With birthdays, Christmas, and other holidays being big family events with us, it’s important that our mom, Vivienne, is with us. This is particularly important now that we have young children.
While it requires a bit of effort—we’ve been long distance caregivers ever since mom had a stroke—we’ve managed to bring mom out of the nursing home quite regularly to celebrate together.
The drill goes like this: we’ve installed a wheelchair ramp that allows us to get the wheelchair into the house. Each time mom visits, we rent a home care bed and commode that are delivered the day before she arrives. We then hire a nurse from the local home care agency to help with personal care, grooming and dressing each morning for two hours and then again at bedtime.
Mom maintains her dignity and privacy, and we’re not stressed by not providing adequate care. Overall, our plan is stress-free and certainly works well to keep mom involved with the entire family.