Stories Of Struggle

• I am a 33 yr old female who is the sole caregiver for my grandmother. I quit working and moved in with her when she could no longer live alone. She is 84 and was born in the house she currently lives in. She wants to die in this home. I am doing everything possible to keep her in her home but as I come near the two year mark, it is starting to wear on me. With no other family to help, it is Grandma and I, 24-7. I learned to order groceries and house hold items on line. I started an online store to help supplement income. My grandmother can't walk so I lift her to and from a potty chair when she has to go. I have done everything and more that a family should do to care for their aging loved ones. As the isolation and home bound hysteria started to wear on me, I started looking for some kind of respice care. Just someone to come in every other week or so to give me a few minutes to my self. Maybe help with the cooking or cleaning and keep my grandmother company so that I could take a shower with out being on call. I have found that unless you are on medicaid, there is no support for the elderly who wish to remain at home. You can give up everything you worked your whole life for and go to a nursing home or you can fend for your self at home. I don't understand this. Seems to me it would be in the States best interest to enable the people out there who are trying to stay at home. With the astronomical cost of housing and caring for the elderly, why not offer assistance to the people who are doing it at home and carrying the weight of their older loved ones. I can't afford to pay $20 a hour for someone to come in to the home and sit with my grandmother for a few hours every other week or so. I am struggling as it is. It makes no sense that the state would rather pay the $200-300 dollars a day to house and care for the elderly, instead of spending more on helping the people who are trying to care for their loved ones at home. Jodie Hertford, NC January 8, 2012
• PRETTY BLEAK WITH ALL THE CUTS WANTING TO BE MADE!! Dolly King, NC October 19, 2011
• Many seniors I know cannot afford the medicines they need now, even with Medicare. I cannot imagine how many people would die in this country without Medicare. I wonder how these congressmen who want to get rid of medicare would feel if their own parents were drawing barely enough to survive and then have their medical care cut off? Debbie Conover, NC October 18, 2011
• I am a single grandmother raising a 14 year old grandchild and have no health insurance! Donna Spencer, NC October 17, 2011
• Very grim. Joey Waynesville, NC October 14, 2011