Worries about the primary caretaker of the demented elderly mother, something that’s happening, all over now, translated…
Recently, I’d had troubles communicating with my younger brother regarding my demented mother. My brother who’d stayed unmarried had, lived with my mother, and, after almost sixty-years’ of getting along, they’d come to, rely on one another, especially after my father passed away, they’re all each other has; and, all of us, older brothers and sisters are all in awe, at how patient and how much heart my youngest brother carried, to looking after mom.
It’s just, that with my mother’s dementia getting more and more severe, we’d felt, that there needs to be someone with her, 24/7, but, this wasn’t something, that any of us, her children can accomplish, even as we’d done it right now, taken shifts, worked hard, to make sure, that at least one of us was there with her, we’d often, felt, stressed, and, everybody is doing all that they can, but, we’d all worried endlessly, and, we carried, this, deeply rooted guilt.
not my photograph…
We also knew that with an outsider in the house, there would be, more inconveniences, especially, for our youngest brother, and so, he’d not, agreed to hiring a helper. He’s not active in searching for someone to help out, there was, nothing we can do, to push him along, and can only worry.
I’d stressed, multiple times to my siblings, the importance of having a hired hand to look after our mother, actually, I am more concerned about my youngest brother. Long-term care had become, an important issue for Taiwan now, and, there’s emphasis on the breather program for the primary caretakers, wanting those who looked after the elders who can no longer take care of themselves, to NOT turn into the next person who’d needed looking after, as they’d become, completely, beaten psychologically and/or physically, for looking after their loved ones.
There are many cases all around, with the male caretakers taking up the majority, and, other than going to work, my younger brother stays around the house, rarely had any social activities, unlike how we have our family, whom we can complain to, or girlfriends, we can, talk with, and gain the support we’d needed from the interactions, helping us keep carrying on.
not my photo here still…
I hope, that my younger brother can feel my heart for him, taking care of our aging mother, is a good thing, but, there would be, restrictions and shortcomings in “elderly taking care of the even more elderly”, this, is something we can’t dodge, and something we want to avoid. And, it’s, in this situation, that we must, consider, hiring a foreign caretaker, as it’s, an important, option that may help us all out.
So, this, is the problem that a lot of the families with an elderly is faced with here, and in this family, the youngest brother took up the role of the sole-caretaker of their elderly demented mother, but, there are, so many cases in society of how the primary caretaker became so overwhelmed, that tragedies happen, because of this lack of social support, and this family is trying to prevent this tragedy from happening to their loved ones.
Life, the Obstacle Course 