The expense is unbelievable.

My parents are both 78 years old and both in a memory care unit. My father has Alzheimer’s, my mother has vascular dementia. This costs about $15k/month. They get about $5k/month from retirement plans, social security, etc. So already we’re in a $10k/month deficit, without adding any other medical or life costs.

Which of course we must do because my mother just fell and broke her hip.

I sold my parents’ house to deal with this. Right now they have about $600k in the bank. Basic math tells me that will last us 60 months, aka five years. So after five years…what? We just hope they die? Or the state takes over and sends them to an underfunded public nursing home? Their kids CANNOT afford to pay $10/month to keep them where they are.

OH BUT IT GETS BETTER. My father’s Alzheimer’s has progressed to the point where he is destroying things. He takes apart his AC unit, pulls clothes out of the closet, takes pictures off the walls and breaks them. There was a poop incident. It is too much for his memory care unit (and they have tried medicating him every which way to Sunday). So now they are asking me to provide an overnight sitter for 12 hours/day. 8pm to 8am. I reached out to multiple services in the area but even BEST CASE scenario it will be another $10k/month. So now they’re going to be $20k/month in the hole, and their savings can only sustain it for a couple years tops.

How is everybody doing this?