Just out of interest why did you copy your message to another group with no
relevance to Az?  (talk.abortion)
I ask because trolls sometimes use this tactic to try and flood other groups

I am dealing with BOTH my parents who are Alzheimer's patients.....yet their
insurance says that they have no medical necessity for either visiting
nurses or nursing home care.....it's perfectly "healthy" for my also
diabetic father whose legs are numb from neuropathy and can hardly walk or
see, to try to keep my advanced AD mother from wandering out of the house,
hiding their hearing aids & glasses, money, ATM cards.....walking in to the
neighbors' house without knocking and telling them that this strange man is
in her house trying to get her to take pills.....she can walk for miles,
about the only physical thing she still remembers how to do....but Dad can
walk only a few steps so must just sit and watch her leave because he can't
see well enough to manage locks....and all my sister and I can do is stop in
regularly to take care of laundry, baths, doctor visits, prescriptions,
banking, shopping, etc. and come running when the emergency calls come, then
hope for the best.  We try, but neither of us can be in two places at once.

Only after their health has deteriorated sufficiently will their insurance
pay for SOME nursing services.  IF there is a "medical necessity"......but
if the "only" problem is that they are a danger to themselves and others,
they can be confined to a hospital/nursing home for only 72 hours....as if
that's going to 'cure' them.

So all we've got to help them with is as much of our time as we can spare
from our own families, lots of worry and hoping for the best.  Dad
absolutely refuses to put Mom in a nursing home even on a temp basis for
'respite' care, which is all he/we can afford anyway.

About a year ago, my own memory problems had progressed to the point that
others started to notice......I was starting to forget to make bank
deposits, something I had NEVER done in over 20 years.....forgetting how to
cook after doing so for 20+ years.....doing things like driving several
miles on a flat, SHREDDED front tire and never noticing......these things
are NOT me!

So the diagnosis is: Major Depression.  As an added bonus, I also have
something called "temporal lobe epilepsy" also known as psychomotor
epilepsy.

Yet, after all this, I look at what I've just typed and think "Ugh!  That
all may be true, but I've never considered myself as 'depressed'"!  After
all, I know concentration camp survivors that aren't this messed up.  It's
not what you get, but what you DO with what you get that makes the
difference.

I can only describe watching both your parents disintegrate before your eyes
as this:  Imaging being fed through a chipper/shredder very,
very...slowly....my mother used to say that the last step in growing up is
burying your parents....so what is this?

I feel much better now.  If anything I said can possibly benefit anyone,
it's worth the telling.

Sarah Kanary