Hi
I’d like to know if anybody has holiday solutions that might meet the needs of somebody like my mum.
She is in her 60s (but a very ‘young’ 60 something!), and her mobility is not very severely affected by the MS she has had since the early 1980s. She is doubly incontinent and has 25 hour week support from a PA plus 4 visits a day from care workers (in pairs) who do personal care and who move her from bed to chair/wheelchair and back again, using an electric hoist.
I have researched on the internet but have not been able to find anything that sounds like it would meet her physical needs as well as be a place she would want to be.
My mum has always, and still does, struggle to accept her diagnosis and is not a proactive person in terms of dealing with her own health and does not identify herself as ‘disabled’. However, essentially her life is now based in her living room with occasional, carefully timed visits to restaurant, garden centre, supermarket etc (ie fitted in between carer visits 4 times a day). She cannot transfer herself from wheel chair to car and so can only travel in wheelchair accessible vehicles.
She has always enjoyed holidays, is a very cultured person and has been to lots of interesting and luxurious places in the past. I’m not sure we can replicate these experiences now, but she has not been on any kind of holiday for several years (due to a dramatic drop in her physical health over the last 3 years) and I would like to know what the possibilities are and whether her care package at home can be replicated somewhere else. The catch with this is that I know she will not be too happy at the prospect of staying somewhere that is for ‘disabled people’ and where she’d be reminded about her own state of health.
I don’t think her PA would be able to go away with her, due to her own family commitments, so I’m not sure how things could work in a practical sense.
If anybody has any suggestions, tips or advice I would really welcome them!
Many thanks.