New Year, New Life (19 months)

[keep_going]

Ad, 25, Bug - As always, I love to read your posts...

Ad, I am happy to hear your about mom's successful surgery. Yes, it's nice to get some good news for a change.

I can relate to how you all feel. Getting old is not pretty and having to deal with health issues is definitely difficult for the whole family.

My H's father also suffered from vascular dementia. He first lived at an Assisted Living facility and then became too aggressive and got kicked out of there. We had him come to live with us for a year. I loved having the chance to develop a close R with him and for my H to heal some of his past wounds with his father. Yet it was rough to see him become more and more agitated with time and having to lose the person we knew and loved to this horrible mental disease. Eventually he became physically aggressive with his caregiver who quit and accused me of trying to poison his food.

That is when we had to make a tough decision and have him move to a facility that specialized in dealing with aggressive Alzheimer's patients, where he passed away a year later. It has definitely been one of the hardest things I've had to do, but it just got out of our control and became unmaneagable for my H and me. I was raised to believe that we should care for our parents when they get older, just like they did for us when we were young, so I still sometimes feel guilty about it.

None of these things are easy and the feelings we experience and the decisions we have to make regarding our aging parents are never black and white.

So yes, I'd rather appreciate and enjoy the time I have with my healthy parents who are 87 and 75 and my MIL who is 77, because I just never know what lies ahead.

(((((hugs to you all sweet ladies))))))