The place where I want to move my mom - well, not really want - am going to move my mom - I'll let her think she has a say - but this it... a little more about "it" in a moment - first for the backstory. Well, some of the backstory...
Back in June, I went looking for some places for my mom to live - had gotten some referrals and went to check some of them out - I actually blogged about it on June 30th if you would like to check out the archives. One of the places that I liked was in Fountain Valley. I prefered the larger facilities to the board and care homes for right now since my mom likes to be social and hang out with lots of people right now. Back in June - I wasn't sure how much we could afford since some funding I was hoping to get didn't quite pan out - ask me later if you would like the full story - I'd be more than happy to tell you about it. Anyway... I sat on the information until this last week - I kept telling everyone to start bugging me after the new year to get my act in gear and get my mom moved. Thanks everyone for checking on me - and B, thanks for calling on Monday night!
So I called the Fountain Valley place on Monday and left a message for the administrator - she called me back and we set up an appointment on Tuesday at 9:30am to look and go over some of the numbers. So I take off work on Tuesday morning, get to the place around 9:25am and she isn't there yet - that's fine - I'm early. So I sit and wait.... and wait... and wait. It did give me a chance to observe some activities that were going on with the residents. But when she still wasn't there at 9:50am, I was a bit frustrated (to put it nicely). So I walked up to find out what was going on - nobody seemed to know where she was - it didn't seem like anyone was making the effort to call her. So the manager started taking some information from me and then she had to leave - so they had another assistant finish the info and then showed me a room - I wasn't as happy with the room she showed me as I was with the ones that I had seen before - I just didn't get the same warm fuzzy feeling that I had before - but compared to some of the places I had investigated - this place was within our limited price range. So after looking at the room we are standing there and the assistant looks at me like I'm supposed to know what to do next. Which, of course, I don't - so I tell her that - "I'm new to this and I don't know what I'm doing" - I told her I wanted some pricing info, so she gave me a pricing sheet and I went on my not so merry little way. It just didn't go well - any of it. By the time I got back to work - the adminstrator I was supposed to meet with had left a message - "Sorry I missed you - go ahead and call me back..." Haven't called her back yet - although she did leave me another message today saying that she hoped my mom was ok because they told her I had an emergency with my mom and that's why I had to leave - not sure where they got that info from - like I said - none of it went well. But it did get me to call some of the other places on the list - so I guess there was a reason it all went so badly.
So on Tuesday night after a church meeting - I did a drive by of these two other places - one in Santa Ana and the other in Orange. Drove by Santa Ana first and thought - uhhh... no. Then I drove by the place in Orange - and it's down this residential street and I'm thinking - it's dark - will I be able to spot it - the Santa Ana place wasn't very well marked and I'm not sure what to look for with this place when - wham - there it was nice big well lit sign! So Wednesday I called and made an appointment for this morning.
So I got there and the woman was ready for me - she had a packet of information ready - and we started talking about what my mom would need and then started looking at the pricing info - when she pulled out the pricing sheet my heart sank - $1800 was the lowest price on there - I know we couldn't afford that. But that was for a private studio - I asked her if they had any shared rooms - she said they have Jack and Jill rooms (for those of you that don't know what they are - two rooms connected by a bathroom). And she has one downstairs for $1200 - I almost started to cry - she can have her own room and only pay $1200 for it (the other place was $1250 for a shared room - much like a hotel room). But it gets even better - not only does she get three meals a day - but medication monitoring is a included (it was a $200 add on at the other place). So she showed me the room - not huge - but my mom will be able to take more with her than "the other place". She showed me the facility and it just had a much more warm and fuzzy feeling to it - it was it. So I put a deposit on it to hold it for two weeks - which is refundable if we decide not to take it - which I can't imagine happening. I made an appointment for this Saturday to show my mom - and we will enjoy lunch up there - oven fried chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots and cream puffs! When we are there - they will also do an assessment of her to make sure that she doesn't need more care than I have said - that is my only concern - that they will decide the dementia is too advanced to put her in the indepent living area - but she really isn't ready for the more assisted living area. So if it all goes well on Saturday - I'm looking to move her the first part of February. I talked to her about it tonight and she said she is ready to move - especially since they have taken the chairs out of the lobby (yes, mom, I know). Of course, tomorrow she may decided that she doesn't want to move - but I think that once she sees this place she will like it - especially if she can have her own room!
A friend at work was telling me months ago when I was talking about moving my mom and trying to figure out how I was going to pay for it, that there had to be a diamond in the rough out there somewhere - this is definitely it! Thank you, Lord!
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