@techmom, sounds like things with SIL are pretty bad. Good luck navigating the situation that will likely continue to worsen.
Hearing aids DO fall out and also they routinely need to have batteries replaced. They are challenging for many elders as they don’t remember and can’t find them. They also aren’t very helpful for sound types of hearing loss. My friend’s H went on a deep sea fishing boat with his SIL and other males as a bonding experience. At some point during while they were ALL seasick, the H lost one of his very expensive specialty hearing aids and was without it for the entire week in HI, including the wedding of his younger D to SIL. My friend was not pleased they had to purchase a new hearing aid for $5000 or so – not sure but much higher than Costco.
I had lunch with a friend who is a speech therapist and she said that “you get what you pay for” with hearing aids. In fact her dad insisted on getting the $200 ones from the VA and they did not help at all. Tow other friends chimed in who had loved one with hearing aids and agreed that the more expensive ones work better.
I do notice ads for “Miracle ear” and other hearing aids which is another clue that they are expensive and possibly a bit of a racket. I found an article from AARP about the lack of transparency in pricing, which allows the high prices by limiting competition.
I don’t mind paying but I am discouraged about people losing them and/or saying they end up not using them
The ENT we went to said many of his clients are quite pleased with the Costco ones which are MUCH cheaper than most. It is nice they will replace a pair at no extra charge. If you buy it with some Ccards, you get a free 90 days loss protection warranty as well, which can be useful. Sorry, no magic answers here. Wish we had some as it’s scary my folks can’t hear the doorbell ring of folks pounding on their front door, you have to call them on the landline and tell them you’re outside.
H got Costco hearing aides ones recently- the top of line Phonak about $2000, very nice. I noticed that they seem to favor them in France. I notice more of a difference than he does. We don’t have ‘no I did not say that’ or ‘I told you yesterday’ conversations.
Yes my mother lost her partial dentures on day and the assisted living called me to tell me she lost her front tooth. Apparently they did not realize that she had a partial. When they described the missing tooth and I told them to look for her partials they were rather embarrassed about the call. I think my mother decided not to wear them anymore or she just forgot as she was getting rapidly more demented.
A friend is the head of a national audiological association and said there is some push (though not without resistance) to making some hearing aides available OTC.
I heard an npr story about OTc hearing aids recently. They likened them to OTC reading glasses–not everyone needs the fancy stuff. Worth listening to. Apparently some govt regulations that disallow it currently.
But the cheap ones will just magnify all sounds…meaning, all noise. So yes, you’d hear my voice louder, but also the fan, the radio in another room, and the car driving by. Like those cheap kid toys that let you listen in. Or the old phone amplifiers. And if your loss is in a range (eg, can’t hear women’s higher pitched voices so well,) outta luck.
Had a good visit with the audiologist for my mom. When he programmed a set of trial hearing aids it was amazing that she could hear normally again! His were more expensive than the prices I see on the Costco website, but I will probably use him due to the convenience of him being in the community once a week to answer questions, adjust aids, etc etc. These aids also don’t use removable batteries, they charge in their case overnight so that was a big plus for me.
Wow, the charging aspect sounds wonderful, @surfcity. The day my dad couldn’t handle the batteries in his hearing aids anymore was the day he stopped using them.
Two years after my mother passed away, I am ready to close out the final bank account! The estate is settled, the house sold a year ago, I’m finished with the division of property, stocks, insurance; accountant and lawyer paid. I cannot believe it took so long, especially since my parents were so methodical and organized. H and I redid our estate plan this past year and also updated the special needs trust for our autistic son. So worth every penny we paid the lawyer.
Congrats @dentmom60! It can take some time to wind down everything and pay off all bills and close accounts. It took over two years for my SisIL’s estaré and the executor was VERY diligent and organized (otherwise it would have taken far longer). It didn’t involve any property sales either.
Regarding hearing aids, as a stop gap measure for one on one conversations, we use a pocket talker at work, and with my friend who lost her hearing due to brain radiation. This is one: https://www.amazon.com/Pocket-Talker-Ultra-System-Headphone/dp/B000S01IOE The one I used for my friend was from Radio Shack, at a far lower price point.
Dentmom, you must be thrilled to be done! Congrats!
Per hearing aids, if your loved one is at a nursing home where you are paying for 24/7 medical care, make sure you know the policy. The policy where my dad was that they put in a doctor’s note to put the hearing aid in and then take it out again each day. This made it a medical issue when the hearing aids were lost, and they did not tell me for several days.
dentmom4, unfortunately your email is timely. My father passed away end of last month, and we are only beginning the process. He was NOT organized and although I had POA, I am finding random references to life insurance and so on, when I start going through papers. I am hoping for the best that it can be settled in two years; the good news is that his estate appears to be solvent despite a huge mortgage on his house, which is a relief having already paid $20,000 for funeral and related expenses.
