July 4th, 2025 my wife and I stopped fishing and became 100% home caretakers for my father. We pulled him out of the nursing home after he ran out of his free days from medicare against DRs orders or he would have had to pay out of pocket $18,000.00 a month. He had dementia real bad and not able to walk.

This was a family decision between myself, wife and sister, my sister was zero help in the care as she runs her own animal clinic 275 miles away so wife and i were on our own. Dad was 100% wheel chair bound and couldnt feed himself, pee, #2 or clean himself, he was in diapers at 93 years old.

I bought a hoyer lift to to be able to harness him up and lift him out of bed and into the wheelchair, had to buy all kinds of supplies for protecting the bed mattress to protecting ourselves with rubber gloves, masks ...all his hygiene products, diapers were the worst to deal with as sizing and their strength and ability to hold pee and poo is varied with brand and price.

Cleaning him after he messed his diaper was the most disgusting thing i have had to do in my lifetime, it was an hour or more process to clean him and everything his feces came in contact with, he is not an infant weighing 8 lbs, he is a full sized adult weighing 175 ibs and is basically like trying to move and turnover a 175 lb bag of gravel. We had to wash him clean and dry him all in his bed or else skin problems would eat him up.

Many times i thought my life was over and i would be doing this for months on end and never see the outside of the house again, and my wife who i brought to america from the philippines to live and enjoy life together was now involved in something she never expected.

So much mental goes into the process and the stress is overwhelming with nights of no sleep from dad yelling out for my deceased mom to come to him and then talking to her as if she was in the room and his father and mother whom he would see standing in his room as real figures. Many times I would wish the good lord would please take him from this world as i cant take it any longer. I would get mad at him which he wasnt able to understand why and didnt know who i was at times.

5 months later he died in bed, I woke up and went to eat breakfast and looked into his bedroom and didnt see his chest breathing, he was gone, I stood over him and stared. no tears were shed, I didnt feel sad, I felt instant relief for myself, the stress gone. Dad said many times he wanted to die, he was now where he wanted to be.

1 hour ago, throttleplate said:

July 4th, 2025 my wife and I stopped fishing and became 100% home caretakers for my father. We pulled him out of the nursing home after he ran out of his free days from medicare against DRs orders or he would have had to pay out of pocket $18,000.00 a month. He had dementia real bad and not able to walk.

This was a family decision between myself, wife and sister, my sister was zero help in the care as she runs her own animal clinic 275 miles away so wife and i were on our own. Dad was 100% wheel chair bound and couldnt feed himself, pee, #2 or clean himself, he was in diapers at 93 years old.

I bought a hoyer lift to to be able to harness him up and lift him out of bed and into the wheelchair, had to buy all kinds of supplies for protecting the bed mattress to protecting ourselves with rubber gloves, masks ...all his hygiene products, diapers were the worst to deal with as sizing and their strength and ability to hold pee and poo is varied with brand and price.

Cleaning him after he messed his diaper was the most disgusting thing i have had to do in my lifetime, it was an hour or more process to clean him and everything his feces came in contact with, he is not an infant weighing 8 lbs, he is a full sized adult weighing 175 ibs and is basically like trying to move and turnover a 175 lb bag of gravel. We had to wash him clean and dry him all in his bed or else skin problems would eat him up.

Many times i thought my life was over and i would be doing this for months on end and never see the outside of the house again, and my wife who i brought to america from the philippines to live and enjoy life together was now involved in something she never expected.

So much mental goes into the process and the stress is overwhelming with nights of no sleep from dad yelling out for my deceased mom to come to him and then talking to her as if she was in the room and his father and mother whom he would see standing in his room as real figures. Many times I would wish the good lord would please take him from this world as i cant take it any longer. I would get mad at him which he wasnt able to understand why and didnt know who i was at times.

5 months later he died in bed, I woke up and went to eat breakfast and looked into his bedroom and didnt see his chest breathing, he was gone, I stood over him and stared. no tears were shed, I didnt feel sad, I felt instant relief for myself, the stress gone. Dad said many times he wanted to die, he was now where he wanted to be.

This life is the ultimate challenge.

From the very beginning and all the way through to the very end.

A-Jay

From mid 2022 - Dec 1st 2024 I lived the life @throttleplate spoke of above, with my FIL. It's a true test. He and my MIL always treated me like a son, so I did the things a son would've done for his father.