What is your support system?

What is my support system?
Support system?

This question was asked of me recently by a social worker at my dads Alzheimer's doctor, and by the social worker at my dads apartment complex.

What is a "support system"? Well it seems to be people and services that help take the burden from having to take care of a person who can't do it themselves. 

I never thought about what MY support system is. I never knew I needed one. Now I wish they had never asked me because it was then that I realized I had no "support system" (apart from my wife).

In fact I am the support system for several people.

I have 2 sisters that want nothing to do with Bob and do not know he is living here, 1 brother who had to take care of our mother and does not want to take care of another difficult to deal with old person (I don't blame him), 1 other brother who cannot help for various reasons, and 1 other sister who could help but lives too far away and has a mean, self centered, spiteful, elderly mother-in-law that lives with her which she and her husband have to deal with. There is my nephew but he is just starting his adult life, his work schedule is 180° out of phase with everyone else, and he needs to get his pilots license which will take up most of his remaining spare time. I would not think of putting this burden on him. My wife helps quite a bit but she has to help her elderly mother and obnoxious brother who both have serious medical problems. My wife also has no "support system" except for me.

What is my support system? it's just me and my wife.
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Today I met with the ALTCS case worker at the rehab center. I gave her some papers from 2 doctors stating that Bob needs to be in an assisted living facility, a copy of the paper from the Alzheimer's doctor that says Bob is not capable of making informed decisions, and a detailed list of all the things that we have noted that Bob cannot do or problems he is having.

She asked him some simple questions:
What is his name? he answered that correctly.
What is my name? (she pointed at me) he answered correctly.
What day of the week is it? he did not know.
What is day of the month is it? he did not know.
What month is it? he did not know.
What is the room he is in called? his response was "A joke", she re-asked the question and he did not know.
What is the name of the facility he is in? he did not know.
How does he keep track of the time and date? initially he did not know, but then he remembered the special clock I got for him that has the date, month, year, and day of the week (an Alzheimer's clock).
What time is it? He looked at his wrist watch and then looked confused, he said the big hand was on the 6 and the little hand was on the 10, but could not figure out what that meant. This was something new I had not noticed that he has trouble telling the time from a non digital clock.
He then told her the story of how he had lost his license (as he remembered it) which was of course mostly made up.

The case worked did tell me that based on what she saw he would have no problem qualifying for ALTCS, she would have to type up the report and file it, which would take a bit and I should not worry if I don't hear anything for a while.

Before all this I spoke with the doctor there and they changed his antibiotics since it appears he is allergic to the one that he was given originally. The swelling in is right hand was almost gone but he still has cellulitis in his left leg.