Amazed

[Icare]

I'm continually amazed at the love and concern shown on this site! People encouraging you when they wish they still had their loved one to care for! Very humbling for me. If you are new to this site I want you to know the love,support and prayers aro awesome! They may not have kidneys but they make up for it with heart!!

[billybags]

Icare, What a nice thing to say, I agree with you, there are some lovely people on this site.

[rocker]

Never worry about venting here - we all understand.

[christijo]

So I can say my life is a nightmare and I have had 5 years of a nightmare and no one understands the hell it has been. And I feel beat up, especially by my husband who has had 7 strokes who hates me now and takes my loving care and spits on it. And you guys wont judge me? Can I say these mean things and people still understand where I am coming from? I am a member who sends money to my church because I cant get there much and I get one pastoral call a year. My friends have left me. I am housebound with him with a heart condition for 5 years. I am by myself in this. My smiles to him daily as I take care of him lovingly is never appreciated. Everyday I am put down. Nothing I do is right. The nursing home will take everything, my house, his SS, his retirement. So I live each day to survive and fight for him as if he were doing to live forever. To live forever and abuse me everyday. But I fight for him because he is Gods creation and I respect his life and God. He gets spoiled. I get tramped on. Sorry this is why I don't write hardly. Because who wants to hear this crap. You guys need encouraged. You are the strong ones. I am the weak one.

[willowtreewren]

But Christijo, you are exactly the one who needs our support and encouragement. You are extremely strong and brave to do what you do day after day.

 

Aleta

[Poppylicious]

I am the weak one.

Not at all ... a weak person would have given up on her husband LONG ago.  And you can come here and say what you like, without judgement.  We can support and encourage and offer advice.  But more importantly, we can be here for you (albeit not physically).

*huggles*

[Darthvadar]

Rant away....

That's what friends are for!....

Darth....

[MooseMom]

christijo, don't think you are the first one to ever write a post like this.  Dont' think you are the only one to ever feel this way.  Your feelings are far more common than you would ever believe.

I'm not going to tell you that you are, in fact, strong and brave because like everyone else here, you have your moments of weakness and fear.  It is just too much to ask of yourself to be strong and brave every minute of every day.  All you can do is survive, to get from one day to the next, and if that process isn't pretty, so who cares?  Who cares if you are sometimes weak and scared?  You are taking care of your husband, and he is lucky to have you.  You should feel good about yourself in that you are sacrificing so much for someone who is now so ill that his brain is so affected that he turns on you.  You are just human, christijo, sometimes strong, sometimes not, but the important thing is that you are compassionate enough to do what you do in the circumstances in which you find yourself.

Have mercy on yourself, and when you can't, come here to IHD, and we will show you all the mercy you could ever need. 

[obsidianom]

My heart goes out to you. Taking care of someone who does appreciate it is hard enough , but when it is not appreciated it must be so much worse. It has to hurt to give and not be appreciated,.  All I can say is I have great respect and a special place of honor for anyone who takes care of another person.
Come here all you need to to vent and get support.

[galvo]

Christjo, you sound a good'un to me. So a big  from me. Keep talking to us; friends understand!

[christijo]

 Oh my goodness. I expected to be balled out by you guys. I could feel the hugs coming thru the computer and my hair standing on end. Whew, that felt good. I haven't been hugged in along time. I received some good news. My heart has healed some and I am no longer in heart failure so I am stronger to do more for him. I am not expecting to make it long, just hoping God will let me live long enough so he don't have to go in a nursing home. I am in Afib. they cant get me out of it. I am medicated for it and on blood thinners. He has had 7 strokes. on dialysis 16 months, crippled severely, legally blind, in congestive heart failure under 30,like about 20. Brain damage from end stages of diabetes. So there is meds, meds, meds that have to be counted out daily. His insulin and blood checks. His baths, his dressing, his going to dialysis. Dialysis I go home and sleep the 4 hours and they call me when I oversleep and tell him to come and get him. 3 times a week, I look forward to the solid sleep. to reboot. No way in the world I would have this at home. I need the break from his verbal abuse and horrible noises 24/7. Now I know why people cant stand it long in an insane asylum. People at the dialysis center says he will live for years like this, get used to it. Its not that I want him to die, its he has no life, no functional life. But the doctor says he has enough of his mind to make his own decision and he wants to live. So I cant leave him. Not to a man who served and loved me unconditionally for 40 years. Even tho he Lives to abuse me, that's what I say. Yet, I know he cant help this. For 40 years he was kind and sooo sweet. The last 5 has not been him. One daughter lives out of state and one that lives locally has Estemic Lupus with a handicap child. No resources at church. They have forgotten me. I am just getting ready to fire the 3 home health care professional for smoking in front of him (he has heart failure and on oxygen) and she took him to dialysis dehydreated. Didn't feed him. Good help is hard to find, even though I was paying big time. Thx for just letting me vent. Everyone judges me. thx for letting me just say this of which I feel horribly guilty because this man would have died for me 5 years ago. That's why I m dying for him now.

[Simon Dog]

The nursing home generally won't "take" your house, as the healthy spouse is allowed to continue living in it.  When one of the owners of a house goes on medicaid a lien is placed on the house ... the non-institutionalized spouse can live there for the rest of his/her days (but cannot sell it).  The lien assures that the equity goes to reimbursing the state for the care if paid for, rather than to provide an inheritance to the children.

What is of more concern is the limited savings the healthy spouse is allowed to provide his/her needs for the remainder of his/her life - something like $109k.  It's never a bad idea t buy some gold or silver (and take possession) well before before the "medicaid years" arrive.