Empty Bed, soon to be filled with Nick! Well, yesterday was just fraught with angst as I took over the process of finding a facility for Dad. Mom had simply given up and was crying all the time. I went into overdrive, charged up my cell phone, and did the job that the 4th floor �case manager� was supposed to be doing: generally being a pest. I coerced M (the case manager) into giving me a print-out of the facilities and the status of their response to Dad�s credentials (obviously, the facility doesn�t have to take Dad) and the last time any of the places had been contacted by M was on the 15th! Over ten days ago! So I told M in no uncertain terms to re-contact facilities X, Y, and Z with Dad�s updated information and to give me a report before the end of the day. I began calling all the feasible (and a couple of unfeasible) places on the list, demanding updates on their bed situations and a call back. Near the end of the afternoon, I had gotten word that one place nearby had a private room available and I went to look at it and it became a sort of bidding war over the room. Unfortunately, the place was also the place where my mother�s sister had gone for one night. This was Aunt D, who died that first night in that place. This has upset my mother ever since it happened 13 years ago. Now, I could explain to her until I passed out that Aunt D had congestive heart failure, was extremely ill, and had no chance for recovery. Her body had given out, and she was sent to the facility to go meet God. This may have worked on a rational person. If you�re a longtime reader of this blog, you know that �rational� and �my mother� do not exist on the same plane of reality. Please don�t think that I�m cold and unfeeling, though. I was heartbroken when Aunt D died. She was the only �grandmother� I had ever known, and as she was 15 years older than my mother, she helped raise my mother when her own mother died. My mother was only 9 years old when she lost her own mother. At any rate, Mom was terribly upset at the idea of placing Dad in this same place, and I kept telling her that she didn�t have to place Dad anywhere she didn�t feel comfortable. (God forbid if she had placed him there and something happened to him; naturally, it would have been all my fault.) So this morning I got up and she was already up and crying and I asked her why was she upset and Mom told me that the phone had rung at 3 am. So I go into overdrive, because what sort of phone calls do you get at 3 am when someone�s in the hospital? Yeah, you know. But that wasn�t the case, thank heavens! No, the phone rang at 3 am. Once. One ring. Mom convinced herself that it was Aunt D calling. Well, truthfully, it might have been. I�m not going to say it wasn�t! So Mom called PH, Dad�s original social worker for advice, and PH kept asking Mom to please, please check out this other facility, one I hadn�t seen yet. Mom was still dubious, but then PH called that facility (henceforth called BM � yes, it�s an unfortunate abbreviation, sorry! hee hee!) herself and found that there was an available bed and they really wanted to see Mom and meet me. So we went, and yes, it�s an older place, but I felt much better about BM than I had the other one. It was cheery. The people who worked there really seemed friendly and very capable. So Dad�s going to the BM facility. Mom�s much happier about the concept. Not thrilled, no. I don�t expect her to be thrilled, and this will be very hard on her. I�m actually going to stay here a couple of extra days to help her with the transition. I hope that she finds some joy with the notion of Dad being somewhere where he will get the assistance that he needs, because Mom�s going to have to rediscover who she is as a human being. I think she�s pretty cool. Sort of. She�s Mom, after all.
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