Sunday, January 3, 2021

Down to another plateau

Mom came out of nursing home after Thanksgiving, she was not ready for assisted living but Medicare said they weren't going to pay for nursing home anymore.  Because of COVID restrictions, nobody could go evaluate her to see if she would be okay in assisted living.  She wasn't.  She was there 3 days.  She was weak, her weight dropped to under 100 lbs.  She fell at assisted living every day.  Sent back to hospital.  Kidney infection.  Hospital kept her a week and the social worker helped me find a 6-person (group) home to transfer her to and start hospice.

Before she passed, my auntie was telling me to put her into one of these group homes, she knew how stressed I was with Mom's care.  I looked for these homes 2+ years ago.  I knew there were more but I only found two and they had waiting lists.  If only I could have found this home Mom wouldn't have broken her arm and started the physical decline.  But that's how Mom went to assisted living, and it was working okay while she could daycare in the Memory Care unit.  That ended March 15 with COVID restrictions when the elderly were isolated in their rooms.  I'm sure that was the start of Mom's decline.

I'm just coming off company shutdown since Christmas, I'm going to call out tomorrow because I need another day to run errands and make phone calls.  I spent a couple weeks trying to line up someone I could pay to help me move Mom's apartment furniture but they were coming down with COVID so I did it by myself.  I expected trouble moving the mattress.  Turns out it wasn't as heavy as I'd imagined.  Trouble is the "recliner," formerly a massage chair that I gutted & stuffed with pillows.  I wasn't able to take out the motor, so it's still too heavy for me to lift into a truck or my minivan.  It's basically a beautiful leather covered piece of trash with decades of life left as a recliner.  I'm perfectly willing to abandon it there but they'll charge me hundreds more than it's worth.  Boy, that was a cheap move at $29 for the UHaul.  However, I paid for it in time.  Loading the truck by myself turned out to be 3X more than the 2 hours I estimated but I needed to pace myself and I needed a nap after moving that mattress.  I'm not as fit as I was 2 years ago, which is the last time I exercised, just once a week but it was a regular thing.

1 comment:

  1. This Covid thing has hurt so many. Hope the new year is better for you. Hugs.

    ReplyDelete