My 86-year-old mom has been in assisted living facilities since she underwent emergency surgery in 2017 for a ruptured colon that caused her to have short-term memory loss. After she was released from the hospital, she stayed at the closest nursing facility to our house, just .5 miles away, so that I could visit her daily.
The facility has since closed its doors, not too surprisingly. Mom was there maybe a couple weeks and when she was released, John and I quickly discovered that she not only had short-term memory loss but was also suffering from a severe case of hospital delirium. After a few weeks at home, she was readmitted to the hospital.
From there she was sent for rehab at a facility in our city that had better care but didn’t acknowledge and/or recognize her hospital delirium. After a 2.5-month stay there, she was basically sent packing because her federal insurance would no longer pay for her care.
That left me as her primary caregiver, taking care of her in her home, working from her dining room table, making meals, cleaning, chauffeuring her to doctor appointments, and performing all the physical cares that a person in her situation needed.
She underwent a second surgery to reverse the colostomy that had been performed at her initial surgery six months earlier. While that didn’t help her short-term memory loss, it lessened the delirium symptoms, so she was able to live without me being with her 24/7.
In September of 2018, we helped her sell her home and found an assisted living facility that was less than 2 miles from our house. We’d hoped it would be Mom’s forever home, but after self-paying for a year and using up all of her assets so that she would qualify for Medicaid, we were told that the facility would not accept her as a Medicaid client because they had reached their capacity.
So, in September of 2019, we moved Mom to another assisted living facility, this one six-plus miles from our house. In the course of two years, she went from her three-bedroom house to a one-bedroom apartment to a studio apartment. Downsizing was tough on her, especially since she’s been on her own for so long and had so many things that she’d purchased to make her house a home, but she got through, and lived there relatively happily for four years.
Fast forward to September 20, 2023, when I got a call from the provider that manages her Medicaid case, and was informed that Mom had to find a new place to live by December 5, 2023. For various reasons, this company had canceled their contract with her facility.
That call sent me into overdrive. I had literally one week to rehouse Mom before I left for an extended visit to Ohio to help our middle daughter as she and her husband are expecting their second child, and to attend our youngest daughter’s wedding October 14. Most people thought it would be impossible to pull this off in such a short time. But, like John always says, don’t ever bet against me. When I set my mind to something, I will not quit until I succeed.
People said it was an impossible task, but I refused to back down. What was the rush, they wondered? Because good assisted living facilities are hard to come by. There are only openings when a resident passes away. The agency gave me a list of seven facilities in our area that had openings as of that day. I have a friend who owns a business where they help place elders into care facilities, so I ran the list past her. Four of the choices were a hard no for her (spotty care, outdated facilities, not a place she’d want for anyone’s mom). That left us three options.
My first choice was a four-bedroom home in a residential neighborhood just 1.7 miles from our house. I happened to know the original owner of that facility (one of a half-dozen in our area) and he connected me immediately to the new owner. I called to make an appointment to walk through it the next day. He had a showing at 9:30. I asked if my husband and I could tour the house at 8:00. He agreed and so we did.
The house is about a year old and in a beautiful neighborhood. The four residents are looked after full time by one person on each of three shifts throughout the day and night. John and I knew instinctively that this would be a good fit for Mom. We told the owner and asked to start the application process.
We did tour a larger facility, about 6 miles from our house, a couple days later. After seeing that, we knew we’d made the right decision. Mom would’ve been in the advanced memory care section, and she’s not to that point in her life yet. I’m not sure how hard it would’ve been on her, but I couldn’t handle it. Her condition has been down-graded from short-term memory loss to dementia and now to Alzheimer’s dementia. If it gets worse (which seems somewhat unavoidable), we’ll be faced with more decisions for her. Hopefully, that’s a ways off.
With the owner of the house and his staff aware of the fact that I wanted Mom moved in by September 27, we all went to work. This included filling out a stack of paperwork, getting DNR paperwork and bracelets from my mom’s physician (a lesson in patience if there ever was one), communicating with the nurse at the new facility, the staff at my mom’s previous assisted living facility, and the staff at her doctor’s office.
On top of that was the actual move. John and I spent the weekend before at Mom’s packing up her apartment. This was the third downsizing for her (and the third upsizing for me and John as we’ve added 90 percent of her belongings to our basement).
The night before the move we had everything boxed up, sorted by things going to our house vs. those going to Mom’s new apartment (make that room) but we still hadn’t figured out how to actually facilitate moving her furniture. There wasn’t one moving company that could either move her on our timeline or had a price that fit her budget. I resorted to asking the gentleman who owned the house she was moving into if he could help us move the larger items. Not only did he say yes, he provided a truck and covered trailer, moved the items from her apartment onto the trailer with John, moved the items with John into Mom’s room, and also offered to let us store the large items she wouldn’t be using (dining room table, chairs, and hutch) in the garage of her new house.
Miraculously, we had Mom completely moved in on September 27. That evening John and I even went over and hung up her pictures so it truly looked like home. After one of the most intense weeks that I could remember in a long time, I was exhausted, but relieved that we’d pulled this move off in such a short time. Three days later I took off for Ohio.
Is this facility a perfect fit? That’s to be determined. There’s definitely been a few glitches, but, being just 5 minutes from our house, we’re able to stop by on almost a daily basis, so we’ll be able to stay on top of things. Will this be Mom’s forever home? I’d like to say it will be but only God knows the answer to that. For now, Mom’s settled in, safe and secure. We’re taking things one day at a time and thanking God that we still have her in our lives and that she still remembers us.