Yesterday my sister and I checked out two more living options for Mom. One was a traditional nursing home. We were totally freaked out by our experience to say the least. Before our visit I had checked medicare.gov to see if there were any complaints. There were none. After our visit I checked the state health department website, where I work, and found 9 complaints. Several were substantiated. The lesson here is to always check your local or state health department for complaints.
We also visited another memory care facility. This particular facility is one that we had visited last November. We were not impressed back then thus did not consider it. It has since been sold to another company and we made an unannounced visit yesterday. They evaluated Mom this morning and the charge nurse seemed to think it went well. We have yet to hear from the facility though. I checked for complaints and found 3, 1 of which was substantiated. These occurred under the previous owners. If she is accepted I will be on them like a hawk, making sure my mother gets the best care. The one lesson that we have learned is that even the best laid plans can often go astray. We thought we had had all of our ducks in a row and that we would not end up in a desperate situation. We were told over and over that we were being proactive yet somehow we still ended up in a desperate situation.
Last night was our neighborhood ice cream social. My neighbors all wanted to hear how Mom is doing. It turns out that one neighbor is an RN and works for the gerontologists that we have been trying to get Mom into. She took our info and talked to the doctors today and now Mom has an appointment next Tuesday with a highly recommended gerontologist. Our neighbor was appalled by what we have been through. She is totally against medicating dementia patients for behavior. We are quite relieved to have this person on our side. She will be an excellent advocate for us as well as an excellent resource for everything else. We are so lucky.
This morning Mom was agitated and not very hungry. My poor Mommy.
4 comments:
(((Robin))) hanf in there sweetie. When things seem impossible just hang on and something or someone will be there. I think your 'someone' turned out to be eating ice cream : ). I'm so glad someone is there to help you!
thank god for ice cream socials. and good daughters.
continuing to keep you and your mom in my thoughts and prayers. with all you have going on, thanks for keeping us updated.
I am so glad you have found an advocate to help you. Here's hoping the gerontologist can get you back on the right track. You are an inspiration, Robyn.
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