Everyone deserves a nice place to sleep - Jana
We went down to Kim's house Friday. (For anyone who doesn't know, Kim is my adopted mother.) JM made a list of all her prescriptions and doctors and called in refills for anything that needed to be refilled. Chorus and I organized her bills and paid them. In the middle of all of this I went up to her bedroom for something and her room was a board of health issue. There was garbage all over and in the bed, as well as clothing and other sundries piled up on her bed making the area in which she could sleep about one and a half feet wide. I decided to strip the bed and wash the bedclothes, but the whole thing was literally covered in dirt, and old clothes, and lighters, and random pills, and electric heating pads with exposed wiring. The pillows and comforters were beyond salvage.
I went downstairs and told her to get her shoes on because we going to buy bedding. She was embarrassed, but there was not really an alternative. We went to Macy's and she bought 3 pillows, a new down comforter, sheets, and pillowcases. It came to about $500, which freaked her out, but it was money well spent. I washed her bed sack and threw out the disreputable bedding. I turned her mattress and made up the bed.
I talked with Stephen and Gareth (the two of her three biological sons who live with her) about her medications and asked them to make appointments with both her pulmonologist and dentist. I took some of the credit cards out of her wallet in order to force her use the ones on which have a negative balance. She must be paying some bills twice and others not at all.
I threw out 5 bags of garbage. I threw away the decrepit sandals she was wearing and told her to wear the brand new ones I found in her room. JM also ordered her 2 new pairs of sandals so we could avoid any footwear crises in the near future. I wish I lived closer to her. I need to go there about once a week in order to keep on top of things. If the dementia (she has vascular dementia as well as emphysema) worsens, She is going to have to move in with us. In the meantime, the least I can do is keep her house clean and her bills paid.
Stephan and Gareth are doing their best to keep on top of things, but I really think they simply cannot handle it. The house, her medications and doctors' appointments, and making sure she eats healthy foods and gets some exercise is a full-time job. It is a job I truly do not mind doing. I talked to her about getting my name on her bank accounts so I can have her bills sent to me and be sure that they are paid. She said that would be fine. It does not solve the problem that the boys "borrow" money from her and do not repay it. I am really at a lose as to how to deal with that. Even if I have complete control of her accounts, she still needs money on which to live and I cannot tell her not to give them money. Gareth is leaving for graduate school in August, so that will be one less immediate drain on her resources, but Stephan is going to live there for the foreseeable future.
She wants to have her kitchen redone, and it certainly needs it. She talked to a contractor, but when he came in to start the demolition, she had forgotten he was coming and had not cleared anything out. He got so upset that he said he was not going to do the job. Ann, a woman who was acting as Kim's part-time secretary but who stopped because she said she could no longer "deal with" the boys, called the contractor and smoothed things out. Chorus called him and told home that Kim has medical problems and that we would get a check in the mail for the first half of the bill. Even so, he cannot start the job until September. That is not necessarily bad. It gives me time to get the kitchen emptied and the dining room cleared out.
I want the best for her. I am not sure how to get that. She lives on a fixed income, and, to hear her tell it, during the past year she gone through a vast amount of her savings. Next week, I am going to make an appointment with a lawyer to get control of the finances and then see how the money can be parceled out so that she has enough to live on. There is every possibility that she can live for at least the next 25 or 30 years (probably more than that), and I have no intention of letting live out the last portion of her life in poverty.
-Jana
I went downstairs and told her to get her shoes on because we going to buy bedding. She was embarrassed, but there was not really an alternative. We went to Macy's and she bought 3 pillows, a new down comforter, sheets, and pillowcases. It came to about $500, which freaked her out, but it was money well spent. I washed her bed sack and threw out the disreputable bedding. I turned her mattress and made up the bed.
I talked with Stephen and Gareth (the two of her three biological sons who live with her) about her medications and asked them to make appointments with both her pulmonologist and dentist. I took some of the credit cards out of her wallet in order to force her use the ones on which have a negative balance. She must be paying some bills twice and others not at all.
I threw out 5 bags of garbage. I threw away the decrepit sandals she was wearing and told her to wear the brand new ones I found in her room. JM also ordered her 2 new pairs of sandals so we could avoid any footwear crises in the near future. I wish I lived closer to her. I need to go there about once a week in order to keep on top of things. If the dementia (she has vascular dementia as well as emphysema) worsens, She is going to have to move in with us. In the meantime, the least I can do is keep her house clean and her bills paid.
Stephan and Gareth are doing their best to keep on top of things, but I really think they simply cannot handle it. The house, her medications and doctors' appointments, and making sure she eats healthy foods and gets some exercise is a full-time job. It is a job I truly do not mind doing. I talked to her about getting my name on her bank accounts so I can have her bills sent to me and be sure that they are paid. She said that would be fine. It does not solve the problem that the boys "borrow" money from her and do not repay it. I am really at a lose as to how to deal with that. Even if I have complete control of her accounts, she still needs money on which to live and I cannot tell her not to give them money. Gareth is leaving for graduate school in August, so that will be one less immediate drain on her resources, but Stephan is going to live there for the foreseeable future.
She wants to have her kitchen redone, and it certainly needs it. She talked to a contractor, but when he came in to start the demolition, she had forgotten he was coming and had not cleared anything out. He got so upset that he said he was not going to do the job. Ann, a woman who was acting as Kim's part-time secretary but who stopped because she said she could no longer "deal with" the boys, called the contractor and smoothed things out. Chorus called him and told home that Kim has medical problems and that we would get a check in the mail for the first half of the bill. Even so, he cannot start the job until September. That is not necessarily bad. It gives me time to get the kitchen emptied and the dining room cleared out.
I want the best for her. I am not sure how to get that. She lives on a fixed income, and, to hear her tell it, during the past year she gone through a vast amount of her savings. Next week, I am going to make an appointment with a lawyer to get control of the finances and then see how the money can be parceled out so that she has enough to live on. There is every possibility that she can live for at least the next 25 or 30 years (probably more than that), and I have no intention of letting live out the last portion of her life in poverty.
-Jana