Eve, I’m sorry to hear about your mom’s situation with her assisted living nightmare. I know you don’t care to discuss your private matters on line, but I caught your thread and have a friend who just went through this with her mom. I might have some info that would be of help. Feel free to e-mail me if you think it might be of use to you. Chin up, girlfriend…I know how hard this must be, but I’m sure you’ll figure out how to navigate the red tape.
Thanks, dear—things are settling down a bit, and I’m going down there every five minutes to help her unpack, hang artwork and acclimate herself (though I don’t want her to get too dependent on me). She did go to an exercise class and out for a walk, but she keeps asking me, “How long am I going to be in this place? When can I go home?” And her cat still has not come out from under the bed.
The financial end is being handled by my financial-whiz sister, thank goodness. We only hope the money and Mom hold out for the same amount of time.
Getting old sucks. Don’t do it.
Yeah, I hear that. Having just buried my father-in-law, after a lengthy stint with in-home hospice, I’m hoping that when my time comes, a speeding Mack Truck will take care of the details. We had the LPN who couldn’t read the charts and withheld pain meds for a full 24 hours, as well as the “I-Pronounce-You-Dead” nurse that couldn’t find the house. We got to sit there with Dad for 4 1/2 hours, with his mouth agape, watching his eyeballs sink into his head. When they took inventory of the morphine, my little joke about the siblings splitting it up amongst ourselves didn’t go over well with Nurse Rachet. Utterly humorless, she was.
If I get the “Terminal” notice from my doctor, I’m heading for Oregon. Fuck this system of suffering and humiliation. They can all bite me.
My favorite was the “home health aid” with a brain the size of a chickpea.
I was on the phone with her and said, “Could you please take the assisted-care brochure to my Mom in her bedroom, so she can see where we’re going to look? It’s a big colored folder on the kitchen table,” and I even told her the name of the place.
So she brings my mother a Chinese take-out menu. Mom: “You’re sending me to live at the Happy Lucky Golden Dragon?”
Are you shitting me? I’d be kicking some serious Health Care Ass™
There is just no way to ensure you’ll have just adequate care unless you’re a gazzilionaire and can actually hire private help. I hate them all.
Yup…suicide sounds better and better all the time…
There are probably worse options . . .
This might be a good thread topic in itself, as I have talked to so many friends my age who have mentioned offhand that, “Oh, I certainly intend to kill myself when it becomes necessary.” I myself will do so posthaste when my money and health run out, as well as my employment marketability.
There will be no Social Security when we need it; we don’t stay in the same job for 40 years and build up pensions like our parents did; the nursing-home situation is only going to get worse with an aging population; many of us don’t have children to support us . . . Will we be the first mass-suicide generation?
Good idea. I started one over here. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=247417
Yes, they have the best formulary. You get one from column A and one from column B. Your doctor will send me daily reports in little cookies. And when we visit you, we can get a bunch of those white mints with the colored centers on the way out.