We’ve been looking at memory care facilities this week. Dad and I checked out two on Monday here in Denton and Wednesday I went and looked at two more in Frisco. Two of the four places have been chucked out of the running already. I have two more that I haven’t seen yet.
People say “oh you’ll know when the time is right to move your mom.” I call Bullshit. It’s never going to be the right time. She loves my Dad and she is comfortable at home. She knows us all by name still. How do you broach the subject of moving into a whole other place? Sure, she can bring her cat (a pet friendly place is non-negotiable) and we will furnish the room with stuff from her own life, her own things. But still, she will not be with Dad every day. How will she handle the transition? Will she feel like we are being terribly mean and shunting her away? Will she even know the difference? Will she get used to a new place? Will she enjoy being cared for so completely? Having new people around her, and new things to occupy her time? Will she blossom with the attention? Or will she go downhill again? It’s impossible to know. Her brain is dying but the rest of her is doing fine. How long until she loses what is left? There are too many questions and not enough answers.
I bet you can’t imagine how much a memory care facility costs per month. How do people cope that do not have any savings? I can’t even fathom putting her in a place that is “less” than these private care and private pay places we are considering. One of them was $6600 a month! And that wasn’t even the nicest place. They also were offering a “special” of $4500 a month – lock that rate in for two years! Well hell let me run home and say “HURRY UP MA we gotta take advantage of the move-in special! Grab your things and let’s go!” What total crap. This is the same place where the Director took me into a room that was locked in order to show me yet another gathering place that looked like all the others. The reason the room was locked was because this lovely young lady was doing music therapy with a very old resident. The Director proceeded to tell me very loudly – over the music – what the room was used for. The guitar playing music therapist kept stealing glances at the Director. I’m sure they appreciated the intrusion.
I wonder what my mom went through when she was having to move my Granny from her house in Austin to an assisted living place in Tyler. She started out in a little house in an assisted living community, then had to move to an actual assisted living building before finally being moved to a nursing home. There may have been another move in there. I wish I had paid more attention. I especially wish I had paid attention to how my mom handled telling Granny about each move. Granny did not have Alzheimer’s – she had a type of dementia called Lewey-Body syndrome. Different, more entertaining certainly because Lewey-Body makes you hallucinate. Granny also did not have my grandfather. He passed away long before I was born. Did that make it easier? Granny was used to living alone, the only person she had to depend on in the end was my mom. My mom did not have the best relationship with her mom growing up. Was there a disconnect there at all? I do know how hard it hit her when she missed being with Granny by ten minutes when she died. I can still hear her voice on the phone when she called me shortly after. I know how my mom suffered over her death.
I pray every day about this situation. I pray for my mom of course, but I also pray that I will not get Alzheimer’s. The odds are stacked against me but I’ll fight it. God knows I won’t ignore the signs and symptoms if and when they come. I pray that Baby Girl will not agonize for one minute over what to do with me. I will do everything I can to make advanced directives regarding my care. If nothing else this process has taught me to be prepared, to think ahead and to definitely not ignore my health. I pray for peace for my mom and for my dad. In the end I hope that Baby Girl does not have to deal with this same situation but if she does, I hope that she knows that I want her to live her best life. Surround me with my stuff, my books and my pictures and my bottles of wine and I’ll be just fine.
