The saga continues
Mom is out of rehab and back at the assisted living place. The director there was willing to do a two week trial of memory care rather than slamming her in there for good. The day she got out of rehab, I took her to see her regular doctor, who said that she was on some pretty major pain meds in rehab, and it would be a mistake to make any decisions about her long term prospects before they were out of her system (which in someone her age, could take awhile.) I am supposed to bring her back in for another assessment on the 15th.
To my layman's eye, she's improved since getting out of rehab and off the painkillers. She is still having some memory issues, but they've lessened, and she is MUCH more alert. My personal opinion is that she is no longer a risk for trying to get out of bed on her own and hurting herself, which was the major concern of the nurse at the assisted living place. I don't know to what extent the nurse will agree with me when she does her next evaluation. I get the impression that she is annoyed that I didn't blindly accept her word that Mom needed to go into memory care immediately and permanently, and thinks that I'm deluding myself that she might get better. (I'm also not sure that she realizes just how deaf Mom is, and that sometimes what sounds like a non-sequitur is Mom responding to what she thinks you said.) Since Mom HAS improved just in the last few days, I'm annoyed with the nurse in turn, and trying not to show it. (All her friends in the assisted living section agree that she'd do much better in familiar surroundings, among people she knows, and are annoyed along with me.)
There's also been an ongoing problem getting Mom's list of medications OK'd, and the director I made the arrangement with for the two week trial abruptly resigned or was fired two days after I talked to him. Plus they've lost some other staff and are scrambling to replace them. Basically, the place is a mess. And the most important thing...
Mom HATES the memory care unit, and I don't blame her. The attendants are nice people, and they keep the patients clean and fed, but that's about it. Most of the other patients are in late stage dementia, and there's no activities or anything I've seen. Mom says that there's absolutely nothing for her to do. (She would need to be helped in and out of her armchair to watch TV, but there's no way for her to call a staff person to do that, because they don't use call buttons in the memory care unit -- probably because all the other patients are too out of it to use them.) When I asked about someone helping Mom with the exercises that the rehab clinic assigned her, I was told, "Maybe, if they have time. Or you could come in every day and do it!"
So my thought is that even if they let Mom go back to her old room after her next evaluation, I don't want to leave her at this place. When/if she does need memory care, I would rather she be at a facility where they have more resources and programs. I am looking into two of them now -- both supposedly accept Medicaid/ALTCS, which would be necessary if Mom outlives her savings. I want to go look at both places and get an idea of what they offer. Unlike the current place, both say they have staged programs for memory care, so people with only mild impairment are not in the same area as people with full-on dementia, and both groups have activities tailored to their needs.
I have an appointment to go look at Place 1 tomorrow, and I'm supposed to be getting a callback from Place 2, though as it's Labor Day weekend I may not hear from them till Tuesday. If one of them seems suitable, then I'll need to figure out the logistics of moving her.
Assuming that my brother's still able to get out here next weekend, I'm hoping that by then I'll have been able to visit both facilities and have a better idea if one of them will be a good fit for Mom. And whether or not they have a room available. If they do, we need to figure out if we want to move her now, or wait and see if the current place will allow her to go back to her old room. Regardless, what I'd like to do is go through Mom's old room and start packing up the stuff she's not using, so if I do have to clear it out in a hurry I can do so. I'd like to clear out some of the furniture, at least, because even if Mom does move back there, she will need more room for her wheelchair. Where I'll put the stuff I have no idea; on our back porch under a tarp, I guess. Some of it could just be sold or gotten rid of, but there are a few things I want to keep if Mom has no room for them.
To be honest, I'm not holding up very well here. I'm stressed out of my mind and haven't been sleeping more than five or six hours a night, tops. I'm exhausted. It's easy for people to say I need to slow down and take care of myself, but I feel like I'm in a fight to the death to prevent Mom from just being stuck in a warehouse for the rest of her life. I know, that's silly and over-dramatic, but this whole experience has been a series of people brushing off my concerns about Mom with "Eh, she's old, what do you expect?" I almost burst into tears when her regular doctor agreed with me that there could be something else affecting her. Kathy tries to be supportive, but she's not really in a position to step in and do any of this stuff for me.
