I have an adult disabled daughter living at home. She has had cerebral palsy since birth. I have been her primary caretaker since she became too heavy for my wife to lift. I attend to her hygiene, her doctor visits and anything that involves transport. She has almost no use of her legs and her left arm but we are fortunate that she speaks well. She is able to feed herself and entertain herself.
Donna Marie CraigThat's a great photo William.Monday, 19 October 2015 15:36
Donna Marie CraigI am not sure how to navigate this site well or use this group and truthfully not sure I fit the parameters but I will introduce myself. I am not...I am not sure how to navigate this site well or use this group and truthfully not sure I fit the parameters but I will introduce myself. I am not the full time or sole caregiver but I am one of two primary caregivers for my father with my #2 sister and we have several other siblings in various ways helpful and harmful. I live 300 miles away and spend most weekend driving back to take care of Dad and his affairs and I call daily, or more often, and help coordinate issues. He suffered a stroke early this year that left him with little physical damage, vision damage to his left eye, but with vascular dementia.
He had been living in his own home with one of my brothers in his basement who Dad supported financially and Dad did all the domestic chores too. Now we have found Dad an apartment in a facility with tiers and he is in the independent tier but with a lot of support from us. Daily someone visits him. We set his schedule for him and medicines for him a week in advance. He carries his schedule in a notebook. We have found a tracking watch that allows him to call 2 people and up to 8 pre-programmed people to call him. This does not need to pair with a cell phone. We have a medicine dispenser that calls us if he does not take his medications timely. Several other amazing products are helping us keep him living in this apartment. Most of them have come from the The Alzheimer’s Store www.alzstore.com/.
This facility where he lives has a life care pricing and if he stays here beyond two years, or we get his pre-existing conditions waiver removed as we are trying, the price never changes even if he moves from independent to assisted to skilled nursing to memory care. This took a lot of negotiating as he barely qualified financially but we were most fortunate to manage it and find this amazing facility. He is much happier here, he attends exercise classes, plays bridge, eats meals in the restaurants and just enjoys talking to people.
He does tell me all the time, he hopes this never happens to me. That losing his intelligence and memory and ability to function is awful. I am sad for that. We still have challenges, just this week we got a call he thought 8PM was 8AM and he was at the restaurant but I managed to talk to him on the phone and get him back to his room. He said he will try harder. It breaks my heart, as I told him, it is not about him trying harder. He already is trying, it is about me finding a solution just as I would not expect him to try harder to walk with a broken leg but rather expect me to find him better crutches. We do have a clock that is great, it says simply, the day of the week and time of day, morning, afternoon, evening or night, but he forgets to rely on it.
Anyway this is my far too long introduction and I appreciate reading what everyone else posts when I am able. Show more