My parents had me in their late 40's so here I am around the same age now with both of my parents gone.
My mother was a lifelong smoker and paid the price quickly at the end, but at least without a lot of suffering. It was agonizing to see her fade away in the period of 4 or 5 days, basically suffocating because her lungs just didn't work anymore, but at least we know she wasn't in any pain. If you're a smoker...seriously....stop. Your family may have to go through this and it was gutting.
At least there was no difficult decisions to be made with regards to LTC for her.
My father however was not very independent. My parents were oldschool Leave It To Beaver sorts - mom was the happy housemaker in the big house taking care of all the lady stuff. Dad went to work and made the money, and did well for himself. I lived a privileged childhood lets just say.
The problem was that when my mother passed away dad did not do well independently. Already suffering from health issues that effected his mobility, and without really any idea how to even cook for himself or do laundry, it was tough. Mom always did it, end stop. We arranged meals on wheels and we had CCAC come in to help with maintenance of the apartment they'd moved into when they sold the (now smaller, having downsized about 15 years before that) house about 5 years previous. What's left of the family is small...there was basically only 3 of us and we had busy lives of our own so we couldn't always be there as much as we all wanted.
Anyhow, the difficult decision needed to be made for dad rather suddenly as he started to fall at the apartment without any ability or desire (he was too dignified and proud for his own good) to call for help, we found out he spent a whole night on the floor once.
The talk was tough but he agreed it was time. We framed it as an opportunity to not have to worry about all the "stuff" of living alone anymore, all while adding a new social aspect that he really did like. He loved playing cards and just shooting the **** with others. I think he was actually looking forward to it in some way as his "life" had become basically sitting in the apartment alone watching TV and sleeping. Family tried to visit as much as possible, but he was still lonely and not doing well.
He went on a list with CCAC for "urgent placement" which jumps the queue of everyone else who was not in urgent need but had their name on the list. He ended up at Hillsdale in Oshawa, in what was (at the time) their newer building, only 4 or 5 years old. It was actually his first choice.
He was actually very happy when it was all said and done, and being a municipal run (vs for-profit) nursing home the level of care seemed really genuinely great. And being a newer building it was up to the newer codes - even a 2 person "shared" room (which he was in) only shared the bathroom - the living area was private.
I don't know the cost (my sister was POA and handled the financials to the end), but I do know that being a municipal home it was somewhat geared on income, and dad had arranged his finances in such a way that there wasn't a lot of "income". There was money...but not "income". Accordingly AFAIK he lived there pretty reasonably as a result, with some of the cost subsidized. Had he run out of money for whatever reason he'd still be there, probably in the same room, which honestly was pretty nice.
He sadly ended up having a stroke a few months after moving in and lost all his mobility and most of his ability to speak so the social aspect he wanted so bad went away as he withdrew and just sat a lot staring out his window, or sleeping. It was pretty sad. But he was well cared for - we never had any concern at all about that.
When he ended up in the hospital at the end and things weren't looking good we made the decision we knew dad would have wanted - to make him comfortable, and let him go. The life he was living was not the way such a proud strong man wanted to be living, we all knew.
Personally, much of that has shaped why I have a very "YOLO" mindset moving into my 50's. I saw both my parents have health issues in their 60's through 80's that prevented them from doing a lot of stuff. I have my share of health issues as well (bad genetics methinks) and don't want to go down that same road. So we save less now than we probably should should we live past our 80's ourselves, but we do a ton of cool stuff and have experiences as a trade off.
I'm hoping, like others have touched on, that the laws will change so that when my quality of life has been degraded to the level it was for my dad (basically trapped in a bed, unable to talk, walk, or even go to the bathroom on my own) that I can wish everyone adieu and kick off on my own terms. If dad had been able to make that same decision I know he would have as well, and we'd have supported him.
