She has been in a memory care facility for the past eight months, and she is failing quickly, but I am afraid she will still be here when it is time for me to go home. I have spent my whole life being the problem solver and enabler for my mom and sisters, and at 68 have finally had enough. Now when she needs someone the most I feel like I am abandoning her. The care facility she is at is short handed and she is not getting the help she needs, but a recent attempt to move her to a nice group family home ended up with the police and aid car being called as she freaked out and tried to escape. The stress is damaging my thirty five year old marriage and causing health problems for me. I pray daily that she be relieved of the suffering she is going thru, the latest being she cannot remember how to care for her dentures.
If you need to move her, hire a medical transportation company or non emergent ambulance company to get her into the new facility. Non emergent ambulance was my choice of transportation for my mother every time. When I moved her from the SNF for rehab into Memory Care, I used a wheelchair accessible van company. The ambulance EMTs can keep her secure on the gurney as she's moved.
You can move mom to a Memory Care Assisted Living community nearby to where you live, if that would help alleviate your guilt. You can't be in two places at once, so if you don't choose that option, you'll just have to reconcile yourself to the fact that you've made this decision for the sake of your health and your marriage after careful consideration. Mom is safe and cared for where she's at, and you can talk on the phone, if she's able to do so. And you'll be back again in 7 months time. The staff will keep you informed of her status, and you can hire a hospice company when the time is right.
I prayed daily for God to take my mother when she lived in MC for the last year of her life, with advanced dementia and heart issues. It was dreadful to visit her and see her deterioration every time. Plus she said so many horrible things to me since her filter had vanished, it was very hard for me to put the smile on my face for the visits, wondering what would be coming out of her mouth next. Dementia is a lose lose situation for everyone. I lost, my husband lost, mom lost, my kids lost, we all suffered the family disease known as dementia. When she blessedly passed in February under hospice care, what I mainly felt was relief. Relief that her suffering was over and that MY suffering was over, too, honestly.
I wish you well in this next phase of your life. And hope you don't let guilt destroy IT, like the rest of your life has been chipped away at by a relentless disease and a more relentlessly difficult personality like your mom has ( and like my mom had too). It's hard to take care of ourselves when guilt gets in the way. The main takeaway here is this: don't abandon YOURSELF in your quest to take care of your mother. Others are doing that already in her Memory Care AL.
Best of luck to you.