Recap of October's Activities

(NC State Fairgrounds, Raleigh, NC)  Hi 60 Lo 32 -- Today I visited mom to say goodbye. We're leaving tomorrow and will be back in April. Jim said his goodbye yesterday and stayed home today to get the rig ready for the trip.

Today's blog is a recap of our activities in the month of October. I'm doing this mainly for our records, so if you're a regular follower we'll understand if you skip reading it, as it's kind of long and it's repeating most of the information we've already written about. But it may be of value to you if you have an aging parent that you might have to care for on short notice.

We were in Louisville, KY planning a couple of weeks of sightseeing when on September 27 we got a call from one of mom's helpers that mom wasn't well. We waited a day to see if she improved, but the next day mom called to say she was being taken to the hospital. We immediately decided to hitch up that day and head home to Raleigh. We headed out and, after an overnight stay in a Wal-Mart parking lot in W. Virginia, we arrived at the NC State Fairgrounds on the 30th.

The NC State Fair was scheduled to start on October 13, and normally you can't stay at the fairgrounds campground unless you're involved with the fair. But when we explained our situation, the authorities were good enough to let us stay for the whole month.

Due to mom's condition we soon determined that she wouldn't be able to live independently any more. So we got some help from the hospital social services lady to find a place for mom. The only problem was, we didn't know if we would need a nursing home or assisted living facility. The social service worker gave us a list of both kinds of places, and we started making phone calls and setting up times to visit them.

We needed to give 30 days notice to vacate mom's apartment, which we did on October 3. We started going through her stuff and tried to decide how best to get rid of everything. Mom's church agreed to take the furniture. As for the rest of her belongings, we decided to have a "room sale" for the residents of the apartment building. We posted the date and time on the bulletin board and they came and took whatever they wanted, as long as they left a donation. We were only allowed to have residents take part, so we couldn't open it up to outsiders. Anything that was left was taken to Dorcas Community Ministries, a local faith-based charity that provides for the poor and homeless.

We were both going back and forth between the apartment and the hospital. Mom was in the hospital for seven days. Her main problem was a compression fracture in her back, but she was suffering from critically low sodium levels. After her treatment she was moved to a rehab facility to work on her strength and mobility. We had discussions with the doctor and rehab nurses, and it was decided that she would do fine in an assisted care facility. At that point we had five days to decide on a place, and once we decided on that we had to hope there was a room available. We looked at several places. The one that impressed us the most was Carillon Assisted Living in Fuquay-Varina, which is about 20 miles from Raleigh. They've only been open for a year. The workers there are very friendly and attentive, and the place was clean and new. It also offered the best balance of cost vs. benefits. There was no huge "buy-in" fee, only a small deposit, and the monthly cost includes all of their services. Many of the places we looked at had a "tiered" payment system, where you pay for extra services above the amount of the rent. So on October 14, we moved mom into Carillon and got her settled in a room.

The change wasn't easy for her, but she handled it well under the circumstances. She wanted everything from the apartment, including all her clothes and her crafts. We had to convince her that she couldn't fit everything she had in her 1-bedroom apartment into her new 1/2 room (she will eventually have a roommate). We helped her sort and choose by taking photos of her clothes closet and crafts cabinets, and letting her point out the items she wanted. I missed a few things that went to the second hand store. I love to organize things, so I worked with mom for a couple of days and got everything arranged and put away for her.

By this time the month was almost over and it was time for mom's follow-up doctor appointments. A couple were at 8:00am. Jim's more of a morning person than I am so he picked her up and took her to those. One evening we picked up the last of mon's crafts to take to a friend to sell at her workplace. We turned in the apartment keys to the office. We didn't have to be there for the inspection this past Friday. They said they'd call us if there was a problem, and we didn't get a call, so I assume it went well. All during the month Jim took on the job of organizing mom's finances. That wasn't an easy job either, but he knows that area a lot more then I do. What a great job he did. We're still getting that sorted out, but everything is on track. We filled out a change-of-address card at the post office, so mom will start getting her mail at her new home soon.

This past week Mom had a water leak in her room under the air conditioner. They changed the air conditioner twice and the leak is still there. They don't know what's causing it, but they suspect it might be ground water coming up through the floor. They moved mom to another room until they figure it out. The workers did a good job of moving her belongings, but they didn't get everything back to the same place, so mom's got a little upset because she couldn't find anything. I helped her re-organize everything, and this time I bought some small plastic boxes to put her small stuff in and make it easier to find things. She was in a good mood today and is anxious for us to get back on the road before it gets too cold. We're on our way to Beaufort, NC tomorrow morning.

Thank you everyone for your kind words of support the last month. If we can offer one piece of advice for those of you with aging parents, it would be to get a Power of Attorney before it's too late. You'll need it if and when you have to take over your parents' financial and business matters.