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The other day I was catching up with a fellow doll collector and friend of mine who has been taking care of her elderly father for quite a while now.  The situation has gotten quite bad, and as a result she is not getting much sleep and is stressed out all the time.

Her dad is getting quite old and is not really able to take very good care of himself, but he is apparently refusing to move to a retirement home.  All he does all day is sit in his lift chair at home — she said she even found the other day that he had dragged the trash can over next to his chair, so that he could throw stuff away without getting up.

In addition to going over there to take care of him, though, my friend is having to field phone calls from her father during the wee hours of the morning.  It is happening on a regular basis and is one of the primary reasons why she is not sleeping well anymore.

She wants to move her father to a retirement home.  She says they’ll have everything he needs there, including socialization, which she thinks he really needs.  Plus his house just isn’t set up for an aging person, and the staircases are too narrow to make installing stair lifts a possibility.

I’m worried about my friend’s well being.  She can’t keep going on as she has, working to support herself as well as taking care of her father.  She needs sleep, and she needs to be able to relax and not worry about things all the time!  I don’t know how you can prove that your parent is not of sound mind, and put them in a retirement home against their will, but I think that’s what she will need to do before she can get any peace!

Technorati Tags: lift chair, retirement home, stair lifts