<p>Boy, do I understand the reluctance to move thing!!!</p>
<p>That was a major hurdle and while some folks are able to stay in their homes, my brother and I knew that was not a good choice for our parents. Beautiful home, but not elder friendly. They had steps from the second floor that were narrower than most, will a tile floor at the bottom. Laundry was in the basement. We knew if they stayed there it was only a matter of time until one of them had a fall. </p>
<p>Fortunately, mom had a health crisis and dad got it in his head they needed to move. The bad news is that instead of moving closer to me (and my brother) they moved a little farther away. Compared to many of you on this thread, we are still very close - 10 miles - but when you have three or four lovely retirement communities within 3 - 4 miles, you have to wonder what were they thinking? I go past one beautiful community at least twice a day as does my husband - it would have been so much better if they were there! At the time, my bro and I didn’t say much, we were just happy to get them out of the house. But whenever dad is in the hospital and I drive 10 miles to mom’s to pick her up to drive the 9 miles to the hospital and then back to her place before I go home - I have to say, closer is so much better!!</p>
<p>1moremom…I thought when I was younger, that when I grow up, I am going to rule the world. Now, I call my wife and she says,.“Not now…unless it is an emergency”.</p>
<p>What happened? :)</p>
<p>Countingdown…I wish you all the best. That’s a tough life right now. Have some fun.</p>
<p>Not sure I ever want the responsibility of ruling the world–actually just running my non-profit keeps me plenty busy. Am grateful that folks live close enough to most of us that we can drop by to check on them without going much out of our way.</p>
<p>I need to go down to GA (preferably with DH, who does not do wills/family law, but knows what questions to ask) so we can all talk to the lawyer. They have never had one before, so this is a new experience. Their last will was done in 1979 when Dad was still in the military. Mom does all the bills by mail and has a log book. Dad has never learned to do it, though she has tried to teach him. They have asked me to be executor of the estate, so I would like to know where things are and what I need to do to have funds available for them when needed. </p>
<p>The biggest issue is that they bought a house 18 months ago, which GASis rents from them. She and her H cannot qualify for a mortgage (or in all likelihood, afford to assume the current mortgage; my strong hunch is that my folks are subsidizing at least part of the monthly payments). To the extent there is equity (and I figure there is less than $10k equity in the property), Medicaid would come after that house in cost recovery. Need to get my parents’ wishes in writing on the disposition of the house and whatever legally needs to be in place, as I suspect this will be the real hot button with the sibs later on.</p>
<p>dstark – Mom is on year seven of being bedridden. My dad was a surgical nurse for 40 years before retiring and says all that experience has led him to being able to care for mom in the way she needs. He doesn’t look at this as the “for worse” part of marriage at all. He is happy he can do this. </p>
<p>I am 600 miles away and because I am also limited physically in what I can do to help, I was glad they asked me to be executor. Financial minutiae and organization are my strong suit, so I am thankful that at last they are willing to open up to some of these issues and that this is an area where I can <em>finally</em> do something to be helpful. </p>
<p>My other sisters are doing the heavy lifting. I make no bones about that.</p>
<p>CountingDown, There is some aid available for vets; I believe it is called Aid & Attendance. It has income/asset qualifications; my local VA was very helpful in gathering all the information. I believe the asset max was in the neighborhood of $60K and the benefit was perhaps $1800 a month for a couple.</p>
<p>There are some programs out there that provide assistance, even when folks don’t realize they would qualify. My friend is a nurse. Her parents own their own home that was worth about $1M before remodel & now likely worth more. They were still able to get some free assistance, getting her dad free transportation and some day care (he has some dementia). My friend the nurse was surprised and pleased when she learned about it, since everyone relies on her to hold everything together & it’s tiring for her, especially since she works full-time & they had to take out significant mortgage after they remodeled the home & are now installing photovoltaic since electric bills are $500-700/month! YIKES!</p>
<p>I shudder when I think about self-insuring for LTC. Father-in-law needed assistance for 11 years. MIL is on her ninth year of at home aides, now 24x7. Luckily she has LTC insurance, because his long illness ate up about 90% of their originally substantial enough to have an estate plan savings. My sister spent many hours a day caring for my mom on top of a full-time job, and my dad did as well for six long years with the rest of us chipping in to pay for an aide overnight so that dad could sleep. Dad’s final illness went quickly enough that he wouldn’t have met the 90 day waiting period; we should all be so lucky.</p>
