Hi everyone I am 58 years old and a primary career for my 89 year old dad. I previously had to give up work to care for my mum who was diagnosed with bowel cancer. She died 3 years ago and dad s left on his own. He lives alone and I walk down every day to check he is ok, take him shopping as he no longer drives, put all appointments/bin days etc on Calllander for him and take him to all appointments, cut his toenails, weed garden, mow lawns, clean the windows.
He has cleaners once a fortnight which is great. He is not very sociable and doesn’t want to join any groups and he does a little gardening in the summer, but just watches the sports on the telly all winter. Because he cooks for himself and dresses himself (although he asks for help choosing what to wear as only has sight in one eye) he does not meet he criteria for attendance allowance, therefore I can’t get careers allowance.
I am not complaining because I love my dad but it would be nice to talk to others in this situation.
What is dad’s financial situation? Does he have over £23,000 in savings?
Are you an only child?
has he sorted out his will and Power of Attorney?
It sounds like he’s adapted well to the loss of his wife, and is ‘doing his best’ to be independent and so on, and that is great.
I would say that your main ‘task’ is to ‘think about the next stage’ of his life.
You won’t need me to say that what we all want for our elderly parents is that we can ‘see them out’ in their OWN home, and that one day you will simply arrive one morning and discover that he has ‘slipped away peacefully’ in the night…
Sadly, it is not always like this (or possibly not even ‘often’ - though it did happen to the mum of a friend of mine - she didn’t come down for breakfast, and the daughter asked her husband to check, and when he came down she knew what had happened…but it was a ‘good way to go’ for all that).
So I think it would be only sensible to run a ‘mental exercise’ in what your options would be for him were he to decline in health or vigour. What do you think would happen in ‘the next stage’ if he can’t manage to do what he is doing now?
To make those choices, as BB is asking, you need to know what your options are for him, and that, sadly, depends a great deal on his financial situation.
I hope you manage to have nice ‘quality time’ with him, and ‘companionship time’ - make all the good memories you can. (And also, ‘collect’ his memory too - go through old photos, get family tree details, as much as you can of his youth, early years of marriage and so on. SO invaluable!)