My dear mom is 77 years old and I have always viewed her is being able to take care of herself. This is mainley because she is a caregiver for my 98 year old grandmother. Just in the last week I have found that mom is not as invincible as I thought. She has been having trouble walking and her eyesite is not all that great. She owns her home and some land next to it. She only lives about a 30 minute drive from me. I have spent the last few days going with her to doctor and hospital visits. I looks like I may be a caregiven sooner that I thought. She can still take care of herself but her home has gotten to be too much for her to manage. We are currently looking into a senior community. We will go in two days to visit the homes and see if she wants to move there. Our main discussion has been what to do with her home. Does she sell it, rent it out, just keep it in case the senior home doesn't work out. Her feeling now is that she just wants to get rid of it completely. I am an only child so I am trying not tell her what to do but only lay out the options for her. I would appreciate any thoughts that anyone would like to share. My mother really does not want to live with me as she is still pretty independent.
Elderly Mom
May 18th, 2006 at 01:29 am
May 18th, 2006 at 02:26 am 1147919209
We're thinking of me moving in with her..... She doesn't want to leave her little town so that seems like the best option. At this point, we're in a holding pattern.........just waiting to see how this goes. She has been at the new place since Feb. So far, so good.
May 18th, 2006 at 03:11 am 1147921884
After mom died 5 years ago, my brother and his family moved in and it was a total disaster. They stayed for a year before moving out. We've since hired one of those home-helper agencies. He has the same woman come M-F from 5-7. She cooks his dinner and, while he's eating, does light housekeeping. She also runs errands like picking up Rx, stamps, milk, etc. He's on his own for the weekends, but she does prepare his meals (they just need to be microwaved) and he usually has somebody checking in on him.
We were really worried about how it would work out, but it's been great. We're charged about $15/hour. The agency that gave us to her gets about $9 of that, but they also cover if she's sick or on vacation, they do all of the security screenings and reference checks. And I think it's actually better having a worker there (as opposed to a relative) because you don't have all that parent/child conflict. Good luck, and I hope everything works out for you.
May 18th, 2006 at 12:15 pm 1147954503