My sister and I had a good, one-hour Zoom call with the financial planner. She said she couldn’t find any probate record for my mom! The deadline to file is four years after her death, which was July 10. Ugh. I guess Dad will have to pay a penalty. I know he had a high-cost attorney in Houston working on it. I remember him talking about coming up with an inventory of Mom’s assets. So what the heck? I’m so glad she’s on the case. I think it’s more than she expected!
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Yikes. Can y’all do an affidavit of heirship? That’s what we did when we couldn’t find my dad’s will. Correction: My sibs couldn’t find my dad’s will. I found it the only place it would be … in the filing cabinet. But that was after we did the affidavit of heirship.
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I will ask. We have her will. This should have been taken care of already, argh. That’s what I assumed when I learned there was an attorney involved. Every time I assume something, I get in trouble.
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lol!
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Is there a need for probate if everything is joint or has a listed beneficiary?
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Make sure stock investments are all accounted for.
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This sounds so minor but if I’d only known…get a change of address card signed by your loved one. Immediately after death especially from an AL facility you’ll want to have mail forwarded to get bills etc. The post office requires death certificate plus other documentation to change the address (unless you forge their signature–I didn’t say that). It can be quite awhile before that happens. In the meantime you’ll miss a lot of needed mail which can drag out an already hard task even further.
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I think it has to do with the limited family partnership, but I will ask, thanks!
That feels like a reasonable assumption to me. Oh, well.
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Today the physical therapist says that my mil should go to a rehabilitation center.
Yesterday they told my husband she was going to be sent home.
She has a Medicare advantage plan so that means that they need a bunch of approvals for her to be admitted. I think everyone here knows how I feel about that.
It sounds like local sibling to is a bit MIA. That’s me saying that, not my husband. Sibling is a very nice person, I think he’s a bit self absorbed but I won’t tell my husband I think that.
I told my husband that maybe his brother could take over this weekend while he comes home. At least for the weekend
The big issue now is what to do with my fil. There’s a meeting on Friday, the plan is to arrange for some help in the house.
This is really helpful to get this sorted out in my mind.
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A bit of a vent regarding falls - I’m spinning in circles about this today.
In the last 1.5 years my mom has fallen a few times and (due to a past aneurysm and resulting cognitive and speech difficulties complicating matters), when she has fallen she is confounded and stuck and doesn’t know how to get up. She has not been hurt, but she’s stuck laying on the ground up until someone comes across her and finds her. Plus, when this has happened she does not call out for help, being mentally stuck on how to do it as well (due to her aphasia).
A year ago I talked to my dad about going back to the clinic that she did PT at many years ago for her to work on fall prevention and to teach her how to get up if she falls. He agreed that was a good idea. Great!
Tick tock, tick tock…I know I can’t rush him or I’m being “pushy.” He is very grateful for all my help, and we have a great relationship, but he’s taking care of her and I need to not overstep.
I do have healthcare POA for both parents, along with my sibling, and Dad has a disease that will need us to step in with greater frequency to help take care of mom. (But he’s not incapable now, and treating him as if he’s incapable will clearly make this worse and is both infantilizing and patronizing.)
Fast forward to today: I have finally got Mom set up with a patient portal for her healthcare (I’ve been gently pushing this for years), and she has a recent health issue so I am scanning the visit reports from the past month…and the errors are maddening.
First off, Mom is self reporting for the Fall Risk Assessment to the nurse. She has pronounced aphasia and difficulty conveying information. I’m scanning the questions that she’s answered “no” to, which include “have you fallen in the last year;” “worried you might fall;” “do you use the chair arms for support to rise;” all of these things are true! But she’s answered “no” to all of them to the nurse.
Her Fall Risk Assessment is negative! Because she can’t remember she’s fallen and she doesn’t think about how she needs to push herself up and worries about falling!
She’s also answered “no” to being incontinent (she wears incontinence pads!), hearing difficulties (she has profound hearing loss and wears hearing aids), “do you need help managing medications” (she cannot manage them at all, and must have them laid out for her), and “do you need help managing money” (she can pay for something in a store if she is taken to a store, but that is all she can do and she has no ability to manage any money); “do you have trouble with transportation” (she can not drive, and can not take public transit or a cab or uber on her own—it’s cognitively beyond her abilities).
I contact Dad to say diplomatically that I noticed some errors in her self reporting, and wonder if he might be able to update her doctor about the falls and being unable to get up just to get the ball rolling on a PT appointment—or, as I’m in the portal today, I could send a quick note to her doctor if that’s easier.
