Wife Seeks Help For Home Caregiver Solution For Disabled Spouse

by Cindy
(Waverly, NY, USA)

My husband suffers from mental illness and some physical infirmities. For seven years I have been the sole breadwinner.

Each day I go to work, I am torn between making sure my husband is safe and our need for income to keep a roof over our heads.

My husband is bipolar and has a panic disorder. Seven years ago he quit work, as he was unable to handle the stressors that come along with being a home health care aide.

He has been hospitalized once in those seven years for suicidal thoughts. Three years ago he was diagnosed with NPH, which is hydrocephalus that has no explanation of why he acquired it.

Prior to diagnosis he was unable to walk, he had trouble with short-term memory and he was incontinent.

The shunt he had placed in his brain has helped improved these symptoms but since we do not know how long he had the hydrocephalus before surgery we don't know what brain damage may have occurred.

Along with these two maladies, he also suffers from spinal stenosis, which keeps him in pain much of the time. With the spinal stenosis he has had several falls and was recently hospitalized for a compression fracture of the spine.

My want is to be able to be home with my husband so he will have care 24/7. He does have a home health care aide come in once a day to help with his personal care and make sure he gets his breakfast and lunch. But there are still many hours he is alone.

He needs help getting up from the couch and the wheelchair in order to get to the bathroom or from wheelchair to sofa. He has tried to pick up around or care for the dogs we have and has lost his balance and lain on the floor for hours.

I have mobility problems and have to use a walker. Because I still work, I don't qualify for disability. But I need to work to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads and these days it is a struggle.

I have tried to look for grants that would pay me to stay home because I still need some sort of income.

Every day I get to work and worry about my husband needing something or possibly lying on the floor because he needed something from the kitchen or needed to get to the bathroom.

I need to be home and I need to have an income coming in. Is there anything out there to help my husband and myself?

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