How to honor parent wishes

Avaanne16

Hello. My mother is living with Alzheimer’s and her primary caretaker is my father. He is a high functioning alcoholic, and struggles to care for her properly. my mother‘s behaviors have escalated to the point where I question if she can remain home even with in-home support a few hours a week. my mother and father have always been 100% adamant that they will never go to a nursing home. They want to live at home until the end. I honestly don’t know how to make that happen and I also don’t know how to go directly against my mom‘s wishes if it comes to it. Has anyone been in this situation?

M1

welcome to the forum, you have come to a good place for advice and support.

Sounds like the first thing you need is a legal assessment from a certified elder law attorney and HIPPA privileges to speak to both of their physicians (you can always convey your concerns to their docs, but unless you have HIPPA privileges they won’t be able to respond). Do you know what legal documents if any are in place now? Does your father hold power of attorney for your mother currently, and does anyone hold his? In order to influence the outcome you will need legal authority to do so. Perhaps your dad is having cognitive changes of his own.

You can find lists of qualified attorneys by location at nelf.org. Sometimes a strategy that works is to encourage them to update their documents in the context of everyone in the family doing it.

Edited to add: a wise member here recently commented that instead of making a wish, one needs to make a plan. You need to plan for their safety, and that is more important than honoring an unrealistic wish.

harshedbuzz

Hi and welcome. I am sorry for your reason to be here but pleased you found this place.

Alcohol adds a degree of difficulty to an already challenging situation. My situation was a bit different in that my PWD was the alcoholic in the marriage, but the issue of safety was still considerable. TBH, honoring wishes may be the least of your issues at this point.

What does dad's alcoholism look like exactly? Is it an all-day buzzed thing or a couple hours each evening of black-out level use maybe in response to is situation? Is he generally an agreeable drunk or can he be irritable or violent? Does he do dangerous things when he's drinking like driving or hanging in a hot tub? Is he able to stay on top of all of the household tasks your mom can no longer manage— are the eating decently? the house reasonably clean? both seeing doctors as needed? prescriptions filled and taken?

Could he have some degree of cognitive impairment exacerbating the situation? In my case, one of dad's dementias was caused by his alcohol-use disorder.

Dad's problem drinking started when my sister died and worsened when he retired. The situation became dire because they lived a distance away and I wasn't able to have eye-on them without significant effort. And even when I traveled to see them, mom provided so much scaffolding that I didn't have a real sense of how badly impaired he was. Are you a regular visitor? Mom almost died with him as her caregiver when she went into liver failure (I know, the irony) and he didn't recognize it and advocate for her. He was telling me all sorts of crazy stories about her either being at the pool or divorcing him. I only found out she was dangerously ill when the hospital called me as an emergency contact. Staying with dad 24/7 was eye-opening for me.

Are you an only or part of a cohesive set of similarly concerned siblings? How much involvement are you willing to take for her? Would you move her in with you and provide hands-on caregiving potentially without financial assistance from dad? Or would you seek to place her in a MCF which would require significant funding and likely impact his standard of living? Are you willing to risk his ire if you fail to either convince him to do better or take legal action against him?

I would consult with an elder law attorney to explore options. You'll want to craft your own Plan B but the reality is, if he can get his act together enough to convince a judge, it's unlikely you would be named guardian unless there is documented neglect of abuse.

HB

mabelgirl

I would look into getting your elder affairs office to evaluate the situation as your dad is likely not taking care of her adequately. My mom always dreaded the “old folks home” because she only pictured drugged up drooling patients in the hallways. She is 84 yo. While there are unfortunate places you will need to take a look for yourself and convince yourself it’s not as they imagined. Then if you do get her into a place it will be incumbent upon you and siblings to visit frequently to ensure her care.

Prayers for compassionate decision making.