<p>Federally qualified (tax deductible) LTC policies are a lot better than the old policies that had onerous restrictions, particularly if you get one that has provisions for in-home care and some kind of inflation protection. </p>
<p>I think it is a whole lot more likely that one of us will need LTC than it is that our house will burn down. I don’t balk at homeowner’s insurance, and I find LTC even more compelling.</p>
<p>dstark–I don’t like the far away-ness either, especially to a less hospitable environment. But mom likes “living in the woods” and definitely made the choice partly because she thought it would be good for my sister. sister, as i said, is 30 minutes away, but she has so many issues–economic, mental, emotional, that half the time it is Mom taking care of her! They’re both lovely, bright women, and they should have stayed nearby. I’d love to go back in time and re-visit that decision, but we don’t get to do that.</p>
<p>Many of the LTC policies we have seen only provide 3-5 years of coverage at the most, so would not help with parents or others who need 9-11+ years of care in any case. There are no good & easy answers & not all LTC policies are created equal.</p>
We finessed this one with my parents … making trips to the bank to transfer money was starting to be a pain and my parents do not have computers … so my sister and I first convinced them to let us set-up on-line banking for them so we could move money for them when it needed to be moved and save them trips to the bank (we, of course, didn’t mention that this also allowed to see of things looked right in their bank accounts). After that was working OK we talked them into on-line bill payments for most of their regular bills to save them the hassle of writing and mailing checks, and most importantly saving BIG money on stamps (we, of course, didn’t mention again this allowed us to see if they were staying on top of things). </p>
<p>Having parents who resisted changes and help certainly made things a lot more challenging … but in most cases there was a way to move them in the right direction.</p>
<p>Could be they’ll outlive me. At least no one has talked about replacing any of their body parts like they have said I ought to have done – eleven years ago (they’ve since changed their mind and say I ought to keep what I have, since it seems to be working).</p>
<p>Will hope their genetics will keep me healthy until I die happily in my sleep one day.</p>
<p>I disagree – It could help in a HUGE way! That’s 3-5 years worth of money that’s NOT coming out of savings, and that could be a difference-maker in the end. Consider my parents: Their benefit is $4800/month for 4 years. When the 4 years is up, we’ll be heavily tapping their savings, but until then, their funds will be largely intact. If they live another 5-10 years after the benefit stops, they will probably eat through most of their savings. But because they’re getting that $4800 NOW, they very likely will not outlive their money. And that was the whole point of buying the insurance in the first place. </p>
<p>LTCI is designed to protect against the financial stresses of l-o-n-g, l-i-n-g-e-r-i-n-g disabilities such as fragile elderly, or someone with, say, MS. It’s never going to pay off for illnesses which are short-term, even if they are severe or even terminal, as I know happened with your family member. </p>
<p>But of course, your family memer couldn’t have known that she’d have that short, serious illness, rather than a long, lingering disability, and that’s the hard part about all insurance. It’s a gamble. The question with insurance is always: What’s the known downside of having the insurance (premiums) versus the potential downside of not having it (in this case, outliving your money)?</p>
<p>dstark: yes, most definitely. She is not in any way ready to go. My mom and dad met when they were both in nursing school in Chicago. They met in an alley as they were returning from a dance (with other dates). Male nurses were <em>very</em> rare in 1960 and it took a long time for my maternal grandmother to get used to the idea, but hey, he took care of her for 15 years and she was able to live at home with my parents til the last two weeks of her life. She passed away four years ago at 91. </p>
<p>This year has been a time where the torch has started to pass. My dad came home from the knee replacement and looked frail for the first time ever. My mom nearly died of sepsis. They had to reluctantly accept our help in getting stuff cleaned out and more functional for them. I turned 50. Guess I am officially a grownup now.</p>
<p>OK, but there are many disqualifications for LTC policies, including those of us who already have health conditions or are older than the age they want us to be when we start paying premiums, even if we wanted to buy them now that we have mostly squared away our kids’ educations. Finding the right policy at the right price that will accept me and/or H as insureds at this point does not look at all likely–I have pre-existing conditions and he’s too old.</p>
