Mom's Alzheimer's Journal

5:26 PM – The nursing home called and left a voicemail letting me know that Mom had tested positive for COVID-19. They said that she is asymptomatic and that she’s fine. They moved her to a different room for quarantine. There were a couple of other residents that were positive and quarantined as well as some staff that had tested positive. Fortunately, there haven’t been any deaths at the nursing home that are COVID related.

8:00 PM – I got a call from the nursing home (they left a voicemail since I was working and didn’t hear the phone.) They said that she pushed someone that was in a wheelchair out of her room roughly and hit her head (not sure if it was Mom’s head or the other resident.) They said there was no injuries, but were just calling to let me know. Who knows what was going on, but it seems like she’s regressing back to the terrible two’s or something. Hopefully they don’t get tired of her antics and send her off somewhere further away. I can’t visit her as it is because of Covid-19… being further away would be worse!

In other news, I recently tried to get the nursing home to let me visit her outside at a safe distance with a cross-breeze so that she would be able to hear me in a conversation. They decided that they were not going to allow that and suggested telehealth visits. I declined because I know that with Mom’s hearing, she’d not be able to hear me and it would end up being pointless. I’m at least trying to get them to give me weekly updates.

I also noticed on her pharmacy bill for last month, that the respiridone is no longer being prescribed to her, so I’m guessing that hallucinations are more under control now, although I was not informed that they had stopped. I’m sure they’ve got their hands full right now with the corona virus, so I understand that things like letting me know something can get overlooked, but I still wish they would have said something.

Medicaid Done Right is handling the Medicaid application process and will file it as soon as Mom’s spend-down is complete, which will happen with next month’s bill. She won’t have enough for the whole month, so it should be filed soon. From the sounds of it, they have almost everything and don’t foresee any problems with anything. Apparently, no danger of losing the house. I don’t know about the car yet as they haven’t said anything about it, but I’m hoping to hang on to it so I have something to use to get to work in case something happens to mine. Once I know what they will do, I’ll charge the battery and see if it actually runs still.

I guess that’s all I’ve got now. If I hear anything else, I’ll be sure to post it here. 🙂

8:00 PM – I was looking through Signature Healthcare of Bremen’s Facebook page and found a picture of Mom on there:

I got some forms to sign in the mail and attached was a quick note saying that Mom was adjusting fairly well. I do need to get her glasses up there or see about getting her eyes checked and getting her new glasses. What I found here are in pretty bad shape and likely not the prescription she needs.

Signature is pretty active on their facebook page showing their interactions with the residents. I know the admissions director had to cut a phone conversation short with me because she was getting ready to put on a cowboy had and do some singing. It seems they do a lot of that to keep everyone, including the staff, entertained. Here’s a link to the facebook page if you want to check it out: https://www.facebook.com/shcofbremen/

4:15 PM – I just got home from moving Mom to the nursing home. I stopped at the nursing home and met Erica, who I’ve been in contact with through the process. She was really nice. We sat outside where I had to sign admissions papers again because too much time had passed because of the delay in her discharge from the hospital. Mom was really happy to see me and I got a hug from her. She kept asking about her purse while the nurse was handing me her things. We sat out in the car for about an hour and filled out a questionnaire about her for the nursing home (favorite things etc.) She was really disappointed that she wasn’t going home, but didn’t give me any problems resisting or anything.

We got to the nursing home and Erica came out to great us. She had already met Mom, but Mom didn’t seem to remember it, not unusual. After a few minutes chatting Mom took Erica’s arm and was ready to go in, almost like she forgot I was there. I had to stop her to give her another hug and let her know I’d visit as soon as the lock-down was lifted and off she went.

She will be in an isolation area for 10 days. She will have a TV and some find a word puzzles I brought her and plenty of staff visiting her. After that, she will be moved to a room that she will be sharing with a lady named Sue (who apparently can’t wait to meet Mom.) Ultimately, I think Mom is going to be happier there having other people her age to talk and relate to.

Now I just need to gather everything up for the Medicaid application process. Hopefully that will be a breeze, but since it’s government, probably not… lol.

