We live on Alabama, they live in Louisiana. Over the last year his mother has had ovarian cancer, chemo and now a knee replacement gone bad. Father in law is in way over his head, trying to control every little bit of everything, heading for a heart attack himself. They won't follow doctors orders, don't follow through with treatments, blame everyone else for problems. They have finally got a woman coming in twice a week for a couple hours - but other than that they refuse any help, refuse to listen to anyone about anything. We are "allowed" to come visit when invited. Yikes!! My husband is at the end of his rope, and finally lost it this trip. Huge blow up between him and his dad...then everyone calmed down. It is such a disaster. We're not sure we will be "invited" again. Other than this lovely visit, and the fact that I made my Mom, who has dementia, cry on Wednesday before we left....it's been SUCH a good week!! :)
You might want to investigate all your options for assistive living, nursing homes, hospice, homecare, even funeral arrangements etc and keep the info on file so you are prepared for every eventuality.
Well, after a major rises it turned out they really weren't managing. It was an ah ha moment pointed out by another writer on the forums. My parents stubbornness and refusal to do things wasn't being clear headed thinking but the start of dementia. I just didn't see it.
Plus I was enabling my parents to continue to stay in that house, heck why should they leave, they had me doing many things.... life was easy, for them... not for me. I finally had to step back and take a hard look, and started cutting back on doing things.