Nursing Home to Assisted Living and Regretted it

[Guest guest]

Has anyone placed a parent/spouse in a nursing home and they did so well there

that they moved them to an assisted living facility and later regretted the

move?

I placed my father in the memory care unit of a very nice nursing home (great

staff) in late November after a month long downhill LBD episode - his third

" episode " within the year. Before the third episode, he had been doing fairly

well for six months. Dad has done exceptionally well in the nursing home after

about the first two weeks. He did have a " confusion " reaction to an antibiotic

and Flomax. He did fall and require 8 stitches right above his good eye (blind

in other eye from fall during another episode.) The other day, he told me that

one of the nurses told him he did not belong there. I mentioned this to the

social worker and she scheduled a multi-disciplinary group to meet with me on

Wednesday.

In the past year, my father has been in two hospitals and this is the third

nursing home. After each of the first two hospital/nursing home stays, I

brought him home to live with us. I have reached my limit on what I am willing

to do at this point. The last episode did me in.

Even though he is doing so much better at the nursing home, I still feel like it

is the best solution when I look at both his needs and my needs. I quit work

when he came to live with us and was just offered a job back in my old

department and I want to go back to work and my old life.

Right now he would probably be OK in an assisted living facility with a memory

care unit. Probably is a big word. In my experience with him, he gets very

confused in new places and I anticipate he will get confused. When he gets

confused, he falls. I feel that when he does " have problems " , they would be too

severe for assisted living and that he will be asked to leave. I would again be

in the position of handling a crisis. He'd be moved again and more confusion.

I feel selfish when I think of leaving him in the nursing home but I can't

ignore my own feelings and needs. Dad thinks there is nothing wrong with him

and that I should help him find an apartment where he can live alone. I am so

alone in this decision (only child with widowed and friendless father who was

never very fatherly.)

Honestly, the way I feel right now, if my father isn't in the protective care of

the nursing home, I would want to resign from being the power of attorney. I'd

like to just run away.

Has anyone had the nursing home/assisted living quandry. How did things work

out? Any advice?

Toni (feeling creepy and ashamed of all of these feelings)