Thanks for the comic relief. It was a roller coaster ride today. I received a call just as I was pulling up to Mom's rehab center, telling me that I would be required to pay $2K for two weeks worth of copay rehab, due on Sunday. That took the wind from my lungs and I told the person so. She then suggested that I look into alternatives "such as hospice". Said I, incredulously, "You're telling me to put my very much alive mother into hospice?" She then apologized. After thinking about it, I agreed to paying the $2K because it buys mom 2 weeks more of therapy. Later, the manager of Mom's assisted living home arrived to make her own assessment as to whether mom could come back or not after her rehab. They put mom through her paces. Stand up, turn around, put your hand here. Sit down. Stand up. Scoot forward. Lean to the right. Swivel. Lay down. Get up. One, two three. The manager whispered to me, "She's not ready yet" but said she would return in a week or two to make a new assessment. I feel that she's on our side. Hopes and prayers.
Gosh, what a dreadful situation. I really can't imagine all the things you have to do and pay for yourself. And additionally you have to hope that they take back your mom at all!
I just thought how this situation would play out over here. Of course your health insurance would pay for rehab.
We also have assisted living. They also don't take in people who have a high degree of dependence when you try to find a place. But once you're there and your condition worsens you can probably stay there for the rest of your life. Or at the very least, they would take you back after hospital/rehab as long as it takes to find another, more fitting place.
At the beginning of her dementia, my mother was still very fit and loved to hike. The social worker at the psychiatric hospital where she was diagnosed had a long talk with both of us separately about her wishes/preferences/lifestyle/etc. And after that started looking for a fitting place for my mother. Assisted living wasn't an option because she managed to escape the closed ward (by climbing like a cat onto a shed, into a tree and down the tree on the other side of the fence!). Even a "regular" nursery would not have been possible, and the closed wards of nursery homes are mostly just one or more closed off corridors. She would have wandered up and down those corridors like a captured tiger.
Anyway, the social worker found a great place for her. Most people there weren't old, but mentally ill and needed to be in a closed off space. The facility was a former castle with gardens that was closed off (with high fences and walls, no trees close to the fence
) to the outside, but totally open once you're in. People could stroll around in the gardens or courtyard and several main and side buildings. There were also lots of different activities and my mother was even able to go on a hiking vacation in Italy with a group. They also had a ward for people with high dependence. So while they didn't take in people with a high need of bodily care to begin with, they also didn't have to kick out people once they got older/more dependent.
