At least your folks don’t toss everything it the junk mail. I know at least one household where the junk mail is carefully read and often purchases made while most of the other stuff (including bills) is ignored and/or tossed.
My mother wouldn’t throw out any mail, so I had to comb through all of it to find the necessary bills, statements, etc. I guess that was preferable to the times she’d take important mail and hide it so nobody could “steal” it and then not remember that she had done that. I’d usually only know that had happened when I’d find a past due bill and realize I’d never seen the previous month’s bill. She’d also do that with dividend checks (before direct deposits into her checking account), but I’d usually know when to expect those so I’d know to search for them.
Paperwork can be endless and just adds another level of stress. My mother is now on Medicaid, but before then it was quite time-consuming.
So sorry that you are dealing with the paperwork, it can be very overwhelming. In the midst of it right now as executors.
When I took over my aunt’s accounting after her stroke 5 yrs. ago, (she was 95), I faced a monumental task. Bills were not paid, a tax lien on her house by the city, thousands of dollars in dividend checks were expired, travelers checks from 1970’s, US treasury bonds still in my grandmother’s name going back over 50 years, a bank account taken over by the state due to inactivity, no will, no POA, no advanced directive, no beneficiary on bank accounts or insurance policies, piles of accounts, (insurance, etc.) of which many were cashed in or some without activity or beneficiaries, disability insurance policy without beneficiary. Some banks and companies wanted a medallion signature, that was an adventure. I set up all billing as online and paperless. Had to have multiple meetings with accountant and attorney. All of the institutions wanted POA and in some cases wanted their own POA. Had to jump through hoops at banks and social security office. What a mess. At the time, she was able to question and grill me on every detail. She was also a hoarder and it took a year to clean out the junk. I would throw things out and would find that she took them out of the garbage when I left and put them back in her house. One summer, I had my daughter serve her tea and look over old family photos and I would carry things through the porch and into my car. There were tax returns from the 1960’s. I burned through 2 shredders getting rid of papers. I am also in charge of her medical care. We went through 6 home health agencies, some were terrible, others she treated the workers so badly that they refused to come. She sent 2 aides to the ER with chest pains! It has been a nightmare. She has a live in 24/7 private pay for the past 3 years, that includes payment of taxes and coverage for vacations, etc. We are paying down her money and will soon have to start the process of medicaid application. She is 100 yrs old, still kicking and screaming. She will bury me. And then there is my mother’s story, another time… I am just exhausted.
^ That was and is a lot to deal with!
@psychmomma, it certainly is. My son has been a wonderful help with my mother’s problems. I am so thankful for this forum, we can vent, ask questions and get some advice with empathy!
@ECmotherx2 - I want to nominate you for sainthood or something.
Holy crap.
[-(
And an aunt - not even a parent!!! ^:)^
Yep. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. I have to work hard to keep up with, and manage our own paperwork. Sigh.
New topic for me. Hearing aids - WTH? Why are they so expensive?? My mom definitely has significant hearing loss. The TV blares so loudly and she claims it is “normal.” She and dad often have conversations that sound like an Abbot and Costello routine: “What time is dinner?” “No you open the window!” and so forth.
Their new community has an audiologist that comes regularly to test hearing, fit hearing aids, clean them etc etc. As he told me, “my services cost you nothing! You just pay for the hearing aids!”
That was my first clue.
My second clue was they wanted the family member present at the testing and fitting. At first I thought it was a cognitive issue but now I am thinking it is a financial one.
Mom needs the hearing aids, I am ready to pay on my own because it is so frustrating trying to talk to her.
I did a quick Google search and it looks like this could cost several thousand dollars!!! How do all these seniors afford them?
I don’t know the whole story, but yes, a friend pays about $2400 and her Medicare plan doesn’t cover it. Partly the cost is because the aids are computerized (if that’s the right term.) They don’t just amplify, but process the sounds, can filter some background noise, etc. And customized.
I think you can get insurance, in case one or both units is lost, etc.
speaking of loss, any one ever heard of dentures being lost? Mom decided about 6 months ago that hers bothered her so she kept taking them out… and they lost the top. Perhaps it was carefully wrapped in trash and tossed, but if she would wear them I’d be annoyed. It seems to be another “thing” demented people do… stop wearing their dentures.
And I wish I could get her new glasses, but I am not sure she could tell if she could read the letters or not. She CAN still read, but not every day. I just had my cataracts checked and the doc said my glasses compensated quite well for my cataracts. THEY ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY! I am much more sympathetic to what Mom might or might not be seeing now and mine are barely there.
Always something. Glad you have support for hearing aides!
And sympathy for the overwhelming paperwork. … it does get better. now after five years, Mom sometimes has an empty post office box instead of two letters to deal with problems.
