The Care and Keeping of Parents.

Both of my parents have health issues. My father (obviously) has CADASIL, while my mother has 7 broken vertebrae in her back from severe osteoporosis. She also has chemical allergies, chronic fatigue, and migraines. So for the last several years I have been at home helping to take care of her when suddenly we found out that my dad was also not as healthy as we thought. At one point last year there was a 6 month period that one or the other was in the hospital or a rehab facility every other month. On one occasion my dad and i had actually gone to pick my mother up from the rehab facility and my dad proceeded to have a stroke and we had to take him by ambulance to the hospital, leaving my mother at the rehab facility to be picked up later by another member of the family.
Caring for someone who is ill takes a lot of patience and energy. However, my mother is ill herself, trying to heal and dealing with constant pain from her back so when she needed to step back into the caregiver role that she had moved out of when my brother and I had gotten to adulthood she found it exhausting, because she was not healthy herself. So our family is trying to maintain a balancing act of healing between two people who both need care, rest, and attention. The only problem is that sometimes I am the only one able to give it and it drives me around the bend some days.