re: How do you deal with the guilt of living far away from your aging parents?

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I live near my dad and see him nearly every day. His mind has deteriorated significantly to a point where it hard to have a basic conversation and i lose my patience and end up saying things I regret. It’s also a physical issue with incontinence and loss of vision. Seeing the gradual decline even on a day to day level takes its toll.

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I'm in somewhat the same situation with my mom. I'm an only child, dad passed unexpectedly 30 years ago. I made a promise to him the day of his funeral to take care of mom.

Twenty something years later, the wife and I build our current house and purposely put a bedroom and bathroom on the main level knowing mom will most likely end up here one day. Less than a year after we move in, mom is diagnosed with Parkinson's. Even though she is less than 40 miles away, that is an hour in Atlanta traffic, so we bite the bullet and move her in sooner. When our son came along 2 years ago it was great that she could be around him all the time.

Just after Christmas (now 86) she spends a week in the hospital with urosepsis and pneumonia. It really does a number on her. She's on oxygen, hearing has gone from bad to worse, and I think she is in late stage congestive heart failure. Our daughter was born early Feb and spent 2 weeks in the NICU. Mom seemed to be getting better until we got home and then seems to have taken a turn.

I'm at that point of do I try to find a nursing home for her. Do we see if her doctor thinks she is as bad off as she seems and get a hospice referral, or do we just keep her here and try to do the best for her.