The Conversation

We had the conversation this week when she went to the eye doctor’s and had her hairdresser come to my house to give her a perm. We were in the middle of doing her bills. She still insists on looking over all her bills, and she even paid one that I was going to hold off and pay later. By doing that she upset the balance in the bill pay account, so I had to scramble to move money again.

When I pointed out to her how much money she had left in her accounts and that it only left her with 3 months in assisted living, and asked her what should come next, she gave me a blank stare and said “I don’t know.” I think she processed it, because later in the week as we were straightening out her closet and removing her winter clothes (she insisted she had to have them when she moved there, but the closet is too crowded now), she made the comment… “Hmm.. we just got the closet cleaned out and it will be time to move.”

So all in all, she took it well. However, it left me thinking again during church services today, is going to a nursing home the best for us? I tried figuring in my head….. could she stay at my house? Maybe go to Adult Day Care during the day while we worked? Could we pay a caretaker … did she really need one? She couldn’t stay by herself unless we planned out all the meals, and left her a microwave one for lunch. That would be easy enough to do. She’d have to get up early and take her morning meds and eat breakfast before we left, which she was unwilling to do before the assisted living time. But I think now she just might be willing. But that still leaves noontime meds to take by herself, but since she has overdosed by accident a couple of times in the past, I’d have to be sure to really hide or lock away the other meds from her. And juggling her coumadin is extremely challenging. So that wouldn’t quite work…

But the real challenge is that our bathrooms are not handicapped equipped, and she has a real challenge taking a shower or bath in there. In addition, with her congestive heart disease, I’m not a nurse and can’t judge by listening to her lungs when she needs to go to the hospital. So her medical needs are truly more than we could handle by ourselves. So I plan on meeting with the advisor at the assisted living facility this week to find out her “Level of Care”. We’ll know this by the Comprehensive Geriatric Survey that the psychologist was to give her, as well as their documentation of exactly how much help they are giving her on a daily basis. This has been hard to guage in the past due to her insistance that she can do it all herself. Yet, when we would talk to the other residents in the independent living facility, she was frequently getting help from them. But hopefully it will help us decide where the next best placement for Mom will be.

Then I’m off to visit a bunch of facilities to find the best long care one or our particular needs.
Will keep you informed of my progress..

cybrscrybe