<p>I’m just about to set off on the 650 mile drive to my parents. I need to prop up my mom in rehab and start the discussion with my father about nursing homes for her. (With her dementia there’s no point in bringing her into the conversation at this stage.) Not looking forward to any of it. :(</p>
<p>This is so true. My SIL had an issue with this when she had POA for my in-laws. My MIL had some initial memory issues when the POA was signed and by the time my FIL passed away and their house had to go up for sale, there were some problems with proving that my MIL knew what she had signed. It eventually was resolved but it delayed things for several weeks.</p>
<p>We’ve been through all this with my inlaws a few years ago - the battle to get them to leave their home and go into an assisted living facility, the unwillingness of the sibling who was closest to them and to whom most of the burden of their care fell to acknowledge that it was long past time for the move, their increasing physical limitations and deteriorating health, the process of emptying a home that had been lived in by packrats and borderline hoarders for 45+ years. And then both of them ended up passing away 3 months and 15 months later. A very difficult time.</p>
<p>My parents are in their 80s and still in good health, still run a business, travel, live in a sprawling home, although thankfully all on one level. I cherish every moment we all get to spend together, even when they drive me crazy. Like garland’s mom, they live in a rural area and that concerns me. A loss of the ability to drive would necessitate a move, and quickly. They’re about 3 hours from me and I wish they were closer. We see each other fairly often, they come here or I go there, every couple of weeks. Usually, I’ll go just for the day because of my commitments at home. I can’t imagine feeling that living a half hour away was far! I’d be there a few times a week if we were that close.</p>
<p>This is something my sisters and I are dealing with as well. My dad had a stroke almost 2 years ago now and my mom is his primary caregiver, with aide assistance about 3-5 hours a day. He is 84, left-side impaired and cannot walk, transfer, toilet, or shower independently and is dependent on a power wheelchair. Mom is 79 and has had health issues since a heart attack at age 39. One sister lives about 20 minute away, but has 2 young kids, the second lives 3 hours away and I live 7 hours away. Thankfully they moved out of the large 3 story home we grew up in 7 years ago, but their condo is 3 miles from the nearest shopping and they have to drive everywhere. And my mom had pretty much turned the driving over to my dad prior to the stroke. We got them a wheelchair access van and she has relearned her driving skills. However, her aides are non-agency (because she wants consistency and they are cheaper) and I live in fear of the phone call saying, “So and so didn’t show up”. Not much I can do from 450 miles away except be sympathetic and call my sister who will demand to know if this is an “emergency”. Duh, would I be calling otherwise? They do not have LTC insurance and my mom watches every penny. For now, between SS, pension and the income on their investments they have basically self-insured, and are ok financially, but what happens when their needs increase I have no idea. The real shame is that because of my dad’s needs, they don’t qualify for many independent/assisted living facilities and there is no way my mom will consider a nursing home (not something we want either). His mental faculties are intact, but she cannot do it alone. So far we’ve been lucky. Two of the aides came from the rehab facility he was in after the stroke and have been with us the whole time, the others have come from direct, personal referrals, but we know the situation could change at any time.</p>
<p>After the stroke I made the 7 hour drive every 3-4 weeks, but I have weaned them to every 6-8 weeks now. One sister (3 hours away) makes the drive every 3 weeks and the local sister gets over at least 1-2 times a week. My dad’s doctors have told my mom that he is the best-cared for stroke patient they have ever seen - she is amazing and really is what keeps him going, but I know the other shoe will drop at some point. What happens if she gets sick? A real possibility given her previous health issues. </p>
<p>Sorry for rambling, I know so many others in the same position as those of us here. It is comforting to hear about solutions others have found, and issues I may not have yet considered. In some ways I feel lucky - he’s here, he’s still himself (in many important ways) and as my mom said last weekend, they didn’t wait to do the things that they loved, like travel etc. In the 6 months before his stroke they had been to Europe to visit their granddaughter (my D) when she studied abroad and on a cruise around the Cape of Good Hope, through the Beagle Straits. She said they only missed 2 things on their bucket list; Africa for him and the tulips in Holland for her. I’m trying to figure out a way to get hers in!</p>
<p>My brother & his secretary went on a lovely cruise to see the tulips in Holland the other year. It was not as pricey as they had thought and they had a great time. It might be something to consider–cruises really can be helpful for people needing accommodations, especially if you talk to them BEFORE you book.</p>