“I can’t. I can’t do this anymore. It’s too much.” My dad stood in the middle of the living room and appeared ready to collapse. My mother was on the floor, having fallen again, awaiting the paramedics. This time, her leg was hurt and she was having trouble breathing.
And so it began.
Though she would spend a couple of days in the hospital, we were able to move her to a nursing home. The admittance was not difficult. The insurance would pay for 30 days, provided that she showed some improvement. We would then need to look at long-term care. Since she was showing all the symptoms of complete kidney failure, dialysis alone would show improvement.
We hoped.
Then we found out the process to get her into long-term care.
Q: Where would I find the forms? How could I get the ball rolling?
A: The Colorado Department of Human Services, Department of Aging and Adult Services, has a link to Medicare. This provides a few paragraphs with definitions, lists of forms, and many reports. An online search provides information, over and over, on looking at Medicare, long-term care insurance, retirement accounts, and so on. Directories have many phone numbers to call for rates.
We live in the information age, yet I could not get detailed answers on my own. How difficult should it be to find a list of items that was required? Nursing facilities have social workers, and you do not have to do this alone. I will be eternally grateful to the staff at Sierra Vista Medical Center in Loveland for their assistance.
Q: Why do I need to provide all these forms?
A: To make a determination to see how much you have to pay. There is protection to prevent spousal impoverishment.
It was not a sudden situation. Mother had the first diabetic stroke 30 years earlier, and with an unhealthy lifestyle, had slowly gotten worse. We tried to get her to be healthier, but the strokes had affected her reasoning ability. My father and I would adjust to a health concern (sometimes mental health) on her part. Each adjustment became permanent, and they slowly added up.
Eventually, we were so over our heads that we could only stand in the living room and wait for the paramedics. With such a pre-existing condition as multiple strokes, insurance was difficult.
Q: What if we truly cannot pay?
A: There are some excellent hospice centers in the area. Consider home care. Make a list of your assets.
At one point throughout this, my mother asked if it would be easier for her to give up dialysis. I told her we would work it out, that that wasn’t an option. It left me to wonder: How many end-of-life decisions are made between bankruptcy and a slow suicide? Is the decision because they have to or because of lack of information on options?
In our case, we were told we would owe $9,000 per month for three months to the nursing home before the determination was made. After all, the nursing home still expected their money. We did not have that, nor did we have the physical resources to take mother home.
Ultimately, we were able to get financial assistance, from both Medicare and insurance.
Q: How do I deal with the stress?
A: You don’t. Not really.
The toll was not only financial. I could see the strain on my father, having to make determinations such as non-resuscitation orders. More than four decades of marriage was coming down to a bed for his wife. Throughout it all, I would cry myself to sleep.
