How Ted Danson figures into my Mom's story......

Welcome back, Snarklings. If you're behind on the events of the past few weeks, you can catch up here. I'll wait.

Now that we're all caught up and pleased as punch that my Brother did NOT, in fact, end up in jail for throwing someone through a plate glass window, let's continue, shall we?

By Thursday of that first week of October, we had gotten my Mom settled into the nursing care facility, run around Southern New Jersey like chickens without heads gathering paperwork and trying somewhat successfully NOT to kill public servants. Thursday morning I sat with the nicest, sweetest lady at the Cape May County Medicaid office who took my hand and walked me through the application process and not once did I want to punch her in the junk. She was awesome and kind and everything that the Atlantic County office had not been. Application submitted October 6.

I had been living at the home of one of my life-long friends for the week and by Friday, I needed to get back to my family, yet was heartbroken at the idea of leaving my Mom. I cried when I left her but knew that I'd be back within a few days.

I was back that Sunday and stayed through Columbus Day before heading back the 4 hours to my home in West Virginia. I went back and forth several more times, each time so happy to see her sitting up in bed, walking around (albeit getting out of breath each time. COPD steals your lungs little by little).

The last time I saw my Mother alive was Sunday, October 30th. She had developed an upper respiratory infection that they were trying to treat and her breathing sounded really labored. But she smiled through the visit. 17 had her Homecoming dance the night before and Mom loved seeing the pics of 17 and her boyfriend, all dressed up. We laughed all day and again, I cried before I left because I would miss her until the next time I saw her. I cried every time I left my Mom because you just never know when the last time is that you'll see someone.

I got a call the next day from my Brother that Mom was confused and not doing well at all. The infection was getting worse. She thought it was still Sunday and thought I was still there with her. He said that they were going to increase her morphine to relax her breathing. I spoke with her briefly, told her I loved her and hung up.

I knew that with the morphine increase, she may have been sleeping more or a little out of it so when I called each day, I'd call the nurses station to check on her condition and always passed along my "please tell her I love her" message.

Wednesday November 2, they called me to tell me that her condition had deteriorated and that the family should plan on coming to see her. That's never a good thing.

I went to the school and picked up 17, packed a bag, made arrangements for the dogs to be cared for and off to New Jersey we went. I contacted 19 to let her know and she planned to drive from Morgantown, WV to Cape May County, New Jersey as soon as her last class was over.

The morphine was strong but my mother's lungs were weak. So weak. She was drowsy and not at all coherent when we arrived but I rubbed her back, held her hand and told her how much we loved her. 19 arrived in time to say her 'goodbye' and 'I love you' as well.

As I lay on the couch in the common room that night, the girls slept together in my Mother's room. The Cubs had won the World Series that night and it was one hell of a baseball game. My Mom, had she been coherent, would have loved it. At 3:10, the nurse came in and told me it would only be a matter of time.

I sat there a little while longer, and in my head I said this to my mother:

"You know that we love you, and that we don't want you to suffer anymore. You need to go. You need to be free of this pain, you need to breathe free. It's time. Time to be with your Mom and Dad, and with my Dad. Give them all my love, but most of all, go with our love and be free from this pain."

Minutes later the nurse came back. Mom was gone. She was finally at peace. No more oxygen tubes, no more morphine. No more struggling to take each breath. She was free.

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A few weeks later, we had a luncheon for my Mom's friends and neighbors in Atlantic City. At that time I read a brief eulogy and part of it said this:

"My Mother always hated the actor, Ted Danson. He was in a movie in 1984 called "Something About Amelia" about a father who molests his teenage daughter. After seeing that movie, poor Ted was always referred to as "that child molesting bastard" by Mom. She totally knew it was a movie and he was an actor playing a role, but she said he really was a good actor because she believed he was a child molesting bastard.

Recently my company partnered with Oceana, and Ted Danson is a Board Member there. I couldn't tell my Mom that my bosses had met Ted Danson though. I can hear her now saying: "Why are you guys working with that child molesting bastard?"

As if on cue, Ted Danson appeared on the television in the room in which we were having our lunch. It was a commercial for shopping small businesses on Saturday, but I'm telling you, that was my Mother telling us she was in the room with us. There is no doubt in my mind that my Mom was there with us. We all had a really good laugh, and that's how my Mother would've wanted it.

Mothers, Medicaid Mishaps and More...

Well hello there. It's been awhile since I've posted here, so excuse the dust and the cobwebs.  A lot has happened over the past 2 months. When we last met, I had stolen found a dog, remember? Yeah, the crazy is still around our hood.

But I digress. Let's go back to the beginning of October. I ran a marathon. It was glorious when I was able to stop running. And then all hell broke loose.

I got a call the following day, Sunday Oct. 2 telling me that my Mother had been found in her apartment on the floor, unresponsive and purple. Those of you who are regular readers know that my Mom suffered from COPD and was on hospice care. It was in-home hospice as she wasn't quite to the point where she needed round-the-clock care, but she did have an aide come in every day to check on her, bathe her, help her with laundry and her every day needs. It was that aide who found her. I credit her aide for saving her life and giving us some extra time with my Mom, because technically she wasn't even supposed to be there to check on Mom until the next morning.

