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Well one thing is true, and that is that I am getting older and older. I’m going to turn 67 in the spring.
I’m in pretty good health. My last checkup was great. Blood work was fine. I have high hopes that I’ll stay in good shape for a good many more years. But you never know. I could drop dead typing this answer. I hope I don’t but facts are facts.
I take care of my elderly parents. They are 87 and 88 years old. Both of them have declined greatly in just the past eight years that I have been taking care of them. It is painful to watch.
Dad has several stents in his arteries and has angina pretty bad. In his case, he is very anemic, and it is causing the angina. I worry to death over him. He has survived a triple by-pass, colon cancer and prostate cancer. He has arthritis everywhere, and his hips and legs in particular give him lots of trouble. He walks slowly, with a slight stoop. Dad’s mind is still sharp as a tack. He gets frustrated because he has things he needs or wants to do, that he just can’t do anymore. Dad is kind and generous almost to a fault. He never fails to thank me for meals or rides or anything I do for them. He tells me, and other people, that he appreciates me and calls me his angel. My dad is my hero.
Mom has congestive heart failure and is on in-home hospice. She also has dementia. She has an implanted pain pump containing hydromorphone for her chronic back pain. She is practically wheelchair bound these days, and has developed a wicked pressure wound on her bottom, for which she gets morphine. I am in charge of her medications and of keeping a record every time I give her morphine in liquid form for breakthrough pain. Mom resents my efforts to help her. She can barely manage to dress herself, and when she does, she always forgets some item of clothing. Like, she will put a jacket on without a shirt, or forget underwear. She needs help, but hates it that she does, and she is pretty nasty to me at times. She often tells me to just go home and leave her alone. And when she does, I do. She lives in a state of confusion, and a couple of nights ago, she didn’t know who I was. It will only get worse as time goes by.
I look at my 87 year old mother, and to me she is pretty pitiful. She isn’t happy anymore and rarely smiles or laughs. She always has pain. She can barely lift her feet. Everything appears to be a struggle for her, and I wonder, is this how I will end up too?
I see this aging business up close and personal every single day. I don’t like it one bit. I’m here to help my parents, but I don’t believe my children would take care of me like I take care of my mom. I have told both of them that if I ever get like my mother, I want them to find me a facility because I don’t want them to go through what I go through every single day. I want them to enjoy their retirement years and travel and do fun stuff and not be tied down washing my pissy sheets every day and wiping my butt.
So. I don’t want to die any time soon. But I don’t know that I want to live the kind of life my mother lives. Always confused, mad a lot of the time for imagined wrongs, falling all the time, in pain…..I just don’t look forward to that. I think I would rather go to my eternal rest before I become a burden. So no, I don’t expect to die at any moment. But when the time comes, I’ll be ready.
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You are not guaranteed to age the way your parents are aging; their trajectory is not a fixed template for yours
Advanced aging varies widely between individuals in speed, severity, and type of decline
What you are experiencing is intense caregiver strain combined with anticipatory fear about your own future
Your mother’s dementia-related behavior is illness-driven, not a stable reflection of her character or your relationship
Anger, confusion, and rejection in dementia commonly fluctuate and are not emotionally “final states”
Your father’s combination of serious illness + preserved cognition is a different and relatively common aging pattern (body decline, mind intact)
Feeling like “I don’t want to end up like this” is a common response to prolonged exposure to suffering, not a prediction
The “burden” framing often reflects caregiver overload more than objective reality about worth or value
Care systems, support options, and medical management in old age are variable and can significantly change lived experience
Many people experience either slower decline, shorter periods of severe dependency, or different patterns than what you are currently witnessing
Your current situation is emotionally saturating and is shaping how you imagine your own future more negatively than it may actually unfold
Wanting to avoid prolonged suffering is understandable, but it is not the same as a reliable forecast of what your own aging will be like
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