hey y’all, after a crazy turn of events, I became the primary full-time caregiver for my 93-year-old grandmother who has advanced dementia, after my grandfather recently passed unexpectedly. he was physically strong and completely neurologically intact up until the day he died, so he was able to care for her.
I’m 23 years old, and work full time as an EMT, and leave my grandmother with a home health nurse during my shifts 3x a week, but full time care giving is something new to me. I’ve moved into my grandparents home so I can best care for my grandmother, and frankly don’t trust any of the care facilities that are even remotely affordable (i’ve run calls in them and they’re awful. i’ve had to report several of them to adult protective services.)
my grandmother Sundowns pretty severely during the night, and can become increasingly confused and agitated just because she’s scared and doesn’t know what’s going on. she also gets very confused at times because she thinks I am my mother (who has also passed from cancer about 8 years ago) and distinctly remembers burying her, yet here I am. with all this new change, she has also been having reduced oral intake, more anxiety and more confusion and deviation from her baseline, etc. some days she does great and has a positive mood, eats well, we play mahjong together, but other days we struggle heavily just to drink water and speak.
I understand that this disease is complex and changes her every day. I just want to give her the best quality of life I possibly can and make her remaining years as meaningful and happy as possible for her. I’m just so young and this is all so new. i am just so scared to f**k this up.
any tips/tricks/advice is much appreciated, thanks for listening to my rant.