Difficult situation.....I fully understand on several accounts.

My grandmother had alzheimers & she was the mean kind that beat up my grandfather with her cane because she thought he was someone breaking into her house. My mother couldn't handle making the decision & arranging to have my grandmother assessed & have a decision made about how to care for her.....so I ended up figuring out how to get her taken care of.....she had a worn our hip replacement that needed to be replaced.....so I talked with her Dr to have her mental capacity assessed while she in in for that surgery & told him what my grandfather had been going through. They took care of the Dx of alzheimers & help us arrange for a nursing care facility for her to go into...one that was very clean & nice.....one my grandfather actually ended up in the lesser care end of when he could no longer take care of himself......go figure, they celebrated their 75 wedding anniversary together in that nursing home......as they both lived to be over 95 years old even with her alzheimers. It was sort of sad to have to trick her into going into the hospital to finally get her situation taken care of but you have to do what you have to do.

With my mother is was a bit different. She ended up having blood clots in her legs from the lymphedema after her cancer surgery. I am sure she had a stroke just before we celebrated Thanksgiving together for the last time.....she was no longer able to think rationally & her cognative ability was not there for anyone who knew her.....but the hospital refused to test for the possibility of her having had a stroke......so they let her come home to her own home because it was where she wanted to go & that was when the horrible abusive home care person got into the picture (long story I posted here when it happened back in 2004). My mother was at her home for 5 days when all the trauma hit & the final straw was the home care person OD"ed my mother intentionally on her morphine which allowed me to get my mother out of the house & back into the hospital where she needed to be.......3 more weeks in the hospital & I found a nursing home close to my house for her to go into & I told her that her house wasn't able to handle her in her condition....the toilet kept backing up & it was just impossible for her to stay there & I physically couldn't care for her.....told her at that point she didn't have any choices left even though I know she wanted to stay in her house, we had given it a chance & we shouldn't have even then. I know that her mind was gone because she kept asking me when she was going to get better even after the Dr's finally told her that her cancer had spread.....she was so completely in denial is was really sad. I think the sadest part was that growing up, I always thought that my mother wasn't very smart & I remember her commenting that when I got older, I would see just how smart she really was......sadly, I never did. She was always making poor choiced & unwise decisions & never knew how to really take care of herself even though she was proud of the things she could fix after my father died.

It's truly UNCONDITIONAL LOVE you have. I know they had it for us when we were growing up, it just didn't come across like it most of the time. When dementia gets in the way....all you can do is hold onto the acceptance that you did receive & know that was really your mom & not the dementia effected person. I know it's tough.

I loved my mother, but at the same time, I hate her for what she put me through because of her stupidity at the end of her life let alone all that she kept me from doing when I was growing up because she didn't have the self-confidence to get her drivers license until the same time I got mind.......but those things I have to let go.....they are in the past....it's much harder to let go of the stupidity at the end of her life even though I know she had a stroke even though the Dr's refused to prove that she did & blamed in on her being chronically ill......her oncologist at that time wouldn't even admit that her cancer was spreadiing & kept insisting that he got it all with the surgery a few months earlier.

The Dr's, my mother, & the whole sithation was a nightmare & I was living in the same state & was actually staying with her 24/7 by that point.....another thing that made me a bit angry because I had an injured baby foal I was needing to take care of at the same time all this was going on with my mother.....it's no wonder my stress & anorexia landed me in the hospital for several months at the time she died.

It's not easy being the child caring for the child parent but unfortunately it seems like that's the way it goes if they live long enough to get old.

Life isn't very pretty when we get older.....I just don't want to do to my daughter what my mother did to me.

I remember fighting with my mother about her needing someone to come into the house & make meals for her & make sure she was taking her meds correctly.....she swore she wasn't in pain & yet was popping the pain pills like there was no tomorrow & getting them from several Dr's at the same time. When I saw how many pain meds she was taking while swearing to me that she had no pain.....I told her that she could either be honest or I was only going to allow her what the prescription called for. She fought having anyone come into her house that she didn't know because she was afraid that they would see just how bad she really was.

Hate to say this, but the condition they found your mother in.....there is no way she should go back to living alone & I don't trust home care people farther than I can throw them.....unless they are bonded & working for an agency & those are really expensive.

I can really understand your struggle & it really does bring back all the bad memories that I experienced with my mother......& I am so sorry that you are having to go through this along with the abuse again.