I don’t know about you, but as a working mom with two young kids and a father with worsening Alzheimer’s, I sometimes feel as if I’m spinning a hundred plates in the air, and if one thing shifts in the precarious balance I’m maintaining moment to moment, everything will surely come crashing down all at once.

When I first heard about the Bee family moving to the Philippines to help care for Mr. Bee’s father, I really empathized with their decision. I’m sure many parents out there are struggling with similar issues. My own father is 65 but has been diagnosed with early Alzheimers since he was 60. Recently, his health took a dramatic decline, and my mother and sister found themselves really struggling with caring for him at home.

We are very fortunate in that we only live about 30 minutes away from my parents, but at times even that short distance felt like it was too far away. I found myself going to my parents’ home daily, and the commute and back-and-forth between shuttling the kids around to school and all of their activities started becoming an issue. We considered many options, such as selling our home and moving into their home, or selling their house and having them move into ours, or hiring a 24 hour caregiver. With my father’s current condition, the best option we have come upon is having our father in a memory care clinic close to our homes, and rotating shifts between all of us so that we can visit him as frequently as possible and still feel that we are a part of his life and care.

Honestly it’s been quite a painful and traumatic decision and one that none of us were prepared for. Although my father has had Alzheimer’s for several years, my mom had been convinced that she could somehow care for him by herself indefinitely. However, when he was not sleeping, eating, or taking his medications, and my mother was hardly sleeping and becoming ill herself, it became clear that we had to find a different solution.

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In the midst of all of this, I realized that we were probably in denial as to how much my father’s illness had progressed and as a result had not talked about or prepared ourselves for the many difficult decisions ahead of us. Here are a few of the things that in retrospect I wish that we had thought about more carefully.

1. Childcare – With my parents being so close by, we had been lucky for several years in having their help watching the kids when they were younger. When HJ was younger and my father was much healthier, he actually helped out quite a bit with babysitting, and I loved seeing their relationship develop. However, as my father’s Alzheimer’s got worse, asking my mother and sister to help took away time from them that they needed to care for my father. We were lucky in that we already had a long-term babysitter that we counted on two days a week. Recently we were able to increase her hours and add on another sitter for the hours that my mother had previously been covering. With all the trips to the hospital and doctor’s appointments, I was grateful that we had reliable childcare to depend upon at the times we needed it most.

2. Finances – Between trying to save for our own retirement and college for our kids, we unfortunately did not take into account how much care my parents might need for themselves as they got older. Although my parents are first generation Korean immigrants, they never expressed to us the desire that they would need to depend on us for their long-term needs. They had always given us the impression that they wanted to and would be able to care for themselves. Unfortunately, none of us had any idea how expensive long-term care that is not covered by insurance can be, and that it is something that can quickly wipe out a person’s entire retirement savings. Knowing this, we are now struggling with figuring out the best way to help our parents and continue to maintain our own savings so that we don’t become a burden on our children when they get older.

3. Power of Attorney and other legal documents – Thankfully my mother arranged to be my father’s power of attorney before he became significantly ill with the Alzheimer’s, and they also put together a will and other documents. It was not until my father’s health became worse in the past few months, however, that we really discussed with them their wishes for end of life care. This is not an easy conversation to have, and particularly not one that I imagine many Asian parents have with their children. But, in the midst of everything going on, I really wished that we had been able to have that conversation before things had gotten to this point with everyone’s emotions and stress levels already running high. Which brings me to…

4. Open and honest communication – My father’s illness has brought to light many of the things that we never discussed with my parents when they were younger. This of course may have a lot to do with the Asian culture and my parents’ tendency to not really talk about things with us that they considered upsetting or not necessary for us to know, even when we became adults. I only wish that we had been able to discuss more of these things in detail and that we somehow will be able to do so with our children as they get older. Certainly my father’s declining health has already brought up a lot of questions for my four-year-old and seven-year-old, and we are attempting to be as honest as possible with them about the situation without making it too traumatizing.

I am still so thankful that my parents are able to be a part of my children’s lives. My father had always been quite the joker before the Alzheimer’s took over his personality, and even just this afternoon I had a chance to see him be his old self and joke around with my youngest daughter while we were visiting. He still has his good moments, and I’m going to take them and be grateful for them when they come.

Here is a picture of my dad and Lila in his better days. I miss the way things were, and even though the future isn’t clear at this moment, I’m going to do my best to hold on to these memories for as long as I can.

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