Another family member is the primary caregiver, but they cannot handle this and many other tasks alone. It's a two person job. It doesn't make it easier. I'm on call 24/7/365. I feel anxious when my phone rings because it might be yet another emergency.

Finances don't allow for full time assistance. We have a sitter a few times a month but are entirely responsible for this relative's care and will be until they die.

I can handle most of it. But (TRIGGER WARNING POSSIBLE)


She's bedbound and I have to change wound bandages and perform bathroom necessities, and her mental state is nearly gone from Alzheimer's. She doesn't understand why I'm hurting her, and she screams and tries to hit me and pinch me and begs me to stop.

Additionally, she has had something deteriorate in her brain and she mumbles slurred words repetitively, constantly, while she is awake. Her doctor has tried a variety of medication and nothing works except sedatives that knock her out. It's like torture to have to listen to that for extended periods of time, on a daily basis.

I hear her even when she's not talking, I hear her when I'm at work, I wake up at night thinking I've heard her. I feel like I'll be hearing her screams of pain and hallucinating and mumbling in my head for the rest of my life.

I can handle it most of the time before and afterward. I have cried about this precisely twice in four years . But if there's something I can do to endure performing the medically necessary tasks, something to help ease the pain, to keep from being so overwhelmed, I need to find out what it is.