## I continued slogging through various financials and relationships, ## sometimes triggered by items that arrived in the mail. A Medicare ## statement of recent benefits, along with a big info-booklet, sent me ## down a rabbit-hole trying to understand how Medicare works. It's ## incredibly complex, and plays in super-subtle ways with someone's ## existing private medical insurance. At this point I don't pretend ## to even understand the basics, other than it's federally sponsored ## and more or less works about like any other health insurance. Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2022 14:02:29 -0500 To: [Mom's concierge physician] Subject: another question.. Unrelated to the present situation, now I've got a Medicare question. I'm going through their big booklet trying to understand how this all works... It seems like Medicare picked up a big chunk of Mom's last stay over at the nursing center, July 14 - 29, until I showed up and got her out of there. It does not look like her present stay is being covered at all, given the billing I'm getting from the CCRC. What's different? Should I be asking the facility folks instead? This stuff is really confusing... _H* ## By now I had put the retirement-facility billing on auto-ACH-withdraw ## and converted to paperless mode, so the next statement arrived as a big ## PDF. This was the first one I had ever viewed, because Mom was overly ## religious about disposing of old statements once they were paid. Thus, ## I had no back records to look at and this was my first glimpse at it. ## So many questions... Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2022 14:41:28 -0500 Subject: Re: '(EXTERNAL)' Statement To: [billing czar at the retirement facility] Hello again, couple of questions.. I see a big advance billing for the nursing area, as though the assumption is that Mom's going to be there all October. If she is discharged before the end of October, does a refund come back? This is kind of a confusing way to do it, not to mention a large amount out the door... I'm also going through her Medicare stuff, and it looks like her July stay in Nursing was picked up by Medicare. What's different about the current one, or did anyone try to submit a claim? If I need to submit a claim, how do I go about it? _H* ## Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2022 05:46:22 +0000 From: [the CCRC billing administrator] Subject: RE: '(EXTERNAL)'Statement Good morning, Yes, of course, if your Mom happened to discharge from the nursing center prior to the end of the month, she would get a credit. Maybe I can help make it less confusing, we pre-bill, just like paying rent on an apartment or house. Her last covered day was on July 29th, 2022. To qualify for a skilled nursing stay, there are certain criteria that must be met. As of July 29th, your Mom was no longer meeting the Federal guidelines. Please let me know if you have further questions. Regards, ## ...and I still have no idea what that actually means. ## ## In the meantime, I had reached out to some more of Mom's old contacts ## from way back, just to let them know what was up. One of them had ## sent some photos from bygone events and visits. Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2022 06:51:56 -0500 Subject: update-ish To: [another old friend of Mom's who appreciated the updates] Still in FL here, I updated the "diary" this morning and am still waiting on many things. What's that song, "the waiting is the hardest part" ... I have told Mom that you've been in touch and are one of many pulling for her. It's interesting having to be the piece of her brain that used to handle so many general life-logistics, but being online is very enabling for that... There was a brief outpouring of well-wishes on Ravelry and I had Mom read through the 4 or so pages of it, but she's always shied away from too much intensive "squeeee" factor as you observed. But Ravelry has *thousands* of users and attitudes, so yeah, it can have a lot of different vibes. Thanks for the pix! I even found prints of a couple of them in the photo albums that I'm packing to take home with me whenever I return north, as Mom seems enthusiastic for me to keep all those memories even from before *I* had memories. Who knows, I might get time to scan some of that in someday. The inlet you visited was largely untouched by the hurricane, being a bit farther north of landfall. I went out to look at Nokomis Beach a couple of days after that, and while the water had briefly come up almost to the upper dunes, it didn't get a destructive storm surge. NYC sort of terrifies me, despite considering myself fairly able to handle "Boston drivers". Comfort in visiting would have much to do with where you are, what the parking situation is, etc. But it could work out, as I'm also aiming to stop in at U.S.Games in Stamford on the way through, which would keep me on the I-95/15 sort of route rather than going way around on 81/84. These days, routing also depends on where rapid-chargers are, as I'm driving full electric now. It's strangely more relaxing than when I did this run in the Prius, even with occasional charger eff-ups. I'll keep you apprised of my travels/travails! _H* ## Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2022 13:43:02 -0400 From: [said old acquaintance of Mom] Subject: Re: update-ish I love that Tom Petty song and it really is one of the hardest parts! I hope very much that you