Dad’s reply: hold off for now. 
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Oh my, that has to be really difficult
Is your dad in denial? Or not wanting to deal with things that are upsetting for him? I guess that’s denial also.
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OMG, this was deja vu with my parents. I had POA for my mom so I overrode my dad and just called the doctor directly.
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I’m responding to your post, but isn’t “directed” at you. This is really for everyone.
My personal feeling is that once safety becomes an issue, we have to step in. My sister was in charge of taking my mom to the doctor and for a long while would let her go in by herself. Eventually, when things kept going wrong, she went in with her to try to guide her into correct answers. After months of subpar care, I called the nurse, who said that I could write an email with my concerns and that she would forward it to the doctor and that he would discreetly try to get mom the proper care.
I know that this might not be a popular opinion, and I’m all for people having agency, but at some point we have to stop tiptoeing around the care of our vulnerable elderly. My two cents.
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Thank you all for your kind words, I do appreciate it!
Some of this situation is delicate, because the type of aphasia she has is the hardest: she understands much more than she can speak. It’s very frustrating and sad for her, and we try to be sensitive to not treating her in patronizing ways.
Dad is wonderful with her, but also can (IMO) put his head in the sand about dealing with some things because he doesn’t want to treat her as if she’s an incapable person. So that’s why she’ll go in to her check ups by herself, and speak for herself—it’s important! But stuff like this falls through the cracks when he doesn’t want to embarrass her and contradict her to a doctor or nurse, or treat her as if she can’t do something on her own.
On occasion I’ve put my foot down and been “difficult,” and I will probably do the same with this PT issue. I will see them in person in two weeks, and she has an unrelated surgery next month. I just want to start the process by correcting these errors, and getting a request for PT assessment going as we all know how long these things take to move through the system.
I’m hoping that when I’m there soon that I can get the ball rolling on some of these things through getting buy-in, and if that doesn’t work I’m prepared to contact the doctor myself. 
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I always accompanied my folks to md appts because they were inaccurate reporters and I had a good relationship with their geriatrician. When my sibs drove my folks, they thought their sole job as getting them to & from the visit. They didn’t engage nor correct misinformation. I wanted to be sure the providers had good info to work with. I am sorry you are having this issue. When you don’t have an accurate reporter go to the medical visits, it’s a lot more challenging.
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It’s all so difficult. In my family, they call me in when they want something done that they are unwilling to do themselves because they are afraid of looking “mean.” They don’t mind if I look mean! lol But, of course, I don’t look mean. I just have boundaries and believe in clear, direct communication, which can come in handy for them. I don’t mind being bad cop if it means getting things done.
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When my mom lived away from her children, my sibling would get on speakerphone during medical appointments. That worked well. She’s in the medical field, I am not good with that. Besides my sibling likes to be in charge of those things so I let her. 
Now that mom lives near, sibling accompanies mom to her appointments.
The newest wrinkle in my mil saga. Today the doctors aren’t sure that they are going to recommend that she go to rehab. The doctors are all over the place according to my husband. He is also not a medical person, his sibling is but his daughter is in labor so I’m not sure how things are going. If mil goes to rehab, that will make the situation less difficult.
Mil has an advantage plan. She would need approval to go to rehab. Does anyone have any information or advice that the approval process is something that would be holding this up?
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Regarding technology, I’m really glad my mom learned how to use her computer, iPad and iPhone. She’s still challenged when issues arise, but I have all her logins and can usually work issues remotely, or walk her through them.
I tried several times to get my now deceased MIL to use an iPad. We’d do something simple like check email or search for a YouTube video of cute puppies. I’d show her how, then she’d do it herself. All good (I thought) but she never used it. In retrospect, her dementia was probably in its early stages.
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Is your MIL currently in the hospital? Is the PT a hospital PT or IL PT?
I know when dad fell a few years ago and was hospitalized (no broken bones but a very large hematoma on the back side), the hospital social worker worked really hard to place him in rehab even though he had a really bad medicare advantage plan. I think the SW and medical team felt he needed time to heal with round the clock care. I also think they felt mom and I need a bit of reprieve from the stress of caring round the clock at home bc of his vascular dementia issues as well. The challenge at the time was COVID. It was in 2021 so finding a placement was hard, but he was placed in rehab for a couple of weeks. I advocated for this as much as could as well. Your H and BIL should advocate as much as possible for her well being. I realize all of this is really challenging.
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