Quote Originally Posted by Mith View Post
While not this exact situation, I at least have had enough enough experience to know the weight of this situation.

Is it possible to arrange for either formal or informal part time home care to allow your mother a break at times? I don't know what costs are like for where you are for such a system, or if you have a family friend that could lend a hand, but this could give both your mum and yourself some flexibility.
I've been telling mom for several years now that she needs to get some kind of care in, but she hasn't made any progress in getting that done. Part of the problem is that my stepfather is not comfortable with letting strangers in the house because when his mother needed in-home services many years ago someone stole from her (his mother had macular degeneration and was pretty much blind at that point, so it was quite possible for things to go missing and for her to not notice for a while). My mom's friend also had issues with the in-home care for her father being suspected of kicking his dog. So with two negative stories among the two people she knows went that route, she's been very reluctant to use anything but family members. (I help out sometimes, and mom's SIL covers one or two weekends a year so mom can get a weekend away with her husband. My mom's brother, grandma's only other kid, is apparently not very helpful, so his wife will come for the weekend without him. Whatever, not my marriage.)

I'm trying to convince my mom to look into adult foster care for grandma, but grandma REALLY does not want to go into care and also doesn't have enough money to make that an easy path to take. Grandma has a small pension, but no assets (unless you count a bunch of VHS tapes recorded off of cable throughout the 80s and 90s as assets - some of them even don't have the end of the show cut off!), so it's a situation where she will never be poor enough to qualify for the assistance programs for the poor (because pension) but does not have the money to self-fund assisted living (because no assets and only a small pension). She basically gets enough from her pension to live modestly in a small apartment and eat out occasionally, which was fine when she was younger but does not come close to paying for care.