Moving Day

The past two days have been a lesson in politics, finance, health care and aging. It has not been pretty. It has not been fun.

But today is moving day for Mom.

Yesterday, after spending two days sleeping, Mom finally woke up. That's not to say she knew who we were or where she was. But she was awake. The hospital staff was relieved and their concern turned to working on getting her back to the same stage she was before her fall.

"We should begin to see a full recovery to her pre-accident state -- cognitively," one doctor told my sister and I. He started telling us there were drugs that could be used to help bring her back to her normal state before the accident.

I finally cut him off. "This is her normal state. It's as good as she gets," I said. Perhaps it was rude. But the thought of playing around with drugs trying to "bring Mom back," is rather absurd.

And don't get me wrong. There is no way to expect the staff to know what Mom was like before her fall. 

But it's true. Mom is pretty much back to the same mental state she was in before her fall. The only difference being she can't walk and she doesn't know she can't walk. She is hell-bent to get out of bed herself and use the facilities. I suppose that is one change from before as she hasn't asked to use the toilet in quite some time.

I spent a heart-breaking hour and a half with her yesterday afternoon as she begged  to be allowed to get out of bed. The staff did help her out. It was a three-person effort and not what Mom wanted. I'm sure she wanted privacy, but that was out of the question and she didn't understand.

After Mom was put back in bed she cried. I held her hand, laid my head on the edge of her bed and cried along with her.

She would ask, "Please, just help me. Just put my feet on the floor. Please." Over and over again I would put my mouth next to her "good ear" and tell her, "I can't Mom. You broke your hip. You can't walk."

Nothing clicked.

I riled against God. Really? Mom did all you asked of her all her life and this is the way you treat her? What kind of cruel joke is this? I'm not Job. And if someone tells me "God will never test you beyond your ability," I will (I promise) punch you in the face. Of course we will endure. What choice do we have?

Mom is going to be discharged today. Our first course of action was to get her into a rehab facility. And to be honest,  I hold little hope that Mom will ever walk again. As a friend whose mother also suffered from dementia and who also fell and broke her hip told me: "We tried rehab but when they don't understand they don't get good results."

We will give it a try,  but it almost didn't happen. Finding a bed for Mom was a lesson in the reality of nursing home care..

The Managed Care coordinator from the hospital came in to Mom's room with some news: "We are having a difficult time finding a bed for your Mom. Your first choice of places has no beds available."

Adding to the problem was the need to find a facility that accepts Medicaid as once Mom's money runs out we need to find a way to pay the (at least) $7,000 a month a skilled nursing facility charges.

We were told homes were reluctant to take Medicaid patients as Medicaid does not pay as much as private insurance or Medicare pays. When I explained Mom had both Medicare and private insurance  we were told that bit of information might help. When I explained we had money to pay for nursing care (for a while at least) once Mom was out of rehab, we were told that helped even more. When I explained we had been on the waiting list for our preferred facility since 2013 that was the clincher. One phone call and 20 minutes later Mom had a bed in the dementia ward of a facility that also offered rehab services. Once Mom's money runs out (should she live that long) she will be covered.

So basically, what we learned is the politics of nursing homes is they will happily take all your money and then get by with what the government will pay, but they won't be happy about it.

Mom and Dad worked hard all their lives and this is what it has come down to. Dad was the spender. Not a big spender, but he liked to enjoy life. They lived a comfortable but frugal life. Mom pinched pennies and reined-in Dad when she could. She did all this so she could live out her life in a bed in a facility that really doesn't want her.