A Nightmare of Paperwork

2015-02/02 – 

Added to the emotional aspect of all of this, I was the one dealing with all of the paperwork. I was in the process of establishing guardianship with the court. They required extensive paperwork and procedures. I was not able to afford an attorney so I was handling it all on my own, which made it that much more difficult.

The nursing home needed all of her insurance information. I had called her former employer who had been providing her retirement benefits.  They were unable to provide me with detailed information until the guardianship was in place but gave me information on the company that would handle any long term care coverage. Her current coverage would be ending very soon since it was a standard health plan and only covered a short term stay at the nursing home.

Nursing homes are very expensive, and it is not easy to navigate all the bumps in the road when you are responsible for someone’s care. If she did have long term care coverage then that would be able to kick in as soon as her short term care coverage was over. If she did not have long term care coverage then I would be responsible for her care out of pocket until I could get her qualified for state coverage. This was all a huge nightmare and I felt like I was drowning under the pressure. The mother I had known my whole life was gone and in her place was this other person who looked somewhat the same but was not the same at the same time. 

The weight on me was mounting. I felt like I was drowning. The only saving grace is that I had found a job that was not far from the nursing home. My boyfriend at the time had a spare room in his apartment which he offered to me. We were not really at the point in our relationship where we should be living together but I was in a really rough situation and his roommate was moving out so the room would be available. I made the hard decision. I would be leaving my home, my dream apartment that was my serenity at the end of the day. The decisions had to be made though, the sacrifices were necessary. I needed to look out for my mother’s well-being and the only way I was going to be able to sanely give her my time is by living closer to her than I was. I cried many tears.