My mother has Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. I have been her caregiver for the past four years. I saw her through a partial amputation of her foot, and the eventual amputation of her right leg below the knee.
I took her to the emergency room at the end of March 2010 because she couldn't breathe. I have not been able to get her home since. She was placed in a nursing home for rehabilitation, only to be sent back to the ER a few days before her release. Her doctor made the decision that she needs full-time care beyond what I can provide on my own. In the blink of an eye, our life as we knew it was over for good.
Unless a miracle happens, we will be losing our home and everything we own. We never even considered the possibility that her care would become so labor-intensive and medically complex that I would not be able to handle it on my own. Not only am I watching my beloved mother suffer the horrendous effects of a lifetime of indulgence, I am fighting a losing battle to keep our home of forty years.
Unless I move three hours away from my critically ill mother, I will be homeless. In this blog, I will share my experiences as a caregiver, my frustrations with nursing homes in general and my struggle to wrap my head around this devastating wrinkle in our lives. In order to keep the posts from becoming too long, I will have to break them up into sections at times, so please bear with me.
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