Laurie Graham Quotes

Most Americans have some experience with nursing homes or other long term care settings, and nearly half have had a family member or close friend in a home in the past three years.

Florida was a living tomb, she used to tell anyone who'd listen, an old-age home in the shape of a state, God's little waiting room, as she was fond of quoting.

I'd rather rot on my own floor than be found by a bunch of bingo players in a nursing home.

I don't want to hang around in a wheelchair in a nursing home. I don't. I don't want to be like that.

There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.

When I go to the old folks' home, I'm gonna be sitting in a rocking chair, telling everybody how I worked with Jack [Lemmon] and Walter [Matthau].

Family caregiving has become a predictable crisis. Americans are living longer and longer but dying slower and slower.

I am a member of the 'sandwich' generation, that group that must simultaneously care for elderly parents and support children.

My whole life has been nothing but trying to find a way to take care of my mom and take care of my family as quickly as possible.

I've spent a great deal of time over the past decade as a caregiver for various family members. It gives me a perspective on the struggles that many New Yorkers face with illness, disability, health care, insurance difficulties, and trying to work with and also take care of family members.

The Medicaid system currently steers people toward nursing home care. Far more people can be covered in community-based care programs for significantly less.

Nearly every American will encounter the need for long-term care.

I had gone through a mother having dementia in the last couple of years of her life. She was in a nursing facility in my little hometown area of northern Illinois, so I got to see a lot of other patients there in various stages of the disease. I had a firsthand exposure to it in a pretty big way.

I have cared for loved ones nearly all my life, so when I look in the mirror, I see a caregiver looking back at me. It began when I was 12 years old and my father became ill. Taking care of him took a toll on our entire family, my mother most of all.

As my father went through a really, really long and dark period of his health declining and falling deeper into the abyss, I knew I was never going to let my family and my children experience this without any long-term care.

Auntie Phyl's last months in the care home were extra pieces. Age is unnecessary. Some of us, like my mother, are fortunate enough to die swiftly and suddenly, in full possession of our faculties and our fate, but more and more of us will be condemned to linger, at the mercy of anxious or indifferent relatives, careless strangers, unwanted medical interventions, increasing debility, incontinence, memory loss. We live too long, but, like the sibyl hanging in her basket in the cave at Cumae, we find it hard to die.

How good we all are, in theory, to the old; and how in fact we wish them to wander off like old dogs, die without bothering us, and bury themselves.

Heads in the Women's Ward On pillow after pillow lies The wild white hair and staring eyes; Jaws stand open; necks are stretched With every tendon sharply sketched; A bearded mouth talks silently To someone no one else can see. Sixty years ago they smiled At lover, husband, first-born child. Smiles are for youth. For old age come Death's terror and delirium.

We know we are entering a period of transformation in aged care.

People use so much more health care when they live longer.

When I get old, I'm going to the old folks' home. I don't want to be one of those guys who's hanging around the house bothering the kids. But not just any old folks' home. I want the whole top floor.

My first job was in a nursing home - a terrible place in retrospect. It was in an old house, and the residents were so lonely. People rarely visited them. I only stayed there a couple of months, but it made a strong impression on me.

I wanted to make a point of basing myself at home, being close to my family. I'll never be able to repay Mum and Dad for what they did, but at least they know they'll never have to work another day. I'll do whatever it takes to look after them.

I can't bear the thought of my mother having to push me around in a wheelchair. I'd rather die quickly.

My wife Lucy was very sick for nearly three years prior to her death. At one time, I was in the hospital with her for six months.