often means every 4 to 6 months, a visit to the hospital: unfamiliar surroundings, he becomes stressed and aggressive.
Nursing facility is kinda a weak answer because it takes the whole responsibility away from you, it simply transfers this responsibility to an overcrowded facility with unsustainable ratios, burned out caregivers and corporations selling you the idea they do actually care (BS) while you, naively, buy it. Your expectation is they're going to care as much as you, which is a lie: an overworked nurse is going to do the best she can but she has other patients in the facility, other patients with dementia and mood swings, patients trying to escape or sexually assault the young, fit nurse and as soon as she finds something better, she is abandoning ship.
This is modern slavery, but this is a subject for another post.
Options I see: sedate him so he becomes a plant, something I'm against. What kind of life would that be?
Another option I personally feel inclined to: don't medicate him to the point he becomes a plant, let him feel he is young again and whatever happens, happens. He is no longer aware of his age, enjoys cartoon books, let him live and die as happy and oblivious as he can be, even if this means his life is going to be much shorter. If we lock him down, he becomes either angry or depressed, he feels trapped.
I need a dnr/dni btw.
I can already hear some sisters yelling at me and calling me callous and worse things.
staying with him 24/7 is not an option, because we all have lives and jobs to do. At this point he needs constant attention.
If you're not ready to take the step to a skilled nursing facility or memory care, there are adult day care programs that can care for them during the day while you are at work and you can get home nursing services a couple times a week for medication checks and things like wound care.
Physical therapy and occupational therapy are also good ideas to look into for the balance and instability issues as old age and de-conditioning can contribute to that a lot.
As someone else suggested, a medication list review to minimize the pill burden and eliminate drug interactions and side effects can be very helpful. All of this can be started with a visit to his primary care physician for referrals for PT/OT, home nursing, medication review, and caregiver respite things like the adult daycare. Just make sure to schedule a 30 to 60 minute appointment to make sure there's enough time to go over everything.
Note: for the medication review, don't be alarmed if the physician takes him off of things like blood pressure or cholesterol medications because those are more aimed at preventing complications, so if someone is approaching the end of their life anyways, there really isn't anything to "prevent" per se.