There is a charity whose name I can unfortunately not recall that helps with the costs of hearing aids. Someone had helped set my mom up for it but then she died. H needs hearing aids desperately and I am going to see about getting them through Costco. I just don’t have the money right now because i am spending out of pocket for his teeth this year and last year it was his knee replacements. Maybe next year…I don’t believe we would qualify for the charity.
We are in the process of selling MIL’s home and moving her to another one closer to us. Unfortunately, SIL comes with her. I have to check into changing MIL’s in home Medicaid and other benefits to our county, putting SIL on lists for low income senior housing (she’s 63 and on SSD) so we can move her out as soon as MIL (almost 93) passes as I don’t want her in a home I own or we get her off a waiting list. We are hoping that she realizes that she doesn’t want to come out to the country and will research how to stay in NYC. I had to get SIL access-a-ride years ago and now I have to figure out how to transfer her to our county’s system because I don’t want my sons to spend their time driving her to liquor stores and multiple doctors to get her opiate prescriptions. We tried years ago to put an end to her pill shopping, H called all the doctors on the bottles we found and we were essentially told to mind our own business. Now H has decided to just let nature take its course. SIL has also gotten better at hiding the pills. She refuses to acknowledge an addiction issue so I have to limit my children’s time with her.
When we were getting hearing aids for our folks, Costco had the best prices, but you had to go there. They will adjust them for free as well. They’d replace one pair for free. Both mom and dad have managed to lose their hearing aids many times and now both simply don’t wear them, so it was an expensive waste.
They let you try them for 90 days and can return them with no strings (if you haven’t already list them). The batteries are cheap at Costco as well but need to be replaced every 3-4 days or at least every week.
Dad tried another brand of hearing aid for awhile as well–no idea where he purchased it. Now both don’t wear anything and are frustrating to speak with.
Their BCBS plan covered a portion the the cost of their hearing aids. It also covers glasses every 2 years.
I was advised by a friend to take my aunt to an ENT and have an audiologist test her hearing. I was told by the audiologist that the type of hearing loss could not really be compensated for by using hearing aids. She suggested trying VERY inexpensive ones at Costco. She wore them infrequently and glad that money wasn’t wasted on ones that would not really correct the hearing loss.
Hearing aids are promoted aggressively; and sometimes a great thing. Father had hearing loss and memory loss. He also liked to tinker. Recipe for little reward and great expense.
For TV, to avoid disturbing others in assisted living, we set him up with head phones. They were big and lived in the charger when he wasn’t using them. Dining room was quiet enough at senior living to work for him; small group conversations were fine.
I went more on observation than hearing tests to determine what made the most sense. Didn’t want a social handicap or a $2000 bill every month or less.
What would the $2000 bill be for? Perpetually lost and replaced hearing aids? My folks claimed the hearing aids really didn’t help them much.
H has some hearing loss and the ENT said he’s borderline as to whether it would help him, so for now he’s not getting them and I’m trying to be more patient about repeating myself.
Yes, @HImom. Those hearing aids didn’t stand a chance in my father’s hands. Somehow, he managed to take everything apart, even without tools. Cleaning out his drawers always yielded a graveyard of inexpensive watches, all missing half a strap or the metal plate on the back. We tried the hearing aids once. Every situation is different; his was more workable without them.
Yes, we thought it was more likely the folks would wear the hearing aids when both got them at the same time. We were wrong. Both lost interest shortly after we got them and lost them within the 90 days. We never bothered following up as neither said it made any difference.
@HImom -
I want H to get hearing aids before “I” go deaf, too. He refuses to use the headphones because he thinks we all want to share in whatever garbage he is listening to on Youtube…
Newest issue - SIL ran up MIL’s phone bill by adding special channels, buying movies on demand, etc. We password protected the account, thought it was secure, and then she figured a way around by reprogramming the remotes. We had to go to the house and physically put parental control PIN ids on both boxes. We are constantly being told that we are mean and cruel to limit her TV watching, but, hey, I don’t have premium channels, either…and I pay my bills. Anyway, in the past two weeks, I have paid over $600 towards MIL’s phone bill, only to be told today that it will be shut off tomorrow if another $400 isn’t paid. I haven’t been able to deposit the repayment checks for the other payments because MIL’s account is low because SIL uses it to fund her HSN addiction. SIL actually told mIL’s aide that H and I should be happy to support her because “SHE” takes care of her mother. When oldest boy was an infant, I let her watch him once. She didn’t change his diaper and he wound up with infected diaper rash. Yet, all of her cousins still believe that she raised my children because I was too busy working. Truth is, she was never allowed alone with my kids until they could toilet themselves after that. I want to put MIL on a senior saver basic phone plan but H is afraid that SIL will torture mom until she agrees to pay for the premium channels.
My FIL had hearing aids for decades and recently was eating caramel corn and apparently his hearing aid fell out of is ear and into the caramel corn as he chewed it up :eek: 8-|