are okay. I live in a pretty quiet, residential area of Brooklyn (the South Slope area) and Boston to me seems far hairier in terms of traffic. I do completely understand your aversion to driving in Manhattan though. I send my best and please do keep me posted -- very grateful for that. Best to you, ## Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2022 18:30:35 -0500 Subject: Re: Thank you for trying again.. To: [some almost-lifetime friends of my parents from WAY back] I should have actually reached out to you earlier, being here for almost a month by now... but going through Mom's fairly voluminous list of contacts which she didn't necessarily write down correctly, it's tough. So I've definitely added you to the updates list, although I don't necessarily send something for every little change. Also, obviously, I have to anonymize quite a bit of the recorded email even if the link is only given to a small enclave. I know that both you and [husband] have been incredibly scholarly in almost all of your endeavors through life, through topics broad and narrow, and I guess in some way my parents were the same way but they always looked up to you as inspirational. Mom often speaks of the roughly 5-year "phases" of interest that her life took her through, with Dad perhaps a little less so, but it turns out that's how *my* life has been working out as well. Apple, tree, etc. My main techno-fandom area reflects this, jumping around between theatre tech, hybrid/electric cars, web stuff, and whatever else. It's great to be able to basically self-publish, and then keep track of effective "readership" through webserver logs and Google search-optimization stats. I will be back and forth some number of times more between home and FL, and have recently been trying more of the I-95 area routing instead of my usual bypass of the NJ/NY area on I-81. Perhaps I could plan to stop by your area on the way and catch up in person? I'm driving full electric now, and if anything it's more relaxing than when I did the same run in the Prius, even with the weirdness of having to know exactly where all my charging stops are. Fortunately we have a lot of technology that helps with that now. Which I have even helped to debug failings in, ironically enough. The EV industry is still in a fledgling state, but it seems the right way to go overall and it's a lot of fun to be a technical adept in. Anyway, I should quit ranting and go continue catching up on the news with the late-night comics, which is about the only way I can stomach it these days. It's definitely good to re-form the communication channels, and to help you track Mom's progress through these weird times. _H* ## With the future living situation still up in the air, I thought it still ## worth working on downsizing the possession-load. Having failed to get ## any nibbles from actual consignment shops, because they were already ## glutted with too much inventory. I was left with little choice but ## to donate. Apparently that happens all the time around here, though -- ## old folks move in someplace, then die with a houseful of *stuff*. As ## the saying goes, that undergoes instant conversion from someone's ## cherished treasures to well-nigh trash. But the local Goodwill deals with ## this frequently, offering what they call "white glove" service where they ## will come empty a house and get whatever good they can from the contents. Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2022 10:37:19 -0500 To: [the head rep at Goodwill's "white glove" division] Subject: partial house-emptying Hi, I left a phone message earlier. My mom has been living in one of the "club homes" at [the] retirement facility in Sarasota, but will likely be downsizing and moving to assisted-living fairly soon. We do not know what items she can/will take with that, but we're pretty certain about some that have to go now if that's doable. A "partial white-glove", sort of. I constructed a little webpage with pictures and descriptions of the items: http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/random/mlaunch/ and there be more items of interest as well. She is currently in the nursing facility on campus and generally unavailable, but is delegating management of all this to me [her son]. Whatever we could feasibly take care of now would be great -- it's some nice stuff in excellent condition. Again, I'm at [my Boston-area cellphone], which forwards to the house line for better audio when I'm in the house. T-mobile service is pretty wretched down here... thanks! _H* ## Finally, we had the big meeting with the nursing and "social services" ## staff, where we finally got a decision. They were going to let Mom return ## home to the house, with the provision that she would have private-duty ## help hired in for some portion of every day. Relationships were already ## in place for that aspect, and we would try to work out how much care time ## she would need and tailor it once she was back in the house. We had a ## "safety check" visit with the nursing staff and rehab folks, and they were ## quite pleased with how Mom was handling various transfers and moving ## around the kitchen and all, just with a wheeled-walker, with less apparent ## risk of a fall than before. So everyone seemed confident that she could ## enter a "partially assisted living" arrangement and continue at the house ## instead of the actual assisted-living section of the CCRC. ## As Mom's doctor hadn't been involved in that, though, I went to bring ## her up to speed on things. Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2022 20:42:55 -0500 To: [Mom's concierge physician] Subject: this week's status... I don't know if the retirement-facility folks are keeping you in the loop, but the most recent development is that they're going to allow Mom to return to the independent house for the moment. They're too terrified of the CCRC state regs to consider the Highlands for her, at least for now. That was a little unexpected, but with the appropriate safety fix-ups and hiring in the right amount of private-duty care, it should work okay. I ordered a "bed cane" and toilet hand-rails from Amazon today, hopefully they'll get here in time to be ready for her next Thursday or thereabouts when they're scheduling to move her back home. They don't require 24x7 companionship at the house; my thought is a 4-hour shift in the early morning and another one toward evening/dinnertime, daily, and fine-tune from there. I think it's still a bit hazardous for her to be navigating around in the kitchen alone, but we'll see. The rehab therapists have been gushing about how well she's doing, gaining strength and control back. She's been walking around with the wheelator quite a bit, *without* the brace. The main thing, they say, is that she needs to stay active. We're NOT donating the stationary bike, and we'll have the medical home-care therapy folks in to work with her on whatever schedule the rehab people recommend. Note that any of this talk of scheduling of care, whether for basic living or OT/PT, is complete guesswork on my part, so I'm always looking for better recommendations. I need to have a trustworthy setup in place in another week or so, and then get *my* butt back north to Boston and take care of stuff there. Oh, and you may not have known that we managed to return the second AFO brace back to Hanger, since it wasn't doing any more than the first brace in terms of knee stability and only hurting her more. They showed us a full KAFO with the lockable knee hinge, and Mom was distinctly UNenthusiastic about messing with something like that either. I collected all the random prescription meds from around the house and we went through them this morning with her printed list that the Carroll folks gave her, and set aside all the old/mystery stuff for disposal. The Lyrica and thyroid stuff is a daily staple, I'm not entirely sure about the anti- reflux stuff, and she has three or four different types of antibiotic loosely labeled to the effect of "for UTIs" including that latest Bactrim batch. Mom still wants to go grocery shopping herself, using me or home-care with a car to get to the store, and clinging to a cart as the walker. She will probably never trust anyone else to get a food order right, even though we have a very comprehensive shopping list for her day-to-day staples. This is another downside of the at-home situation; she's not going to have that enjoyment of someone else cooking her three meals a day, which she would have in truly assisted-living. I'm wrestling with whether or not to forward all her physical mail up north at this point. Most financial things need to come to me, but if everything's forwarded then I couldn't mail anything back to *her* if needed. Tax time is going to be, uh, fun, as various paper documents come rolling in and I need to field all that and get it to her accountants. That, obviously, isn't something you can help with ... I'm not sure what to tell you about your billing address for her at this point either, but it's not like Mom couldn't write and mail a check anymore. We now just function more or less equally on the finances so I can handle most of the complexities. Anyway, that's the status-dump at the moment, still lots to figure out. _H* ## Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2022 12:50:18 +0000 From: [Mom's doctor] Subject: Re: this week's status... Hi there, I did get a report that this was expected. It wasn't what I expected either and was surprised. I wasn't involved in the decision making, nor was I consulted for an opinion. I very much support some hours of in home assistance and with grocery shopping. Like you, I wish she would allow someone to do it for her but we probably have to accept that she is relinquishing as much freedom as she is. Whatever you can get her to agree to I support. I am also hearing that she is more mobile than before, which is good to hear. Whatever makes her happy - and works - for bracing is a step up as well. I think the rest will sort itself out. Have a nice Sunday! ## Given that we now knew more about the future and that it would be back ## at the house, at least for a while, we nonetheless continued working on ## sorting out Stuff and setting more things aside for donation. Boxing ## up a bunch of old books that would never be cracked again left ## refreshingly empty spaces on some of the shelves. A pickup for some ## large and now-empty cabinets was already scheduled for the next week. ## Progress could at least lurch forward a little in steps that still felt ## clumsy, but at least in the right general direction. ## ## I really need to think about getting back home for a while, given that ## it's almost November and I need to get the heat going in *my* house ## before it freezes down. For all I know it's already a mold-farm from ## being closed up for so long.