FCM That whole situation with the school is one big disaster.
I was tangentially involved in a similar situation where the city had a more or less surplus small office building adjacent to a city park that they leased at a sweetheart rate to a non-profit that proceeded over 20 years to simply let the building fall apart around them while the city remained responsible to mow the lawn and paint the exterior. So nobody outside that org was any the wiser about what was going on the inside.
Eventually (Surprise Surprise Surprise!) the building became uninhabitable and the city was forced to push the tenant out and tear down the building. The taxpayers did not do well out of that deal.
Best of luck on what will probably be a very tearful and expensive journey for all.
One of my standard sayings is “It’s a darn good thing kids are cute or they’d never live to puberty. The parents’d kill 'em first”.
There was a whole recent thread on exactly this topic. A lot of people though as hubs did.
Your Mom was a clever one. I’d never heard of that trick, but I love it.
She certainly set up the situation by not keeping up with necessary maintenance.
When I was condo prez we went through something similar, where previous administrations had underinvested in common building maintenance, and which had finally reached the cannot-ignore-any-more level as I was taking the helm. Much crying from the membership ensued as the dues jumped up to pay for the stuff that had been neglected. The pisser is the people who had enjoyed low dues then sold, having stolen value that new owners now had to overpay dues to replace.
In your situation the tuition at the school should have been higher for the last 10-20 years to keep up with that stuff and now the current students’ families will be making up the shortfall somehow. Whether by paying to fix this place or by paying more for someplace else in better shape. Plus, as you say, all the lost volunteer labor hours.
Shortsighted management is like a dog with diarrhea. It just leaves a nasty smelly trail for others to first step in, then clean up. Meanwhile the dog is oblivious that anything is wrong with that.
I suspect that “can’t” is really “won’t”. He knows the price of marital bliss as well as the next guy. 
Voltaren (active ingredient diclofenac) is a common go-to for arthritis pain or even carpal tunnel. We’d used it back when it was prescription and now as OTC. In our experience it is effective at local joint pain relief without burdening your whole system with enough NSAID to affect the same pain.
Not knowing the background on your wife I can’t comment more. But I will say that one general problem we encountered with my late aged MIL’s care was that beyond a certain age / decrepitude the docs basically tend to get lazy. As in “Whatever is bugging you, the cause is age and since that can’t be changed, there’s nothing we can do. Maybe some symptom relief and that’s it.” Quite often there is a medically addressable problem there, and getting them to actually dig for it and address it is sometimes an uphill fight.
Good luck with both of your battles with that as time marches on.
As to me:
Awoke a bit late, it looked threatening to rain, so rather than beaching I’ve been here dealing with various administrivia & Doping. I appear to have survived today’s on-call shift unscathed; the number of others ahead of me is larger than can likely be consumed during my remaining window of vulnerability. I’ll know for sure in a couple hours.
Now at the crack of 9am it is in fact raining lightly briefly. Her Ladyship should be up soonish. Breakfast should be at home and if so mine will be leftovers from my last breakfast out (chorizo & eggs), plus fresh fruit and plain yogurt.
Boring errands, a haircut, and general slothage are the planned rest of my day. We might do dolled-up fancy dinner tonight. If so I need to get crackin’ on making reservations someplace soonest.
Happy weekend to all!!!