johnnyspackCasual Contributor
Starting my care journey, advice appreciated.
Hi this is my first post and the beginning of my care journey.
A quick outline of our situation: Both my parents are in their late 80’s and 6 weeks ago my mother had a nasty fall which resulted in a broken hip and femur and a subsequent operation. While I felt she had mild dementia before hand after the operation and anesthetic her dementia has significantly increased.
6 weeks after the operation she seems to have plateaued to a place where she cannot complete more than a couple of sentences and has delusions usually related to her thinking she lives in other countries. She doesn’t seem to be too distressed and seems happy within her skin. While mobile with a walker now she still needs a nurse / assistance to shower / toilet and get out of bed. She can feed herself, brush hair etc.
Her time in hospital is coming to an end and the family has decided that she should return home to full time care over going into an aged care facility. The gist is that being in familiar surroundings she will rehab better and while not return to her “old” self might live out her days happier. Also a big factor is my father who himself has early on-set dementia and needs care as well. He’s strongly opposed to aged care, either her going into it or both of them going.
It looks like I’ll be the one managing the situation as all the other siblings live overseas. Problem for me is that I live in Sydney while my parents are in Melbourne. I wont be able to relocate for other reasons, but can come down every other week. I’m pretty capable and very good at organizing things and feel I should be OK, but am a little scared as I don’t know what lies ahead. Financially we are lucky as my father saved vigorously all his life and for the foreseeable future can fund home care. I have all POA, which will help.
I would love to hear from anyone who’s travelled a similar road and benefit from their experiences.
Also does anyone know of a resource where I can find freelance carers that are not with agencies? My dealings so far with them seem to be centered around signing contracts and giving banking details over care and I suspect a lot of their high costs are to keep the companies in profit and don’t really go to the carers. I would love to hear from anyone who has experience with this as well.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this and for any help/advice you can offer.
Johnny.
