I just put both of my parents in a nursing home. My Dad has Alzheimers and my Mom has mild to moderate dementia. They were both in the hospital and I moved them from there. My Mom is so mad at me, she says I put her there to die. But she can't take care of herself well anymore, let alone my Dad. He really needs to be there. They were living on their own and the conditions of the home were deplorable and she was either under medication him or over medicating him. She was not taking her own meds. I am single and work, I get no help from my siblings even though I have some. I had one brother who helped but he had a stroke himself 2 years ago and cannot walk or talk anymore, so that leaves me. None of the others help me, although they like to judge me and bad mouth me. It has been the hardest decision I ever had to make and I feel sooooo guilty. I feel they will be better cared for there if my Mom at least gives it a chance, but she is so scared. She thinks they are going to come and get her at night and hurt her or kill her. She cries and begs me to get them out. I have visited everyday, some people tell me not to, but when I don't Mother is so upset. She gets upset and gets my Dad upset. He would be ok, if she didn't continue talking about it to him. It hurts so much to have her say I don't care about them and just want them to die. How does one get through this without any family support???
I'm bringing my dad to the dentist today and he is also on Medicaid. After I pay the bill, I turn a copy of it into the nursing home and they deduct what I paid the dentist from his total living expenses that I pay for him each month. You may want to check into it at the facility where your mom lives. It isn't very public, but I happened to read something about it one time and inquired.
I like ezcare's comment about the "role reversal." When our parents become elderly and infirm, they become just like small children - incontinent, need to be fed and bathed - except they weigh 100+ pounds instead of 20. When it because obvious that I needed to put my father into assisted living and then into the nursing home, I did not feel ONE BIT guilty. I knew he would be safe there, get his meds on time, have other people around him, have some social activities provided, and if he went missing somebody would notice. This would not have been true if he were still in his own home alone. I was only around 40 at the time, working full-time and lived 9 hours away. I had no other options.
I did my research,and scoped out three different nursing homes that were located near the area where my father grew up. I brought him with me to visit each home so he could see what the options were "for the future" when the time came - and then allowed him to choose which one he liked best. He was aware that he was just "not with it" like he used to be and he verbalized that he overestimated his own ability to live in his 2-story colonial house alone and function independently. I kept talking up the advantages of having all of his meals prepared for him, his laundry done, room cleaned, etc.
I did what had to be done, handled all of his affairs without assistance. My husband agreed to rent a U-haul truck to help me move some of his things to the assisted living. I still remember that day.......because as we pulled away from his house for the last time, he turned to me wistfully and said, "will they have coffee there?" (He loved his morning coffee.) I assured him, yes, there would be plenty of coffee there and he could have it whenever he wanted. (They had a 24/7 coffee & tea bar there for the residents.) That seemed to satisfy him and we arrived at the home without incident.
I do not understand all of this "guilt" that I keep hearing on this forum. Why should we feel "guilty" about doing what is right for our parents, what is in their best health & safety interests, when they get to the point where they are no longer able to live alone? Believe me, you would feel far MORE guilty if they were at home and something happened because you did not have the medical or emotional expertise to know what to do.
As to the person who said their parent was "soaked in pee," that's often related to insufficient staff at the home. Most people in nursing homes are incontinent - and the staff would do nothing but change diapers non-stop in order to keep everyone as dry as we would prefer. Are any of you going to tell me that your own children NEVER sat in a wet or soiled diaper - even for a few minutes - until you found the time to change them when you were a young mother? It is curious that many of us hold a standard for the nursing homes that we did not hold for our own children.