Nursing homes are so depressing

Yes they are very depressing:

Both of my parents went into a nursing home 8 months ago. My dad died in January after taking a nasty fall.
My parents had almost no money du to losing everything in the 2016 flood.

I go see my m three times a week. It seems that many of the people living there get no visitors

I mostly knew my dad’s father as someone in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s. What few memories I have of him at home involve him arguing and yelling with my grandmother, so it was probably setting in anyway.

I absolutely hated visiting him in the home because of the smells, other residents, etc. Looking back, I was about 7 years old, so I didn’t know any better. Wish I would have known him before the disease took over.

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be they our 2mo old infants

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What are they doing to infants?

My grandmother died last year just shy of her 102nd birthday. And up until the last year or so she was still pretty well all there mentally. But she eventually broke her leg and even though she did recover from that, toward the end (especially rhose last six months or so) it was very sad. She basically couldn’t see or hear anything. And while she was at my aunt’s house and not a facility, she was in one for a few months after her leg incident. And it was sad like you describe.

And the worst part is we all knew that if she could push a button and end it she would have happily done it without hesitation. Made it tough to see her as a shell of the woman I knew for 45 years. And it’s the one reason I found myself pretty okay with her death. I always thought it would absolutely destroy me when she died. But it truly was an “at least she isn’t suffering and miserable anymore” type of situation. So I was at peace with it.

But like you said, euthanasia for people like that should be legal, at least to some degree; there is a level of pride and respect for being able to go out on your own terms (without having to kill yourself). Especially for that generation. I had an uncle who found out he had stage 4 liver cancer (I believe). And he was bad off and jaundiced and everything. And he straight up refused treatment, much to the dismay of his family. I think he died about three weeks later or so. But deep down I sort of respected how okay with it he was.

My dad had an old hermit uncle who ended up in the nursing home last 2 years of his life. At Christmas my mom would wrap a carton of cigarettes for him. One from me, and one from my sister. I questioned her about it once I was older, and she said she knew it was bad for him, but it was the only thing he enjoyed any more in his life.

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I'd live on the streets to pay for my parents to get live-in assistance before I put them in a nursing home

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That sounds good until you live through it. You assume that the in home care people can coordinate 24 hr schedules. They can’t.

You assume they’re all competent nurses and others working for these care at home services. They’re not.

You assume your loved one is in their right mind and understands they need somebody there. They don’t.

My wife went through this with her dad who had a terminal cancer diagnosis. It was a shitshow and damn near ruined her and her sister trying to keep dad at home as long as they could.

While they can be quite depressing, I think there is something to be said about being as active as possible as you age. Hopefully that would keep you from being in one in the first place.


With good reason, my FIL just basically gave up after my MIL passed and he just wasted away in his chair as he had no desire to do anything for years after. He ended up in one for a short time but went back home. I don’t think he would have lasted as long as he did if he would’ve stayed.

I completely understand why he felt the way he did, but he had children and grandchildren to live for and he just didn’t want to. This was a man who once, with his dad, built most of a 4500 sf house by themselves.

My dad was living at home until last December, when he was diagnosed with heart failure-that was when he was diagnosed, although I'm certain it had been going on for some time. He went into the hospital for a pacemaker, then went into the nursing home's rehab wing because he was so weak. He was there for about six weeks, got a little stronger and wanted to come home. He was home for ten days, and he just wasn't strong enough, even with home health, and even with me staying with him. He ended up back in the hospital, and back for more rehab. Eventually the physical therapy wasn't helping and he "graduated" from rehab to regular care. He was strong enough for a few weeks to go into his office a few days a week, to church on Sundays and out to eat afterward. But for the last month he got progressively weaker until the last few days he couldn't get out of bed. A nasty UTI put him in the hospital, the antibiotics didn't work, and that plus pneumonia is what put an end to it.

His mind stayed completely sharp right up to the end and I'm thankful for that. He accepted most of the indignities with good humor, but when he started aspirating food, he balked at a soft diet: "I've put up with a lot but I'm not putting up with that." I would have said the same thing.

He outlived nearly all his contemporaries. That plus losing my mom made him pretty lonely. He told me one time, "I don't have anybody I can reminisce with any more." He played rec league basketball well into his forties, duck hunted well past the age he had any business being in a duck blind and worked nearly full time until late last year. He got as much out of his body as he could but it eventually wore out.

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People who let their parents go to nursing homes and not take care of them in their own home are pieces of shite imo

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I think people should do everything they can to care for their parents (and children)... but, it's not always as simple as that.

We've come a long way in keeping old bodies running... often much, much longer than their minds can keep up. It isn't always that people don't want to care for their elders but that they simply can't.

Caring for someone with dementia is a 24/7 job- not everyone can do it.

My mother in law didn't leave her house the last handful of years her mother was alive... by the time the woman passed, my MIL herself had turned nervous and agoraphobic.

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People who let their parents go to nursing homes and not take care of them in their own home are pieces of shite imo

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what kind of person could say something so stupid and insensitive?

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Burt Reynolds

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oh

nvm