# Status of my Mom, 220915

I'm referring to this as Mom's "resurrection".  A week ago everyone thought she
was at death's door, in an almost catatonic zombie-like unresponsive state
after some kind of "episode" on Labor Day, and now she's sitting in a bed in
a *hospice house* where people usually go to die, saying "I want to get out
of this bed and go home".

Well, there are some stipulations, and I have to engineer large parts of it.

She will need 24x7 companionship, or close to it, for the duration, I imagine.
The retirement facility is laying that down as a requirement for "taking her
back", at least for a week or so while she undergoes a bunch of rehab.  I've
got a line on a really good local outfit that does high-end geriatric care,
and am already talking to them about a plan.  Having that at the skilled
nursing/rehab area may get her used to the idea of having someone there all
the time in general, and that scenario could easily transition back to the
detached house for continuance.  Yeah, it's some serious $$, but she has it
on tap.

Which likely means I'm not coming home with the FINAL groanin' load that I
figured on this time, not quite yet.  She wants to still have some of her
stuff there, despite our mutual agreed philosophy about "launch phases" to
reduce the amount of *stuff* in her life.  Today, for example, a bunch of
generic "bits & pieces" puzzles went out the door to some neighbors who will
do them and/or contribute what they finish to the [large!] floating retirement-
facility collection.  But fear not, I brought home all six of the old-skool
genuine wooden ones from the 1930s.  They still emit a lovely cedar aroma
when you open the lids...

Now, all of this could take a dive at any time, if some other health problem
suddenly pops up.  She does still have the "+8 DNR of Doom" in effect.  But
we're assuming forward motion and recovery and comfortable home life again,
even if mobility is limited.  I gotta hand it to the people who go into elder-
care lines of work; I don't think I could ever do that..

So now I'm in the throes of trying to take over the major finances under DPoA,
and just arrange to pay for all the stuff she needs remotely so she never has
to look at another financial number again.  Obviously a lot of online activity,
which I advised her to never even try getting into, but I'll need to drive a
lot of it from Boston.  The logistics of mailing addresses is going to be a
giant hairball, for example tax-related mailings.  The local bank [Truist, nee
some bastard child of BB&T and Suntrust] is being pretty good about setting
me up; Fidelity, far less so, because they're way too big to care.  The rest
can wait until phase II after she actually passes, but first I'm going after
the resources she actually used for paying expenses here.

But we aren't passing yet.  Today Mom was even more lucid, and even managed to
put one of her hearing aids in by herself but on the other side, couldn't quite
get her hand up high enough.  Significant progress from just yesterday, when I
had to put them both in ... I mentioned this to the social-worker fella who
came in a little later, and said "tomrrow, bring on the 45-pound dumbbells"...

I guess my day-to-day timeframe while I'm here will be out-n-about running
around during biz hours somewhat, and mostly "home" in the evenings, at her
house in the retirement facility.  I figured out how to forward my cell on
"unavailable" status to the landline here, which helps have better audio on
inbound calls; then all I have to do is un-airplane when I go out and I get
the calls on the "magic rock" if T-Mobile deigns to work at all.  The much-
ballyhooed value of "4G" around here is a fucking MYTH.

_H*