My father has always been difficult to talk to, to work with on anything. He always knows more than anyone else. It gets worse as he gets older. He even gets violent. He has minimal dementia. He would not stay in a home. He qualifies for hospice and my sister and I will be sharing responsibilities over his care simply because neither of us can handle him by ourselves. We're not even sure that he will leave his rural home to move to my sister's home for hospice care. He is becoming unable to care for himself primarily because of extreme pain from an accident that happened years ago. He will be on morphine for the rest of his life. He simply doesn't like nor trust people, including his family. What would you suggest and how would you suggest we carry it out. Neither of us can stand being around him for long. He becomes very abusive.
Eventually, my cousins had to gain Guardianship and force place him in a VA nursing home with a dementia unit, where by all accounts, he WA the life of the party.
Can you pursue guardianship? That gives you the right to force place him.
I guess the other option is to leave him be. What is the downside to that? Has he talked, ever, about end of life choices? Does he want to be left to his own devices until he's dead?
Anyway. Given that quite major factor, and that your father has never found it easy to accept help from you or your sister, would it perhaps be a good idea for the two of you to work on your own expectations of how much you're going to be able to do for him? Concentrate instead on building relationships with his care team so that you can be involved at a safe distance. Your father may be sincere in his preference to stay in his own home; and while emotionally I can understand why your sister would want to assist with his hospice care I think she might be setting herself up for a fruitless ordeal. What qualifies him for hospice, do you mind my asking?
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