We have an Employee Assistance Program through work that provides free stress counseling, and I signed up for that in the hopes that they can decompress me at least a little. :P
Rants Talk to me
To my layman's eye, she's improved since getting out of rehab and off the painkillers. She is still having some memory issues, but they've lessened, and she is MUCH more alert. My personal opinion is that she is no longer a risk for trying to get out of bed on her own and hurting herself, which was the major concern of the nurse at the assisted living place. I don't know to what extent the nurse will agree with me when she does her next evaluation. I get the impression that she is annoyed that I didn't blindly accept her word that Mom needed to go into memory care immediately and permanently, and thinks that I'm deluding myself that she might get better. (I'm also not sure that she realizes just how deaf Mom is, and that sometimes what sounds like a non-sequitur is Mom responding to what she thinks you said.) Since Mom HAS improved just in the last few days, I'm annoyed with the nurse in turn, and trying not to show it. (All her friends in the assisted living section agree that she'd do much better in familiar surroundings, among people she knows, and are annoyed along with me.)
There's also been an ongoing problem getting Mom's list of medications OK'd, and the director I made the arrangement with for the two week trial abruptly resigned or was fired two days after I talked to him. Plus they've lost some other staff and are scrambling to replace them. Basically, the place is a mess. And the most important thing...
Mom HATES the memory care unit, and I don't blame her. The attendants are nice people, and they keep the patients clean and fed, but that's about it. Most of the other patients are in late stage dementia, and there's no activities or anything I've seen. Mom says that there's absolutely nothing for her to do. (She would need to be helped in and out of her armchair to watch TV, but there's no way for her to call a staff person to do that, because they don't use call buttons in the memory care unit -- probably because all the other patients are too out of it to use them.) When I asked about someone helping Mom with the exercises that the rehab clinic assigned her, I was told, "Maybe, if they have time. Or you could come in every day and do it!"
So my thought is that even if they let Mom go back to her old room after her next evaluation, I don't want to leave her at this place. When/if she does need memory care, I would rather she be at a facility where they have more resources and programs. I am looking into two of them now -- both supposedly accept Medicaid/ALTCS, which would be necessary if Mom outlives her savings. I want to go look at both places and get an idea of what they offer. Unlike the current place, both say they have staged programs for memory care, so people with only mild impairment are not in the same area as people with full-on dementia, and both groups have activities tailored to their needs.
I have an appointment to go look at Place 1 tomorrow, and I'm supposed to be getting a callback from Place 2, though as it's Labor Day weekend I may not hear from them till Tuesday. If one of them seems suitable, then I'll need to figure out the logistics of moving her.
Assuming that my brother's still able to get out here next weekend, I'm hoping that by then I'll have been able to visit both facilities and have a better idea if one of them will be a good fit for Mom. And whether or not they have a room available. If they do, we need to figure out if we want to move her now, or wait and see if the current place will allow her to go back to her old room. Regardless, what I'd like to do is go through Mom's old room and start packing up the stuff she's not using, so if I do have to clear it out in a hurry I can do so. I'd like to clear out some of the furniture, at least, because even if Mom does move back there, she will need more room for her wheelchair. Where I'll put the stuff I have no idea; on our back porch under a tarp, I guess. Some of it could just be sold or gotten rid of, but there are a few things I want to keep if Mom has no room for them.
To be honest, I'm not holding up very well here. I'm stressed out of my mind and haven't been sleeping more than five or six hours a night, tops. I'm exhausted. It's easy for people to say I need to slow down and take care of myself, but I feel like I'm in a fight to the death to prevent Mom from just being stuck in a warehouse for the rest of her life. I know, that's silly and over-dramatic, but this whole experience has been a series of people brushing off my concerns about Mom with "Eh, she's old, what do you expect?" I almost burst into tears when her regular doctor agreed with me that there could be something else affecting her. Kathy tries to be supportive, but she's not really in a position to step in and do any of this stuff for me.
We have an Employee Assistance Program through work that provides free stress counseling, and I signed up for that in the hopes that they can decompress me at least a little. :P
Rants Talk to me