Accepting My Mum's Dementia Care: A Heartfelt Journey

Accepting a loved one’s placement in a care home due to dementia can be emotionally challenging. It is essential to acknowledge and process these feelings while seeking support from professionals and fellow caregivers. For more on coping with such situations, visit my Quora Profile.

Reliving the Past

I feel for you having gone through a similar experience. I moved in with my mum five years ago to try to ensure she remained in the house she worked hard to pay off and felt safe in. The same house I was raised in. She was a strong and proud woman, a single mother migrant who moved to a new country in her 30s, worked hard, assimilated, raised a son, bought a house, and paid it off while teaching herself to speak, read, and write the new language of her new host country. She had to find the strength to cope with so much adversity and she did it admirably. Her pride comes from overcoming adversity against overwhelming odds.

The Journey to Care

I became her full-time carer for the next two years, but as her condition progressed, I soon found myself over my head. For her own health and safety, I was forced to put her into full-time care with her kicking and screaming. The guilt was overwhelming, even after the hospital she was admitted into after fainting in a public place suggested it was time. She has been in full-time care for three years now.

Adjusting to the New Normal

Her color has returned, she no longer is susceptible to infections, and she is getting 24-hour care and medical monitoring. She has a whole group of people her own age she can converse with. She has lost her ability to walk and cannot retain memories of anything recent for longer than five minutes, although her long-term memory is still sharp. I used to visit her regularly before the COVID pandemic, but now it’s phone and Skype calls, and the pain and guilt never abate.

Her Beliefs and Reality

She has believed for the last three years that she has just been admitted into the home, in fact, the home is a hospital, and she will be checking out as soon as the doctors say she is better. She tells people she was only admitted "yesterday" or "a few days ago." I’ve learnt to go with it although it used to initially riddle me with guilt after each visit. However, it is also partly a blessing. Believing what she does allows her to retain her dignity and avoid depression. On the odd occasion her cognition breaks through the fog, and she tells me how wonderful the staff are in the home and then says "thank you for choosing this place." Those times are fleeting and rare but mean so much to me.

A Forsaken Hope

I have come to accept that her comfort is now the main priority and the only thing to strive for, and certainly what the nursing home is able to provide. A life that is immeasurably more comfortable with a better sense of dignity than any of my efforts were able to offer her. The house she worked all her life to own has become the financial nest egg that ensures she is in the best care I can find. So I strive to give her the best life possible given the circumstances, but the feeling of guilt is always tapping me on the shoulder and the pain of losing my mum is ever present.

Mindfulness and Gratitude

People say that losing someone to dementia is far more cruel to the family than a sudden death because you spend years mourning the slow, gradual loss of someone you love as you watch them helplessly waste away before your very eyes. There is for me a selfish element to that grief, it is focused on how I feel. When I stop for a minute and consider how she feels, I know she is unaware for the most part about what is going on, and at the moment her faith in me is unwavering. As she often gets the staff to call me to say "don’t worry about me I’m here and they want me to stay the night can you please come and get me in the morning," those times are when I consider the forgetfulness a blessing and I feel blessed for the opportunity to have her return for a minute or two, to express my love and appreciation for what she has done for me, and to remind her of how proud she should be for the wonderful and selfless choices she made in life. In those moments, her smile lights up the room, and I am grateful I still can have those moments with her.

Preserving Memories

Her room remains untouched as I cannot bring myself to clean out her things. The countless numbers of handbags she has amassed over a lifetime, the wardrobe of expensive clothes she kept for special occasions, the drawers of lipstick and make-up, the perfume bottles still sit on her wardrobe. I know she is not coming back, but that does nothing to alleviate the reality of that and the pain associated with it if I do begin that process. She is still alive, this is still her room, and it almost seems disrespectful if not immensely painful to attempt to clear it out. It will remain that way until she is no longer around. I need to manage my own grief to ensure I am making the best decisions for her. Reminding myself that she is not lamenting in grief helps a lot.