I wouldn’t involve the grandson. It’s not his fault his father is a jerk.
But I also don’t understand why the mother gave everything to the son and didn’t divide estate equally between all her children. Why would someone do that? I can only see that if a child had problems - like was developmentally or physically disabled and needs care for the rest of their life. Otherwise there is no excuse, IMO, for the mother to have done what she did.
EPTR, glad things seem to be working out for your mom. ++++ it gets easier from here on out.
So your friend paid for a remodeled a home so her parents could live with her?
When the gifting happened is when your friend should have protested and done some tough love, perhaps. “Give everything to Lazy, then I can’t have you live here anymore.” I know, it’s easy to state all of this when I don’t know them. But it seems so unfair.
If the mother qualifies for Medicaid, then maybe the daughter should let her go to a nursing home paid for by Medicaid. She doesn’t have to continue to be a martyr.
People have their own ideas and imho, the parents really shafted my friend, but she sleeps well at night and has made her peace. Making herself ill over the unfairness would compound the injury and serve no good purpose.
Actually, a strong case could be made for giving everything to my friend, since she cared for both parents for so long–food, lodging, transportation, 24 hour care, etc. I am glad I was not in that situation.
So my sister called Medicare and we are appealing the decision to terminate rehab services. We should hear tomorrow or Friday. In the meantime, my mom moved to the “nursing home” floor. I didn’t see her today but talked to her on the phone. She sounds miserable.
Yesterday she said “I guess I’m going to live the last years of my life as a kindergartner”.
Don’t forget Medicaid has a 5 year “look back” period where any transfer of assets in the period 5 years prior to Medicaid application is subject to penalty. Long term care planning re finances should only be done carefully and with guidance.
EPTR, one day at a time. We tell FIL he needs to stay in the nursing home a few more days, until he is strong enough to leave. We don’t promise where he will go when he leaves, or tell him we don’t expect him ever to be strong enough to leave. But we don’t take away all hope. It’s been a couple of days since he called and asked when we’re picking him up to take him home, so maybe he’s getting used to the place.
So sad when parents try to buy affection from their kids, HImom. We don’t get to pick which pathologies our families have, glad we missed that one.
Ugh! This thread brings back a lot of painful memories. My mother-in-law, already with profound dementia and living in a nursing home, fell and broke her hip. There was no problem with Medicare paying for a hip replacement, but then she got bounced out of PT for “plateauing” after 20 days, long before she had learned to use a walker. So she became wheelchair-bound after her hip replacement because it was too much trouble to teach her to use a walker.
I used to go to the home and help her walk around, just so she could do that. Walking had been one of the last pleasures she really had – she had always walked everywhere. After a bit, I had an inspiration: She had never gotten the hang of a walker, because it was unfamiliar to her, but what if we tried something so utterly familiar the Alzheimer’s might not matter? So one day I took her to the supermarket, and gave her a shopping cart . . . and she was off to the races! She could go all over the store with the shopping cart. It was really stimulating, but completely familiar, and the people were lovely to her. Sometimes, she would get so absorbed in the familiar grocery shopping experience that she would let go of the cart and stroll off with no assistance at all to investigate this or that (generally followed by me trying to stop her before she went too far). As an added bonus, a lot of the staff from the nursing home shopped at the same store, and saw her walking around the store with a cart, with completely different affect than she had in a wheelchair. So they started to walk her more at the home.
Of course, it didn’t last forever, but we got 18 pretty good months out of that pattern. Target was great, too: really wide aisles!
Meanwhile my mother, who will be 93 in March, lives alone, drives, takes care of her house, and has spent the last couple of days shoveling snow and even used the new roof rake I bought for her online. Such a blessing. She’s always been an extraordinary person, in ways mostly good and occasionally monumentally irritating.
She has a long term disability policy that will actually pay a family member to care for her. That is most likely to be me, should that happen.
This is a roller coaster. Yesterday my mom seemed a bit better. She was able to get in and out of the bed without much help and made it to the bathroom with help. Other than that she sits in the wheelchair and does nothing. Today she’s miserable again. She has never been a reader and the TV that the nursing home provides doesn’t work right. Yesterday, she was wheeled to the dining room for two meals and they sat her at a table by herself! WTH?
Also found out that we lost the second appeal.
JHS, that scenario sounds like what happened to us. They said that my mom plateaued so no more services. If she could go home, she could get PT and OT at home but not in the nursing home. Catch 22.
My sister is filling out the paperwork to apply for MASS Health for my mom. Does anyone know what we can do with her money at this point? I know that it’s too late for a trust but I was told by someone that she can prepay her funeral and there may be other things she can do with a bit of it. As of tomorrow, she’s private paying to sit in a chair all day.
Yes, prepay funeral, headstone, all expenses, including funeral lunch. At least when I did this for my friend with a terminal illness, her family could set aside what seemed like a lot of money to me for these purposes, all legal. If your feeling is that this is permanent, and you are facing a spend down, get what she needs for quality of life in that room. Her own TV, radio, books on tape, comfortable chair, clothing appropriate to the environment, newspaper subscription, whatever means quality of life to her.
My friend was devoted to her lingering ability to walk. I hired people to walk the halls with her daily, and it kept her spirits up, due to both the attention and the needed mobility. Sometimes my kids walked with her. If trained in the situation, and compassionate, a HS student can be hired to be a “friend” to help with this sort of thing. Or nursing/PT students from colleges in the area.
Love the stories of using grocery carts. My mom was made to stop driving a few years back. She enters Walmart in her small town, gets a motorized cart, and takes off a little too aggressively, with a gleam in her eye, not her usual style. When asked, she said she misses driving. Walmart is not my thing, but in this case, well, it has a purpose.
I suggest getting legal advice regarding the “spend down” for Medicaid. When I worked in a SNF, one our residents nephew " spent down " her money in what he thought was appropriate way , but the state didn’t . His aunt was not approved for Medicaid . His aunt was admitted to our facility in a " Medicaid pending" status , and when she wasn’t approved, he could not pay her expenses at the SNF , so he had to take her home and she no longer had savings to draw from. It’s a somewhat complicated procedure so I would definitely get professional advice . And as a side note, I work in an ALF and we have at least 5 residents over the age of 100 so lifespans are definitely getting longer. Good luck in your planning, I know it is a daunting task.
We worke with a wonderful eldercare specialty lawyer. She advised us what we could and couldn’t do with my mom’s money. We prepaid all funeral expenses, and we were told we could get anything that would benefit mom. We got her a nice big screen TV…that worked! Our SCF allowed folks to bring their own TV sets. Got a big button remote. Got her some nice, new, comfy lounging clothes, and pajamas. We also put money into her SCF account so she could get her hair done and get her nails done once a week (they had this service).
They also had a small concession place…ice cream, magazines, and the like. We put money in her account for that too.
My mom loved having pizza. Our lawyer said it was fine to get a carry out pizza with her money as often as we wanted to,.and take it to her. We did this at least once a week.
