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[–]Comatoast 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Just wait it out and be patient. This sounds ultra shitty, but with any luck they won't be around for much longer. It's understandable to be pissed about this. He's making extra money in the mean time, but honestly both of them need to go into assisted living. Neither of you are qualified to care for them at this point. Is there something on their Medicare plans that would cover them?

I hate how we're guilted by society to take care of our elders while everyone is living 20+ years longer and being kept alive by the mercy of medications and their 6+ medical appointments a month. It's too much strain to deal with for adults that are already struggling with their own lives.

[–]WrongToy[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

It does not sound shitty. It's the eventuality for all of us. Both their kids are childless so there's not going to be "someone there to care for us."

Half the time when they call, they are mute about what's going on with them personally, but they want us to check on, bring things to, the other one. They have made it abundantly clear that when one of them goes, the other one will wish and will that they were dead too. That is seriously their plan--there's no plan for them to be separate from each other.

None of them are willing to discuss the obvious option of being placed for some months in the same care facility, where they could share a room, watch each other, and encourage each other in the process of rehabilitation or getting better. They want to do that at home and so far, they are doing it without paying anyone.

I'll last maybe weeks in this situation before boundaries will be put up. SO, if you're not here to further our needs as a team, then really do you want to rent here when they're going to "give" you your 1982 hs room for free? You really want to go down that track for three years, 10 years?

[–]Comatoast 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I give the mom maybe 6 months. Non-hodgkin's lymphoma at stage 4 when you're that old isn't really something to dismiss. It's kind of sweet how they're that dedicated to each other though, I won't lie. Being 100% honest with you, I am an advocate for staying with a spouse unless they've lied, cheated, done something reprehensible that can no longer earn respect, or there's no longer love there. It's not very modern of me, but I feel like when that kind of time and effort has been put into a relationship that the person is special enough to warrant making it work with a compromise. I'm not sure what your personal stance is on that, so things may be entirely different for you.

There's an obligation there for your fiance, and I get it to a degree, but he can't risk fucking up and accidentally dropping her or her having a fall, choking on something, croaking out of the toilet, etc., when she's there with him. The dad can move in with the sister after it happens, you guys should really discuss that with her. Especially since that type of change would strain you guys enough to end things.

[–]WrongToy[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It is sweet that they want to be together! But they want to do it at home together. SO and his brother talked privately without his wife around, and they agreed that this situation could not go on for more than a month and/or until the ffil returns from the stroke place. If they want that at that time, they'll need professional assistance.

As an aside, i was asked to look up some prices for a comparative chart. The low end was SO working for $25/hour for 12-hour overnight shift--which works out to 9,000/month. The so and his mom talked between themselves, and she's committed to paying him for every hour he spends on them and not just that. afaik, the brother's wife is volunteering, so what they'd pay him would be it.

The high-end? Twenty-four hours of bonded CNA presence through an agency retaining them as an employee (thus avoiding client risk of them being hurt on the property) is over 36,000/month where I live. Going through care.com for an indie, about $29,000 per month.

And that's for one person. For two?

They are 1 percenters who like clipping coupons and talking about what insurance isn't paying for. But truth is, the option isn't for the family to be involved with this for long, not with two invalids needing 24 hour care. They need a skilled nursing facility in which they can both reside in the same room and comfort each other. They need med techs coming by to check their blood levels and vitals. The kids have successfully gotten the cat and the dog temporarily relocated and neither can return until the mom's chemo is done. The cost to stay home is absolutely insane if you're getting help for even one person on a 24 hour basis who at least is bonded and backgrounded. Let alone two.

[–]Comatoast 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It's good that your fiance and his brother talked about everything and that they ended up coming to that conclusion. Home health is expensive as hell (which is hilarious considering the piddly ass pay that the CNAs actually see out of it). Yeah, I mean assisted living areas are pretty expensive, but they can be extremely homey and nice. It also gives them plenty of opportunities to be a part of the community there and keep their brains active. It's likely that if they're moved over there that assets will start drying up, so they'll need to make proper plans on taking care of finances for anything they want anyone else to have in a will ahead of time to keep the facility from potentially draining them. Being 1 percenters, that's likely not an issue for them but I'm just putting it out there.

[–]WrongToy[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They have $3M in cash from the ffil's mom, who passed away at 103, to say nothing of the half of the house plus assets they received from her parents when they died prior. They just insist that they wanna be at home, by far their most expensive option, if they did it right.

SO tried spending the nights at his mom, with his brother's wife coming over during the day. Within 48 hours, there were heated calls with f-bombs flying between the two of them because she demanded of him a "day off" but did not wish to reciprocate by sending the brother, her husband, over there to spend the night.

Anyway that night was the first, and probably the only, night I spent at ILs, because 1) they'd removed the cat that i'm deathly allergic to (seriously, it's a 4 to 8 benadryl night after their holidays) and 2) crucially, there was supposed to be a Big Fambily Meeting including the fmil about maybe introducing a respite person.

I show up, and DIL is just like, "His mom has had a long day. This isn't a good time to talk."

Within a couple hours, I'm observing that she's up, eating, awake and alert, and talking to Daddy about their affluent town gossip and Mrs. So and So. Within a couple hours, I'd determined that this would be my last night there ever, or at least for a long while.

So when we had a moment alone, I pulled up my chair, and I'm like, "she's putting in 70 hours a week and he's hit maybe 102. They CAN'T relieve each other. What if either of them gets "flu symptoms"? It could be covid."

OMG, the just no part of her came out in force. Her first reaction was to say what she's paid for him, over the years, look I'll show you my checkbook. I'm like, it's not about that. The second reaction was her breaking into tears (she often does) and the third reaction was to banish me from the whole floor.

The next day, I wasn't there, but the DIL and her husband (his brother) were. The brother was tasked with conveying the DIL's severe displeasure by saying that I shouldn't have done that over her explicit instruction. His reply: "If she didn't do that, then Mom would be making YOU the fall guy. She's only going for having the hired help you've been looking into because SHE got mom to start thinking about it."

There was more conversation, which ended, reportedly, in the SO telling his brother to, quote, "fuck off."

Omg. The hired help the brother found was this lady who sort of knew some neighbors of hers, but she is very much into her Affluent Little Town. This lady is now tasked with working a straight 48 hour shift (to relieve DIL, whom I'll call Baby Jane) and then come in at night to "just sleep there" as the dad will be returning from stroke rehab with a withered right arm and hand at best. They fired SO from all the shifts they'd scheduled him for, because they found a rando off the street to work for $5 less, and less than $5 over legal minimum wage.

Thankfully I wasn't part of the discussion.