I should also mention that when the lock-down is lifted, if anyone would like to visit Mom, Erica recommended that I take them up there the first time. I have no problem doing that. Just let me know and we’ll work out a time to go. 🙂

That’s all I’ve got for now!

7:30 PM – Due to a coffee spill on my keyboard this morning, I was not able to post this at the time. I still have sticky keys, even after rinsing the keyboard off, so hopefully I can get through this.

I received a call from the Hospital Mom is at this morning and they informed me that Mom’s discharge day is actually on Tuesday April 7th. I let them know that Tuesday would be pretty hard since I work Monday and Tuesday night, so would not be able to get enough sleep for Tuesday night. They said that they might be able to switch someone around so that she would be discharged on Wednesday the 8th instead. I have the option of taking her to the nursing home myself and will probably do that so we can visit for a little bit since everything is on lockdown for the time being. I should hear from the hospital Monday to find out for sure.

For the last 2 days, I’ve been sorting and cleaning upstairs. Yesterday, I worked on Mom’s bedroom going through her makeup desk and dresser sorting stuff out. I finally found all of the scissors and fingernail clippers that I kept buying because they’d disappear.. lol. Junk mail was scattered around in desk drawers and in the dresser. When I got to the clothes in her dresser, I found a lot of things with dried-out elastic, so I ended up throwing out most of the stuff in there. I got the desk emptied out and carried down to the garage for Troy, then pulled everything out of there except for the bed and headboard and swept the floor, then ran the carpet cleaner in there. Surprisingly, it pulled up all of the hair spray that she had sprayed under the door! Of course, I had to go over it about 300 times.. lol. I ended up working on just the bedroom for about 12 hours.

Today, I tackled the master bedroom. I went through everything pulling junk mail from everywhere and ended up with about 4 trash bags of it. All of the catalogs she had stashed up there are in the garage until I can get them in the recycling. I got everything off the entertainment center and stored in a dresser until I get everyone together to find out who wants what. There’s not a lot at the end of the day, although there’s stuff in the basement yet. Mostly nick-knacks (sp?) and candles. The entertainment center itself I took apart and will burn that. It was falling apart from being moved a bunch of times, so it wasn’t worth keeping. After getting everything out of the room except for my dressers, I got the floor swept and shampooed, so now I just have to wait for it to dry overnight and I can set up my waterbed again! After that, I dumped all of her herbal supplements and vitamins. All of them I checked were several years beyond the best by dates. I emptied all of the bottles into ziplock freezer bags and ended up with 3 bags full. The bottles I threw into a trash bag for recycling later and got about a half a bag of bottles. I need to add some soapy water to the freezer bags yet and then pitch them. So anyway, that was another 12 hours of work. My back and knees are shot now!

While sorting, I found a lot of our report cards, so there’s some stuff to add to our files at Dad and Jerilyn’s! I even found some gym shorts and T-shirt of Chris’ from when he went to Wawasee. There’s also a lot of pictures to go through. I’ve also got a lot of books of hers that I’m not interested in. Most of them are religious/inspirational type books.

Looking through everything, it’s pretty easy to see where she spent most of her money. Clothes and herbs/vitamins mostly, but there’s also a few nick-knacks. I think mostly what’s down in the basement is tupperware items. I’ve got some spring cleaning to do down there (from about 10 springs.. lol.)

I guess I’ll end here and relax for a while. I’ll post again when I get more news about Mom.

Signature Health Care called today and they are going to go ahead and take Mom on Friday, April 3rd. I know it’s not really where I want her to go, but I got to thinking, Miller’s was really quick to transfer my Grandma Myers (Mom’s Mom) out of there when she got aggressive and slapped someone, so she may be better off at Signature. I’ve got to review and digitally sign a bunch of paperwork for admissions tomorrow night when I get up and then send a check to cover her first month’s stay. Hopefully, being in that environment instead of the hospital will help her calm down and get settled in.

1:30 PM – Got a call from Miller’s Merry Manor in Warsaw. They were evaluating to see if they would fit her needs. They do have beds available, so hopefully she can go there! We will have to wait and see I guess. More info as soon as I find anything out. 🙂

10:20 PM – Just got a call from Doctor’s letting me know that Mom scratched someone. I guess she got scared and lashed out and scratched someone’s arm. She sitting calmly in the day room right now. Hopefully this doesn’t mean she’s going to be combative in a nursing home. That will make things a lot harder.

