A Kaohsiung woman who has been the sole caretaker of her Parkinson’s disease-stricken parents for a decade said she has suffered physically and mentally from taking care of them, but considers her sacrifices worthwhile.
Chang Ting-hua (張庭華) last month received the Filial Piety Award from the Ministry of the Interior in recognition of her efforts.
The slightly built Chang, 45, quit her job at an electronics company 10 years ago to become her parents’ full-time caretaker as most of her sisters have married or are working in China, she said
Photo: Chen Wen-chan, Taipei Times
Her decision was prompted by her mother’s deteriorating health. After spinal surgery triggered Parkingson’s symptoms, her mother began to suffer from loss of sleep and mood swings, as well as trying to escape their home to wander aimlessly, Chang said.
Her mother became paralyzed in 2014 and has at times required intubation to receive food, Chang said.
Her father, now 76, developed Parkinson’s several years after her mother and suffers from bad dreams, outbursts of anger and aggressive behavior, Chang said.
She once had to wrestled a knife from her father as he was having a Parkinson’s-induced tantrum, she said.
Another time her father pushed her mother off the bed and then attempted to drag her back up, causing injuries that led to her mother developing cellulitis, Chang said.
Chang said she feels exhausted because she has little sleep, which led her to break down once and shout at her parents: “I am tired of taking care of you.”
However, due to their loss of acuity, the only sign that they heard her was momentary confusion, she said.
The physical toll of having to help move her parents around has led to Chang developing shoulder pains and nerve damage in her hands, to the point that she could not use chopsticks, she said.
To cheer her parents up, she takes them outside in their wheelchairs on a daily basis and helps her father work with her in the family’s vegetable garden.
Being close to nature reduces their mood swings, she said.
Recently, she has been encouraging her father to go to an elderly daycare center, which costs NT$10,000 per month, because the daily structure it gives him has proven helpful, she said.
She said she pays the daycare fee with the combined NT$7,200 monthly stipend the Kaohsiung Social Affairs Bureau gives her parents, plus money that her sisters send her to help with the finances.
Chang said she plans to take care of her parents for the rest of their lives because it is her obligation to them.
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