Laughter is the Best Medicine

The purpose of this blog is to help you to understand, vent, comment or give suggestions of taking care of an elderly parent. I have been living with my 75 year old mother since Sept. 6, 2003. I had my own home in Moore Oklahoma and had my last child graduate from High School and move out on his own the previous year. I worked 3 jobs and life was good. Then my life was turned upside down. I lost my father who was the primary care giver of my mother & my youngest brother who still lived at home and died of a massive heart attack at 41 years old. He became the caregiver when my father no longer could.

My mother had not driven since she was 19 years old, and has many medical ailments and could not live by herself.  She is totally dependent for help around the house, transportation to and from medical appts, her pets etc. My decision was as long as she can feed & clothe herself, take her medicines as needed,  then I would stay with her as long as I could and keep her from assisted living facilities. I made this silly promise to her when I was 16 years old, that I would never put her into a Care Facility, guilt won out, and thus begun the next chapter of my live.

It is not easy taking care of a parent, it is like raising a grown child that has a mind of their own, when they have a bad day you have a bad day because you are the one that is there to hear it, when they are confused or frustrated you still have a bad day because you are still the one there. But don’t get me wrong you have great and good days too, there just may not be as many depending on the level of care that your elderly parent needs. If you decide to take on this mission, you will laugh and cry, and remind yourself constantly why you are doing this.

If you have a sibling that can assist you in the caring of your elderly parent, you are most fortunate. This may give you some relief, a minute for yourself to take a deep breath and smell the roses, so to speak. A fresh out look is always good. Humor is great medicine for the soul, and I laugh a lot!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 8:26 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.