Nana and Paw-Paw have been living with me for going on 2 years now. With Nana’s stints in and out of the hospital and then the decision to bring her home with me on hospice, they are now mine. They spent 66 years in their little town, a town where the church is, a town where everybody knows them.   A house filled to the brim with 66 years of memories and stuff! It’s a life they are not ready to give up without a fight.

There isn’t a day that goes by where Paw-Paw doesn’t make comments about them going home. In his mind, Nana is going to get better and they are going to go home. Nana believes this as well. I wish it was the case for them. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make Nana completely healed. Not because I don’t want to take care of them anymore but because I know how hard it was for them to lose their independence. They didn’t get to choose to give up their independence. The series of Nana’s health events that lead to her decline gave them no choice. This has been hard for them both to swallow.

In the beginning Paw-Paw had to go by the house and get his mail every day. I obliged him in the beginning. Every day we would drive the 30 mins to his house and to the post office and 30 mins back. All the while listening to him rant and rave about how he needed to get home, the house was a mess. It put a lot of stress on me. I even asked him if we could have his mail delivered here and that was met with a big fat NO. When I asked him why he simply said that he and Nana would be going home soon. I was getting really burned out of this daily task that we just started going every Saturday to check the mail and the house. This helped a bit but not his arguing about them going home. Now our routine is to check the mail every two weeks on Friday. He must get his PT checked at his doctor’s office in the town that he lives so it works out perfectly. He still argues about them going home but at least I only must hear it every two weeks!

Then there is the battle over his mail. He still likes to go through it but when he does he loses mail or throws out bills he thinks are junk mail. I must keep his mail hostage from him so I can ensure that everything gets paid. For a while a lot of his bills he owed nothing because for so many years prior he over paid and had credit. I used to let him sit down with me to do his bills but that drags out the process. He must look over every piece of mail, bill or junk mail. I could easily get this task done in 20 mins, with him it takes at least an hour. Eventually I learn to wait until he and Nana are asleep and knock it out then. He is at the point now that he doesn’t even really comprehend all the bills and what is owed. I reassure him all the time that I am getting them paid. They are caught up now and never late. This keeps him at ease. His short-term memory is gone. He asks me every day how we pay for the caregivers that come in to take care of Nana during the week. It’s like clockwork as soon as they show up and start getting Nana ready for the day he comes walking over into my office to ask me.

Then there is the house. I am personally ready to sell it and be done with it. It is such a source of anger and hostility with my Paw-Paw about it. He has this constant worry about it, which I completely understand. For me the quicker we cut ties with their town the better. My sister thinks we should fix it up a bit and then rent it out. I don’t want to deal with renters and neither does Paw-Paw. We bring up either option to them all the time and they say No. They still live under the dream that Nana is going to get better and they will move home. No matter how many times we tell them that isn’t possible. That they only way for them to go home would be to have a caregiver live in their spare bedroom 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Which yes, it is a possibility but they can’t afford that type of care. As it is our father is splitting the cost of Nana’s care here. Plus, we tell them if they move back home they would be losing out on a lot of the care my sister and I can do for them. Their house is 30 minutes away. We both work full time jobs and have families of our own.

So, for now we check on the house every two weeks on Friday! Lord give me strength!!

What are some of your biggest care giving battles? The ones I just blogged about are some of mine. We would love to hear from you. Post your stories in the comment section below.