Transcript of
Caring for a parent at home
We first realised...
..that Mum would need some kind of care
and that probably it would be in our house,
about a year and a half ago.
She was hospitalised five times.
It became apparent that she could no longer go back home.
She, after seven months, started to get a lot better,
so it was, "Well, that's fine. We'll carry on,
because we don't know we're going to get with you like this.
"So we're just going to enjoy you being well and you being better
and we'll just take it from here."
We did have to do quite a bit of shuffling about of furniture.
The children agreed that they would give up their playroom for Granny,
so she's now in a downstairs room.
The youngest child didn't think it was quite such a reasonable swap,
but if you go into Granny's room, you'll find his toys in there as well.
So he goes in and plays.
(Claire) Do you want water in that, Mum?
The major benefits are that she's with her grandchildren all the time
and she's never lonely, because there's always somebody here.
Which is lovely.
She also eats properly when she's with us
and I suspect she didn't eat properly at all when she was at home.
We don't have to charge across to the northeast at the drop of a hat
and worry about Granny every day.
So the worry is not there any more, really.
If I want to go out,
then, with my mum being a lot better at the moment,
she is the adult in the house.
There's huge benefits, financially, for my mum
because she doesn't have any more bills to pay.
And that's brilliant financially
but it's also brilliant from the worry point of view.
She doesn't have that stress any more.
Any advice I would probably give to somebody weighing up
whether they ought to consider having a parent living with them,
I would probably say, talk to other people
who have done it, who are in that position already,
and find out what are some of the difficulties at first
and now they've ironed them out.
It's very important that, in order for your own health,
physically and emotionally,
that you have your own space in your own house
and that you have time in your own house
where you are not necessarily expected to be with your parent all the time.
(Claire) Honestly! What are you like?"
It may seem hard at first, but it is worth it.
