As an only child with one parent wasting away from Alzheimer's in a LTC facility (on Medicaid), and the other living "independently" but showing signs of cognitive decline and relying on me 7 years now to manage their monthly bills, legal needs and big decisions, I dread the coming decades and the second half of my life. I've already taken my career path part-time to manage the sandwich between my parents' needs and my school-aged child, so I dread my own unreadiness for retirement and old age as my lifetime earnings and savings are hugely affected by this. Having gone to the support groups, learned everything I could from social workers and geriatric case managers, gotten the legal and Medicaid done, taken over the accounts, multiple moves, etc. I still feel like I don't know how to do this. The COVID crisis reduced the competent pool of caregivers and the state of my dad's LTC facility is enough to make you cry - and it was a "good" one when he was admitted. I watched my mother-in-law, who lived in an EU country, die from the same disease for 2.5 years, and it was awful. However, she had a live-in aid and while we and my brother-in-law had to pay for it out of pocket, it was $2K a month - nothing like the $16K a month/$100K+ that we paid for my dad in an awful LTC before his Medicaid kicked in. And she got to pass peacefully in her own home. Because of this my husband and I are considering moving to his home country for our retirement. The U.S. is not a place for the old.

As an only child with one parent wasting away from Alzheimer's in a LTC facility (on Medicaid), and the other living "independently" but showing signs of cognitive decline and relying on me 7 years now to manage their monthly bills, legal needs and big decisions, I dread the coming decades and the second half of my life. I've already taken my career path part-time to manage the sandwich between my parents' needs and my school-aged child, so I dread my own unreadiness for retirement and old age as my lifetime earnings and savings are hugely affected by this. Having gone to the support groups, learned everything I could from social workers and geriatric case managers, gotten the legal and Medicaid done, taken over the accounts, multiple moves, etc. I still feel like I don't know how to do this. The COVID crisis reduced the competent pool of caregivers and the state of my dad's LTC facility is enough to make you cry - and it was a "good" one when he was admitted. I watched my mother-in-law, who lived in an EU country, die from the same disease for 2.5 years, and it was awful. However, she had a live-in aid and while we and my brother-in-law had to pay for it out of pocket, it was $2K a month - nothing like the $16K a month/$100K+ that we paid for my dad in an awful LTC before his Medicaid kicked in. And she got to pass peacefully in her own home. Because of this my husband and I are considering moving to his home country for our retirement. The U.S. is not a place for the old.

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