They moved my Mom to a nursing care facility that day and I immediately drove to New Jersey to be with her. When I saw her, she did not remember anything that had happened. She had no idea how she ended up on the floor with her oxygen cannula across the room. Maybe that was for the best.

What followed that week was the stuff that nightmares are made of. Mom was receiving the best care possible, but we knew she could no longer live alone in her apartment. We knew, too, that on her fixed income, she couldn't afford to stay at the facility without applying for Medicaid. That's where the fun really began. They told us it would cost $11,000 a month for her to stay. The hospice told us that they would cover the first 5 days of my Mom's stay at the nursing care facility, and the facility told us that if we started the Medicaid application process, she could stay there while the application process was being, well, processed. Our fears that she would be kicked out on the street were unfounded. But we had to act fast, because we had to get the application process started before the 5 days of hospice-paid care were up.

The office staff in the facility gave us the 20 page Medicaid application and some information to get us started. The social coordinator in my Mom's apartment building had a lot of copies of paperwork that we needed but my Brother and I still had a shit ton of legwork to do and not a lot of time in which to do it. We got bank statements, divorce decrees, birth and marriage certificates, bills, and a partridge in a pear tree. You name it, we got it.

Since my Mom lived in Atlantic County, we were informed that THAT was where we had to turn in the application. But when we arrived at the County office building after running around for 2 days like crazy people trying to acquire as much paperwork as possible, we had a door slammed in our faces.

I had checked the County's website and found that the Medicaid Application office was open from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  LIES!

Security told us to go in the first door on the right, go to the end of the counter, sign the clipboard and someone would be right with us. LIES! I did as I was told and when I went to reach for the clipboard, this women stopped me and said "Whatta you doing?"

Me: "I'm signing the clipboard. I have a Medicaid application that I need to submit"

Her:  "OH WE CLOSED."

Me: blink......blink......"What?"

Her: "I said we closed. We done at 3:00"

Me:  eyes filling with tears.........."Your website says you're open until 4:30"

Her: "Oh yeah, well that ain't right. I'm just finishing up some stuff, but we closed"

My Brother: .....ready to throw this bitch through a plate glass window

Me: "But I have a Medicaid application that needs to be submitted and we are under time constraints because my Mother is about to be thrown out of her nursing home if I don't get this application submitted" (always with a flair for the dramatic if I do say so myself) LITERALLY crying now

Her: "Lemme see dat"

She takes the application, looks over the first few pages and says: "This ain't even the right form! Where you get this from"

Me: Full on crying......."They gave it to us at the nursing home in Cape May County"

Her: "Then you got to take it to the Medicaid office down there, not here. We can't do nothing with this"

My Brother:.......one plate glass window away from a homicide charge

She WAS kind enough to give me a piece of paper with some phone numbers for Cape May County's social services department and after a few phone calls, I found out where I was SUPPOSED to take the application (which actually WAS the right form, just the wrong county).

Stay tuned, I'm going to finish this saga tomorrow on the blog....

Boxtops and Breakdowns...

This morning started off like every other morning does. I woke 15 up for school, I made coffee, I woke her up again, I drank the coffee, I woke her up again. Status quo. When I emptied the coffee grounds into the garbage, then took the garbage out to the garage, I found a Boxtop. For those of you who don't have kids in the school system, Boxtops are those little square things on cereal boxes, tissues and other packaging that are worth a dime to your school. I've been cutting them off of Cheerios since 18 was 5. It's almost like my brain is programmed to do so. I collect them and send them to school so that school can make money.

Let me be clear: only elementary and middle schools in our area participate in the Boxtops for Education program. My kids are in college and high school. Yet, still I cut them. Still I save them. I'd hate for a school to lose a dime. When I get enough of these Boxtops I give them to my neighbor who still has a child in middle school.

Let's get back to me in my garage. I saw a Boxtop on the floor. I bent over and picked it up. It was covered in garage goo, so I brought it into the kitchen and I RAN IT UNDER WATER TO RINSE IT OFF. I rinsed off a piece of cardboard so a school would not lose a dime. I have officially lost my mind.

In the past 2 weeks I have run the gamut of emotions. I saw 18 (yes, she's 18 now) for the first time in a month and I didn't think I'd ever stop crying. When I got to spend 4 minutes with her during her break from marching in the WVU football game with the Pride of West Virginia Marching Band, I could not stop touching her. I rubbed her back, I stroked her hair, I kept my arm around her. It was like, if I stopped touching her, it wouldn't be real, she wouldn't really be there. God I missed her.

If seeing her for the first time was the ultimate in joy, saying goodbye to her just a few short hours later was the ultimate sadness. And seeing her sister have to say goodbye to her all over again broke my heart into tiny little pieces.

