Well, it happened. Just what I thought. Nobody listened. Thought they were smarter than the average bear. Etc.
My almost 89 year-old Mom, living by herself in Vista, California, fell down this past week and broke her hip. She wrote a check that her body couldn’t cash, and…God cashed it.
In several emails and text messages over the past five months, I cautioned my brother and two sisters that my Mom should not be living alone. She has dementia and is pretty unstable on her feet. The four of us ganged-up on Mom and got the DMV to revoke her driving license. But, the other three didn’t want to hear my concerns about Mom’s safety in her own home. They assured me that they had installed video surveillance and would have a neighbor drop by occasionally (to see if Mom was still breathing, I guess!). Of course, that type of Mommy Care would not/did not preclude her from tumbling down the steps into her garage.
Anyway, we are now in crisis mode, trying to find a rehab facility and overnight nursing care for my Mom. It looks like we’ve got a facility lined up in Murrieta (my sister Claudia, her guy Ted, and I visited yesterday), and I am trying to find a traveling caregiver who can babysit my Mom from 7pm to 7am each day for a couple of weeks. I hope we can find someone, or I might have to take the red-eye shift.
I brought up the idea of an Assisted Living Facility (for Mom) many months ago, but my brother and sisters wanted to try the Home Care option; i.e. she’ll be happy there, and “what trouble can she get into?” Of course, that was way back (last week) when she was in Category 1, ambulatory with 4″stride and early dementia. She has now graduated to Category 2: will just barely shuffle along, when rehab is finished; and, she appears to be more affected by the dementia and will be suffering from depression when the pain meds wear off. Mom will now require someone to watch her, even when she’s sleeping.
As expensive as the ALFs are, they might be a bargain over 24-hr nursing care in Mom’s own home. Besides, she will have nothing to do except stare at the walls. Her beloved hobbies of gardening and home redecorating are, all of the sudden, not practical for her condition. To make matters worse, Mom’s home is at least an hour’s drive from any of the four children, which makes it impractical for regular visitation. And, the few friends that she had left in the neighborhood will not want to take a wheelchair-bound, dementia-suffering buddy to the WalMart or the movies. Those days are done.
I have done research on five ALFs in my area. My brother and sisters didn’t want to hear anything about that, so…maybe now it’s their turn. Except that they now have only 21 days to figure out what they want to do.
This is going to cost significant money, something that they are loathe to consider. But, it’s now “nut cuttin’ time” as they used to say up on the ranch. Time to get real.