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[anahata56]

On Friday, Barb The Home Care Nurse (she takes care of both Mother AND me at this point) called me from Mom and Dad's house to let me know that Mom was running a fever of 101.6. Their doctor's office was closed for the day (which is a whole 'NOTHER issue, that may or may not be expanded upon later), and Mother was so weak that she probably could

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[anahata56]

I'm a big believer in brainstorming--all suggestions gratefully accepted! ;-)

I would never dream of moving them far away, and fortunately for us, we live in a rural and established enough part of the state to be very attractive to seniors, and thus there are a lot of options. The population of PA is aging rapidly--we have a LOT of seniors here. And that's a good thing, in the end, because I think that the area is well used to them, and providing a lot of places for them to live.

This place I'm looking at, however, has been around for a long time--not one of the new, paperboard places that are getting thrown up at random and that are way too pricey. And they have been able to maintain a reputation for excellence in all that time. They get four out of five stars on Medicare.gov--the highest in our immediate area. They have tri-level placement, which is great--then we won't have to worry about going through this AGAIN should someone deteriorate further.

I don't want them to leave the house only to be slammed into a hellhole somewhere. But the only way that can happen is to make the choice themselves.

[kestrels_nest]

I don't want them to leave the house only to be slammed into a hellhole somewhere. But the only way that can happen is to make the choice themselves.

I'm trying to convince my mother of that. Right now she's stuck on "you want to put me away", because I inquired about options for a room with a small garden and a french door at the nursing home where my da was. I told her no, I wanted to know what the options were before I had 24 hours to make a decision, as we'd had to do with Gramps and later with da.

Is your dad resistant to even taking a tour, with no obligation attached? And might it help to promise to keep up the house and furniture, except for what they need in the new place, to keep open the option to return if they don't like it?

[anahata56]

One of the things I want to find out is if they have such a thing as "temporary respite". If I can use my own medical issues right now as a reason for them to go in for a month or so, on a temporary basis just until I'm completely on my feet again, that would give them the opportunity to try it out on a temporary basis, just to see what it's like. That would be a good way for them to see that it's not so bad, and that I'm not trying to "dump" them.

I've been particularly aggravated by the fact that I haven't been able to help them out as much as I'd like to--hell, I can't even go sit with her in the hospital at this point because I still have an open wound, and it isn't advisable for me to be in the hospital with the kind of bacteria floating around over there in my condition. But if I can use what's going on with me to BENEFIT them, then maybe it's all for the best.