I'm sorry CC - I've been through all this with my parents, who are both gone now. It was a very hard road of many years, and I had all the same feelings you have and are experiencing. It's so hard to watch your parents decline, realize that they will never be there to take care of you again, that it is now your job to take care of them. They wanted to go to assisted living, but once there, hated it and my Mom was always talking about moving back home. My sister had moved into their home when they left. Eventually my mother was so unhappy she stopped eating altogether. We didn't know this at first, the facility didn't inform us, until she went downhill so quickly from malnourishment they sent her to the hospital and by the time they found a bed for her at a continuing complex long-term care facility, she was only there about 4 days before she passed away. Within a month of her death, we realized the assisted living was no longer enough care for my father and we had to find him a nursing home. It was a decent enough place but it was soul crushing visiting him there. He was in a dementia ward and they just parked the residents by the nursing station and basically that's where they spent their days. Once when I arrived he was parked in the TV room by himself, slouched over in his chair and drooling. I've never been so devastated. He was in and out of lucidity. He lasted there 8 months before he died. I think he just lost all will to live.
It's the worst thing to go through, and I so sorry. Take care of yourself. We are all here for you, to listen and support you.
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