or have visitors. Now her strength is coming back she's walking more but half the time won't use her zimmer ( we have flagstones, so potential disaster)... it is like having a naughty toddler again and I am exhausted and it's less than a month. I have 2 teenagers doing exams and a husband who is depressed because our business is on the verge of going under. I can't afford to lose the plot but I am really really struggling...sorry for the vent