Tag Archives: Parent-in-law

The most important meal of the day…..

Caregivers, Humor, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , ,

I wanted to return to ‘my roots’ of why I started this blog. I believed (and still do) that there is a real honest place in caregiving for laughter. There’s no way you can do this day in and day out and not see the humor in all the craziness around you.

Today is an homage to my dear mother-in-law. She was known for her subtle sense of humor. She would laugh at whatever you tossed out there as funny and she could come up with a zinger or two herself when necessary. So I feel quite certain that given the time and the retrospective, she too, would see.

So once my 94 year-old mother-in-law moved into her assisted living facility, she was quite content. She adjusted quickly and enjoyed her feisty bingo games, where the winner got a quarter for each victory(I too became a little over zealous with “BINGO!” when helping her play…to WIN)She seemed to enjoy her table companions at breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well. The facility tried to keep the table companions constant so that they could get acquainted and hopefully, enjoy some conversation at mealtime.

Things were going swimmingly. But as time rolled on and Mom became more comfortable with her surroundings, she actually began to backslide into more childlike behavior. Eventually, she needed more help dressing, reminders to go to meals, and assistance to get ready for and go to bed. Otherwise she would never change her clothes, forget to go to meals, and stay up all night watching TV and dozing in her favorite chair. (This became such a pastime for her over the last 20 years, that I was tempted to put her in that chair for her viewing….most of us would have said “Oh she looks so natural.”)

Then her time clock began to get out of whack. She would put her pajamas on after breakfast, she would refuse to go to meals because she just ate, and she would wonder why no one was coming to get her for a meal, when she had just returned to her room from lunch.

One day I went to see her and she was sound asleep in her bed at 11 o’clock in the morning. This was extremely unusual for Mom. She has been an early riser since the dawn of time, and she NEVER would go back to bed for a nap or if she was sick. She would just get dressed, take to her beloved chair, and snore away the day resting comfortably…but NEVER napping. (I think that’s reserved for lazy people like me who try to nap every day, if possible).

I go to the nurse’s office to see if they know why Mom is in bed.

“Hey, ladies! Do you happen to know why my Mom is in bed at 11:00 in the morning?”

“Ummm, not really, maybe  her aide knows?”

I hunt down her aide, and this is the story:

“She got up around 1:00 AM. I saw that she was out of her pj’s and completely dressed for the day. So I said, ‘Hey M, where are you off to?’

“I’m going down for breakfast.”

“No, darlin’ it’s not time yet, let me help you back in bed. It won’t be for awhile, so you need to get some rest.”

“Ok,” she said.

The aide took her back to her room, put her back in her nightgown and tucked her in bed.

At 3:00 AM, the aide sees my mother-in-law down in the dining room.

“Hey M, what’s going on?”

“I’m here for my breakfast.”

“No, sweetie, it’s not time yet, let’s go rest for a bit and then we will come get you for breakfast.”

Back they go to her room, get her back in her pj’s and tuck her in.

At 5:00 AM, my mother-in-law enters the dining room, perfectly coiffed and ready for breakfast. It’s dark in there and no one is at her table.

“Good Morning, M. you’re down here a bit early,” says the aide.

“I’m here for breakfast.”

“Well, that ‘s not until 8 o’clock, how about I take you back to your room to watch TV until we come get you?”

“Ok.”

At a quarter to 8, the aide goes into Marie’s room. She has now changed herself BACK into her nightgown and is asleep in her bed, as the morning sun streams brightly into her room.

“C’mon, M, it’s time to get up and go to breakfast!” says the aide.

“Oh forget it,” says my mother-in-law, and turns over and goes back to sleep.

You just have to Laugh……

Cathy Sikorski

What I won’t do for $62.00

Caregivers, Humor, Medicare, Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

My sister and I recently had the pleasure of taking my Mom to renew an acquaintance of her’s from the 1950’s. My Dad was in the military and during that time, my mom made some pretty intense relationships with other military wives. That show “Army Wives” seems to indicate that not much has changed in 50 or 60 years, in that military spouses, especially those who are not in the military themselves, are bound and determined to make good friendships on bases, even if they know they are only short-lived.

So we trek down from Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C. to meet up with these dear people who haven’t  seen my mom since 1955. It was absolutely delightful. Their son was kind enough to bring them to a restaurant in town so that we could spend two or three hours together. Reminiscing for the older people, getting to know them for us, “the kids”, for the son and I were not even born when they knew each other. Nonetheless, as the parents are in their eighties, and we are in our fifties, the topic turned to health, health insurance, and “what do you do?”

As I began to relate my caregiving stories, I told their son, the lawyer, how frustrating it is for me to see the elderly getting ripped off all the time by their own health insurance. And that brought about the tale of the $62.

I have told my mother, mother-in-law, aunts, uncles, disabled brother-in-law, cousins and pretty much anyone who would listen, that JUST BECAUSE YOU GET A BILL FROM A DOCTOR OR MEDICAL PROVIDER, DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE TO PAY IT. As you can imagine from the capital letters, this advice often falls on deaf ears. (Like, why would I who practices elder law, medicare law and has been a caregiver for sick people for over 20 years know anything about this?!!) AND, so the unsuspecting relative, friend, client, pays the bill and then brings it to my attention…ever so much later! Of course, this sends me into a tizzy. Yes, I said tizzy. I rant and rave and get on the phone with the offending billing department, which I KNOW, will be receiving proper payment from all the insurance they have and they will owe nothing.

One such scenario went like this:

“Hello?, you sent my mother-in-law a bill, and her insurance has paid you already.”

“One moment please. Do you have the account number? The date of service? Her insurance card number? Her OTHER insurance card number? Her date of birth? Her astrological sign? (okay they didn’t ask for that, but if they did would you really be surprised?)”

“Well, yes I see that she has other insurance, but you will have to get a new bill from her doctor showing this, that and the other thing to clear this up.”

So I call the doctor. And they are very nice, and more than willing to send me a new bill showing this, that and the other thing for proper credit so that I can get my mother-in-law’s $62 returned to her. But the desk clerk leaves me with one thought:

” Good luck getting your mom’s $62 dollars back, that almost never happens.”

“Oh,” I say, “you don’t know me.”

Next week the $62 check comes to my mother in law, who insists on splitting it with me because of the fine legal work she has witnessed. But  here’s the thing. I would do that again and again for $1 for every elderly person who is paying these bills they shouldn’t pay, likely living on a fixed income, and their insurance does, in fact reimburse the doctor, but the patient never sees their money come back to them. Truth be told, I’d probably make a million bucks doing it!

You just gotta’ laugh…. (and fight with insurance companies and medical providers)

Cathy Sikorski