Just curious about everyone's story. How many are

[politicat]

1. I've got distant support.

I am lucky -- we can afford assisted living. My gran is about 15 miles away, and I'm there 4 afternoons a week.

I absolutely could never do this full-time, or in home. To be perfectly frank, I would go to prison, the nice hospital with the padded walls, or the crematorium.

Until 6 months ago, gran was 1000 miles away. She had some distant relatives in the area, but nobody emotionally or financially or legally close. My mother & I did what we could (mom lives 800 miles further west of me) using internet banking and home monitoring and enormous long distance bills, but it wasn't enough. I made the difficult decision and packed her up and moved her here.

She still hasn't accepted that this is now home, but there is no alternative. Her former state doesn't have adequate assisted living, and there, the choice is let her be on her own or in a long term care nursing facility. She is not legally eligible for assisted living there, and that's what she needs. She falls every week or two, she can't manage her meds, and her memory is Swiss cheese. The only reason she's doing as well as she is is because she has round the clock monitoring, proper meals, meds management and people to help her. Which she doesn't recognize -- the denial is strong in this one. I can't take care of her -- today proved that. She fell in her bathroom and she outweighs me. I cannot help her up.

My husband is my rock -- he has been incredible, picking up the slack and being my emotional sounding board and talking me down when I'm ready to drive Gran to the Arctic circle and put her on an ice floe. (I'm convinced the dirty secret of any type of care-giving -- parenting, adult care or elder care -- is the dark thoughts that get one through the literally shitty days.)

Mom and I spend at least 10 minutes on the phone, 4 emails and 10 texts a day. (This is unusual for us; not because we dislike one another, but just because I'm not big on phones. We have often gone months without much more than an email.) She is also incredible in stepping up, but she's still 800 miles away and she's a widow with a full time career. Her time is limited, though she drops everything about every 60 days and comes up for a long weekend to give me respite.

I have two sisters; both have kids. (I don't.) they're also 1000 and 1500 miles away, so most everything falls to me, and the professionals who make this adventure possible. I am so grateful to every staff member who cheerfully handle so many fragile people.

Even at my relatively light load (8-12 physical hours, 4 of commute, 10 of logistics and supply chain management, 5 of financial management), it's a second full-time job. Thank ghu that we have the resources. For the first few months, we were handling this on credit and hope and a very fragile financial balance, and it was awful. One disaster would have wrecked us.