Upstate NY, through an agency that was recomended by the consultant we are using. She’s been there for a year, with breaks of course. The agency provides the fill in aides. My parents also didn’t want someone but we didn’t give them a choice. My Dad fell several times, including once when he broke his nose and another bone in his skull.
We’ve given holiday cash gifts, and a sizeable bonus on the 1 year anniversary. Not only is it hard to find good aides, my mother’s Alzheimer’s has turned her into an incredibly nasty, spiteful person. So the aide earns combat pay!
Prayers and wishes for some divine guidance on workable solutions.
I look at the medical provider network your loved one has, and how complicated it could be with changing medical providers/Doctors – let alone the willingness for arrangements, even for a short time for FIL being displaced.
IDK if your husband knows people in FIL’s area who can give some guidance on what might work for FIL. Keep talking to others on how you can possibly navigate this. If you know clergy that work with seniors. Senior agencies for leads.
Pain and anxiety are a terrible combination, along with everything else.
My mother has called me twice in the last hour (she is supposed to be asleep, it is 9pm) telling me she needs to go back to “that other place where her furniture is.” She is insisting she does not live at her AL, though she has been there 7 years.
After a hospital stay she says things like this, until she readusts. But she has not been in the hospital.
I am wondering if the vaccine she had yesterday is doing this. When I visited today she was even more unwell than usual and was shaking and flapping and moaning.
We have low expectations of assisted living so there is not much that can disappoint me at this point. I have called the wellness center but there is no way to contact anyone.
She went to sleep after I told her we would talk about going to the “other place” in the morning. Otherwise I would drive over there (half hour).
ps her blood sugar was 163 today…she has been thirsty so I tested it…not too bad but a little surprising
I have another rant about the rehab place my father has been in now for the past 3 + weeks. They and the assisted living where he resides have all reached an agreement that he can be released on Wednesday.
My father has been out of his AL for 5 weeks now and has with him only what he needs. His wallet is safely back in his room at the AL with his credit cards. They told him today that he needs to prepay by credit card for the ambulette to take him back to his AL. They will not allow him to travel any other way (no public para transit for example).
He has been transported from the hospital to his AL probably a dozen times in the past few years and was never asked for money. The rehab social worker told me they won’t transport him unless they get paid in advance and it is not covered by Medicaid or his insurance. When I told her I would not give her my credit card information (I do not trust them with this), her reply was “well then he can’t leave here!”
What kind of response is that - are you holding him hostage (that is how it has felt to me for the past couple of weeks). Aren’t social workers supposed to be helping patients? What if he didn’t have me or his lawyer to figure this out (his lawyer resolved it for him)?
My 90 year old father does not have Alzheimer’s or diagnosed dementia. However, when things happen - he is in the hospital, in a strange place, not getting sufficient oxygen, suffering an infection, etc. he has cognitive issues.
Last time he was in the hospital, he called me two different times telling me wild well detailed stories about something that was happening to him (they were completely made up). It was almost like a dream or hallucination - very scary to listen to him.
The second call (a different crazy story form the first one), there was a doctor in the room with him at the time. He put her on the phone and she said this was nothing to worry about, normal for his age and condition and with the many drugs he was on and his need for oxygen.
Whatever it is, it passes, and a few days later he is completely fine and totally with it mentally.
My mom did not have Alzheimer’s, but she had some sort of dementia. She experienced periods of delirium. It was awful. Sometimes her sodium or magnesium was off, but I don’t know if those were clearly related to the delirium. The periods came out of the blue, seemingly.
@cag60093 can you try “a place for mom”. We used that when we where looking for places for my father-in-law.
It is a private company that has resources all over United States. Their website says “We help families make informed decisions about Senior Care”. While we where looking for AI they may have contacts with people that work in the home.
It is a free resource, so it is worth a call. I remember they called us many times, even after we found a place for my father-in-law.
Hope you find something that works for him. This is such a hard time!
