Need AL help? Ask your ombudsman

I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but because Dad will be living with us until he gets his liver transplant -- more on this later, much more -- we have decided to move Mom up to a facility closer to us, namely in Pennsylvania.  Two reasons for this:  Her cousins and other family members can help us out by visiting regularly and helping shuttle needed items to her, and it's much cheaper.

I want to talk more about how important it was that I finally admitted I needed help and reached out to extended family, and how helpful they have been.  But what I want to get out now is a vitally important thing I learned recently.  There are people out there who can help you choose a top-rate assisted living facility, and will help you and your family make sure the AL experience is as positive as possible.

That person is your federally-mandated, free ombudsman.  Need to find out if any complaints have been registered against your chosen facility?  Contact your local ombudsman (let's call them oms for short).  Want to know your loved one's rights in the AL system?  Ditto.  What if you have questions about what is covered under Medicare or Medicaid?  Yep, your oms.

A dear friend's mom is a retired ombudsman, and promptly called the current local oms to check out the facility we've chosen for Mom. The current oms promised to check up on Mom shortly after admittance, seeing as I still live some 180 miles away, and also to meet us when we first arrived, just for so.  How great is that?

Click here for the National Long-Term Care Ombudsman Resource Center to find the oms nearest your facility.

The sickly underworld

There are two kinds of people: The healthy and the sick.

When you're well, you go about your business, worrying about things like buying a monthly rail pass and what color to dye your hair.  When you are sick -- and I include caregivers among the sick -- everything else takes a backseat. You're going through the motions, but the stuff that seemed so critical before, falls behind.  Hey, you might not even have time to get to most of it.

Life goals that seemed so ordinary before suddenly seem insurmountable. How do you get 20 minutes of exercise per day using a walker? Car ride longer than a 1/2 hour? I'd best bring incontinence supplies. The longer term projects?  Forget it. How does one travel to the Great Wall when one needs a regular phlebotomy? 

When people ask you, "How're you doing?" you want to laugh.  How can they be so damn cheerful? Such ignorant bliss, to be healthy! And when someone is nasty to you, like the lady who took the trouble to pull up and scream at me for blocking her for oh, thirty seconds in the school drop-off line, you're aghast. Doesn't she know?  (I found out later her son has autism and is generally very, very angry at the world, so I immediately forgave her. I did make a mental note to mention to her someday, should opportunity arise, that she had unwittingly let rip on another caregiver. If anybody needs to stick together, we do.)

Life becomes a series of doctor's appointments and worry, worry, worry. I'm not the only one who has slipped through the perilously thin ice of good health to live, with shocked horror, in the underworld. I have a few friends who are having major health issues of their own. Boy, had we known this was coming, we would have had a lot more fun together way back when.

What's interesting is that even if you have lived among the sick, it's very easy to forget the entire episode and mingle once again with the well should circumstances change. It's like it never happened. You might even abuse your body or, if you're a caregiver, forget about the sick loved one for vast chunks of time. Oh, right, must call Mom at the home today. It's our mind's way of keeping us sane, I suppose.