The beginning after the executor is named is to get his house cleaned up. I probably will transfer as much stock as possible as stocks, because I understand that the capital gains resets with my father’s death date, and does not go back to my mother’s or my uncle’s death dates, like he had to when he was still with us.
As to what happened to him, well, I can’t say much about it except we are getting professional advice on the matter.
I really appreciate the support this group has provided, and especially people who PM’d me about various issues. I will likely hang around to see if anyone has feedback as the long process of settling his estate continues.
If I had a dime for every time a medical professional said “people get this way when they are older” I’d be rich - he did not die of old age
@dentmom4 - Hurrah for you! That must feel amazing.
Glad there are lots of hearing aid options emerging for people. Anyone have experience with using phones that show the spoken word on a screen, as well as amplify voices? My MIL’s husband has severe hearing loss and is able to navigate good hearing aids successfully at 94, but still struggles to hear on the phone. It could make a big difference to have phone calls more workable.
My oldest sibling sent an email to the youngest, who is the executor of mom’s (very small) estate, asking when it would be through probate. OS is not getting anything other than the vehicle mom bought and let her use, but she is thinking she will get cash as well. She owed a lot of money to mom and is under the impression that the debt went away upon death. It didn’t. It’s easily 3X what any of the rest of us will see.
We knew OS would be difficult. We figured she had no intent of paying back the loans and fully expected to share the cost of mom’s care amongst the rest of us had mom lived another year. It’s hard when these things actually happen. At one point, we were going to share a small amount of cash, but her insistence on a full share of the cash in the estate plus the car plus debt relief - to the extent of talking of hiring her own lawyer - was more than we could handle.
Ugh. Just a vent, really. The whole thing makes me nauseous.
I’m in a trick box with trying to clear out mom’s house to be even presentable enough to show a realtor to estimate sale value, while appealing her discharge from the rehab facility. Once she’s back with me, She will likely require constant supervision, which is in itself a huge problem.
How do you go about clearing out, fixing, and selling from far away? I seem to be frozen. It’s the upside and the downside that my sibs will support whatever I do. But what do I do?
My current thinking is empty the loose junk, leave furniture. If we remove all furniture, the ancient and poorly maintained carpet will look bad. We don’t want to spend money on new when someone else might want hardwood.
I probably asked the same questions up thread a year ago. Just the clearing out process has been very time intensive.
@Rhandco My condolences. I know you were trying to do the right things for him.
Did he have a will? If not, you need to get someone declared executor or administrator, depending on assets and state rules. It may even need to go into Probate. Please don’t make any changes until this is clear. It may be worth consulting an attorney, if you haven’t, at least for initial guidance.
Btw, POA ends at his death. So unless he named you executor, you may not have authority.
What I found was stocks will need to be transferred (“re-titled”) to the recipients/heirs, split evenly, (unless a will dictates otherwise.) Those heirs then deal with the adjusted “basis” for their own shares, make their own decisions to hold or sell. (It’s this “basis” that resets, i.e., the start value, for later “growth” calculations, for tax purposes.)
I was able to handle my mother’s estate because it qualified as a Small Estate/no probate in the state in which she died. And all was to be split 50-50 only between my brother and me. I then dealt with the admins for the stocks (a sep company) for re-titling. This co provided much patient support.
Someone mentioned a Medallion, earlier. It’s a signature guarantee, like a notary, but a major step up as the grantor can bear some liability. No one in my area would do it (Bank of America stopped, places like Merrill Lynch wanted us to have had an account for a year or so.) If you might need this, check now. I was lucky I had one account at a bank that will do this.
psychomomma- when the in laws had to move out of their home of 50 years, we kids met up, each took anything sentimental, then we did an estate sale. After that we replaced carpet & painted & did a few other things for better resale, it was worth it in their market.
What I say is, either just do it, sell all the stuff she won’t be taking or move it to a storage unit and go through it at your leisure. That’s what we did with some of my mother’s stuff, it happened fast and we were not sure what anyone would want plus she moved into my house so I had to put some of my stuff into storage.
For my in laws, we definitely made fast decisions and there were some things which I wish I’d kept, but nothing that is any big deal, just things that ended up not selling in the estate sale that I could have kept rather than sent with the guy who picks up the leftovers.
Even for my mother, I had a sibling doing the stuff at her house & I was at my house and there is all sorts of stuff that my mother ask for later & I had no idea where it went, nor did sibling! The storage unit worked out well.
