How do you feel about the prospect of nursing your elderly parent until the end?

After all they looked after you when you were young, can you repay the favour?
Or do you think we only have one shot at life? And we need to make the most of what is best for us?

I did it with my mother. She had cancer, had a mastectomy, but then got secondaries. I took her 5 times a week to have radiotherapy, later I took her for chemotherapy. We used to sit in a corridor, looking at other people with cancer. I got the green boxes for quite a few people, because they had nobody with them to do it for them. I worked full time (I’m male with four children if thatny difference at all) but then took a second job to pay for my mother to go to a sort of alternative place in Bristol. That didn’t work. Anyway, to cut an agonising story short, she died at 64 in a hospice, I was with her, holding her hand, heard her take her last breath. But it seemed that the funeral was no sooner over than I started to look after my gran (mother’s mother) and her elderly sister, who shared a house. The elderly sister, my great aunt, died 6 years later of bronchitis and old age, and a year later my gran died, aged 95.
HOWEVER – my mum had an absolutely rotten life with my father, and the least I could do was care for her in every way when she was ill. As for my gran – I am one of identical twins and when we were babies my mum looked after my brother and my gran looked after me. So … as age comes and goes, I took great care of her.
I don’t think that society really understands the problems that old people face. With my gran and great aunt I was able to relieve all their burdens, of whatever kind. Too much detail to go into now.
But to simply answer your question – YES. Look after them. The older you get, the more you realise what they did for you.

Visiting the Elderly in Nursing Homes