Continue of rant - my father is never getting out of this rehab place. So they did the standard Covid test for his release (required 48 hours before) and he tested positive. They claim nobody else in the unit has it and he has not left that place. Plus, he is vaccinated and has tested positive at least 3 times in the past 2 years. UGH. So frustrating, I feel like he is trapped there. If they had released him last week (as I requested), this wouldn’t have happened.
Thank you for the suggestion. I’ll look into it. FIL still adamant that he will leave, but he ended last night phone conversation with I’ll think about it. I’ll take that as a progress for now.
My dad’s surgery went well but we’re having the typical hospital experience. He’s supposed to use a bipap machine at night. Dad’s caregiver set it up. My sister was here until 8 pm and forgot to remind them, so she called his nurse at 8:30. The nurse said she would have respiratory come do it. Dad asked several times and they said someone would come, but nobody ever did. When I asked this morning the day nurse said it was because there was no doctor’s order for it and it had been too late to call the doctor. At 8:30? It would have been a 10-second phone call. When I asked the doctor about it this morning, he said, “Huh, nobody called me about it…”. Grr. Even with one of us here from 7 am to 8 pm, it’s not good enough. At least I like his day nurse. Two days in a row! She’s 25, not much older than my daughter, but she is a sharp young lady. She never acts rushed and really follows through when we have questions or concerns. I’m going to put in a good word for her when Dad gets out. It will be at least until the end of the week before he’s discharged.
My dad has vascular dementia and he gets very confused and anxious during hospital stays. Nights are terrible and heartbreaking. During one of his hospital stints, he would call nightly that he’s lost and needs help coming home, or he’s in a jail cell at a police station and don’t know how to get home, or he’s in the old neighborhood but don’t remember how to get home. I know now that he was just very confused and scared, but talking to him during was so heartbreaking. It was esp hard bc he became an orphan during the war and he spent decades wondering what happened to his family. It made to me wonder if he was feeling the similar “lost and alone” feeling.
Always good to put a good word in for someone doing very good work.
Reminder to all that hospitals and rehab facilities need orders for the bi-pap machine. However some may want the normal flow rate as part of their order.
Frustrating about orders not put in nor calling MD at 8:30 pm. I wonder if they had oxygen ordered as PRN and they could have put that on him for the night. UGH.
Did they do a PCR? He can test positive for 90 days or even more from a past infection. This happened to my mother and they tested the strain, determined her positive PCR was from previous infection, and released her from isolation.
Consultants advise against A Place for Mom. I dialed them by mistake once and they would not leave me alone. The person at A Place for Mom did not live in our area and didn’t really know that much about the places. Various facilities that I called as a result of that contact also told me to stay away from them. Their list only includes facilities willing to pay them for the listing. It becomes close to and advertising service.
Most of the big agencies are run as franchises and can vary greatly. We had a super experience with Visiting Angels in OH and then an awful one in FL. I think the best bet is asking around your community - via church, social workers, or the doctor’s office.
This is the fourth time in two years that he has tested positive (it was a PCR). He is completely asymptomatic and tested negative when he was admitted to the hospital in March and once again when he was admitted to the rehab 5 weeks ago (not to mention testing negative during his last hospital stays in December and January).
They say the policy now is not to test him again for 30 days (so they won’t redo it to get a negative) and to have him isolated for 7-10 days. This is completely different from when he first had covid back in 2020 and they wouldn’t release him to his assisted living until he had a negative covid test (which took several weeks).
I don’t think he has covid again. I believe he is one of those people who, for some reason, will have covid virus present in his body forever and may test positive at any time.
When I asked this morning the day nurse said it was because there was no doctor’s order for it and it had been too late to call the doctor. At 8:30? It would have been a 10-second phone call. When I asked the doctor about it this morning, he said, “Huh, nobody called me about it…”. Grr. Even with one of us here from 7 am to 8 pm, it’s not good enough. At least I like his day nurse. Two days in a row! She’s 25, not much older than my daughter, but she is a sharp young lady. She never acts rushed and really follows through when we have questions or concerns. I’m going to put in a good word for her when Dad gets out. It will be at least until the end of the week before he’s discharged.