12:50 PM – I just got a call a bit ago from Signature Health Care of Bremen and it seems that as of right now, that is where it looks like Mom may be placed. I was really hoping for someplace in Warsaw, but I guess we have to take what we can get since Medicaid will end up having to pay for it. At around $7,500 per month at Signature, there’s no way to pay for it privately for more than 2 months with the money Mom has in savings. There’s mixed reviews for the place from what I’ve seen with just a short google search, so we’ll just have to hope that they take care of her.

I mentioned that I was pretty shocked that she was going to be placed so soon since I was told yesterday that discharges are on hold. From the sounds of it, they are willing to do it using extreme caution.

They are also going to be helping to get Medicaid started for her. They are going to be emailing some documentation for things I will need to gather and then we’ll go from there. This will basically be taking all of Mom’s savings until Medicaid kicks in from the sounds of it.

In other news, I’ll finally be putting the last load of her clothes in the dryer here in a few minutes. All dresses and button-up shirts are hung up and I’ve folded all of her jeans/pants and shirts/sweaters and have stacked them on her bed. The results:

Today I spent a couple of hours going through a small dresser and sorting through stuff. I’ve still got 2 drawers to go through and had to stop because my knees and back were starting to bother me. I’ve almost got the trash tote full from all the stuff I’ve thrown out, although a lot of it is clothes that were either discolored/stained or had holes in them, plus old bed sheets. I bought a couple of new sets, so didn’t need the old ones. I’ve likely thrown about 2 30 gallon trash bags worth of junk mail away that I’ve found scattered everywhere along with a couple dozen empty ziplock bags and bank statements/receipts from before our bank changed hands…. about 10 years ago.

She also has a lot of religious/inspirational books. If anyone would like them, you are welcome to them. If no one wants them, I’ll just recycle those as well.

Anyway, there’s still so much stuff to go through and since she will be placed into a nursing home, I can probably get rid of the chair that you’ve seen in the upstairs videos and eventually try to get everyone together to see if there’s anything they would like. Then, hopefully set my waterbed back up and sleep in it again.

I’ll post again once I’ve got some more news. Stay safe! 🙂

1:20 PM – I just got off the phone a few minutes ago with the social worker at the hospital Mom is at. For the most part, Mom is doing okay. Apparently she was found in her room this morning cowering behind a chair. I guess she had freaked out because she didn’t know where she was (I let Lynn know that I have found her like that one other time when she swore that there were pythons all over the place not that long ago.) Other than that, she has been very pleasant and has not been aggressive, which is something that will help with placement in a nursing home.

She has been diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s Dementia with delusional behavior by both their psychiatrist and psychologist, which doesn’t surprise me since it seemed to me that the symptoms seemed to match from the reading I’ve done in the past. She was also given a Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) and scored a 10 out of 30 points. The score represents a severe cognitive impairment. This basically means that she is going to need to be placed into a long-term memory care unit since I won’t be able to give her the care/supervision that she needs. They are hoping that the medication will help her, though. Hopefully it helps with the delusions somewhat so that she’s not scared of things that aren’t there.

As of right now, discharges are on hold and nursing homes are really limiting admissions due to the corona virus, so she will be staying there until this blows over. I’m still hoping they can place her at Miller’s in Warsaw so she will be close by.

Since I took this week off for vacation to wash all of Mom’s clothes, or most of them anyway, it has also given me a chance to go through a few things and throw out junk mail/magazines etc that’s been piled up around the house. I’ve almost got the recycling tote filled up already. It was just dumped Monday morning and won’t be dumped again until April 6th and I’ve barely made a dent. I’ve also filled a couple of garbage bags full of junk, but at least that can be dumped again this coming Monday morning. But, I’m almost done with the clothes! I’ve got 4-5 more loads to do and it’s done!

Lynn (the social worker there) will be calling once a week to give me updates, so I will post here next week after I hear from her. Till then, stay safe, stay well!