I saw my mom recently and spent a weekend with her. She broke her arm at the beginning of the summer and I spent a week with her then. This time it was good to see her again under better circumstances. When I saw her this time, she and I discussed her living situation and how concerned my brother and I were that she is so vulnerable in her apartment. She's 77, living alone in a senior citizens high rise apartment building. Many of her friends are gone and we are concerned about her, God forbid, tripping in the apartment and no one knowing that she needs help. So we discussed the possibility of moving her to an assisted living facility. I explained to her that she would still have her freedom, but that there would be someone there to check in on her. It's one thing for me to call her everyday to say hi and chat, but I'm 4 hours away. I am of no help if, God forbid, she falls in the tub. She seemed receptive to the idea and agreed that when the time felt right to her, she would let us know.

Then I began the search for affordable assisted living facilities, and guess what! THEY DON'T EXIST. I'm looking at places in Philly because she wants to be closer to my brother and her own brother. $3500 for a studio apartment in an assisted living facility. $1800 if she wants to share a semi-private room

As I drove to 15's volleyball game last night with a car full of snacks for the team, I chatted with mom. We discussed the unbelievably ridiculous cost of taking care of a senior citizen who wants to remain independent. We discussed my commitment to my children and my family. She told me that I needed to slow down and stop trying to be all things to all people. And I cried. I cried because as much as I say I'm fine, I've got this, I can handle it, I'm lying. I really don't have this. I really can't handle it. I want my mom to be safe, I want the best for my kids, but I need to realize that I am NOT solely responsible for everything and everyone. I need to learn how to say the word "NO" and mean it.

I washed off a Boxtop this morning and realized that I've lost my sense of me. The Boxtop doesn't matter. I'm gone. Put my picture on a carton of milk, or better yet, on a wine bottle. I need to stop worrying about Boxtops. I need to stop worrying if I've got enough snacks for everyone on the volleyball team (including the managers!), I need to take a step back and remember that I'm a very important piece of this puzzle, and if I don't take care of myself, everything else falls apart. I'm going to take a step back and let someone else do the legwork. Let someone else do the worrying for a little while.

And I'm not going to feel guilty if a Boxtop goes un-redeemed. In the big scheme of things, there are so many other things that are much more important than a dirty Boxtop.

I've got a great face for radio...

UPDATE!!! Here is the link to my segment of the radio show Take Two!!


Hey Snarklings! I'm going to be on the radio today! After I posted about being a part of The Sandwich Generation, the Huffington Post picked up my piece. Someone at the local NPR station, KPCC in Los Angeles saw the story and wanted to have a chat with me. Next thing you know, bada bing, bada boom I'm gonna be on the radio!

Click here to tune in to the show 'Take Two' and then click the "Listen Live" tab at the very top of the page. Do this around 12:30 p.m. EST (I should be on soon after that) and hear what I have to say about being a parent to your children as well as your parents! Tell me what you think once you've heard it. Am I too whiny? Too nasally? Rough? Smooth?

Do you have your own story about parenting your parents? Share it with me!

I Am the Sandwich Generation

One month ago, I had never even heard the term 'sandwich generation'. Now I'm living it. If you're unfamiliar with the term, you're not alone. But I'm a fast learner so now I'm hip to the term. Basically it means you have children you're caring for AND parents you're caring for.

I've talked before about my Mom's battle with COPD, a battle that she's slowly losing. But just over a month ago, she fell and broke her left humerus. Snapped it like a twig when she was walking into the bathroom in the lobby of her building. After a 4 day stay in the hospital, they moved her to a rehabilitation facility where she stayed for exactly 20 days (the maximum amount of time that Medicare would cover).

After 17's high school graduation we had a bit of a reprieve from schedules and running here and there. 17 is working now, mastering the art of the perfect DQ Blizzard and getting mentally prepared for life as a college student. 15 has been enjoying sleeping in and not being responsible for much other than her daily 'to-do' list. My focus hasn't been so much concentrated on parenting my teenagers as much as it's been caring for my own Mother. It's a scary proposition for me. I thank God daily that I've got good kids. They are responsible, well-mannered and usually trouble-free (unless you count the daily school bus drama but we're not talking about that right now). They are at a very self-sufficient age which has allowed me the freedom to concentrate on my Mother's healing.

I spent all last week with her, setting up appointments,  scheduling home healthcare workers, physical therapists, doctors and nurses, running errands, picking up prescriptions, doing her laundry and preparing her meals. I jumped into the sandwich generation with both feet. I am the meat in that sandwich. And it scares me to death. I ached to be away from my girls for so long but it was something I wanted and needed to do, to care for my Mother.

I cannot begin to imagine how this would all play out if my kids were delinquents. But I am blessed that they aren't. I learned parenting from a fantastic teacher, one who needs me now more than my own children need me. And now that I am home, 4 hours away from my Mother, I ache to be with her. My heart hurts to be so far away from her. Our twice-a-day calls will need to be enough for now. I constantly remind her to check the schedule we've written up so she knows which home healthcare worker will be coming in, or what time the physical therapist will come. I remind her to make sure she has her bag on the doorknob for Meals on Wheels delivery. And I worry.

I worry that she's alone in the apartment all weekend long. She is no longer capable of using her walker because of the broken arm. Once it's healed up, she will be able to walk down to the mailbox for her mail. But with a broken arm, she cannot push the walker, and the walker holds her oxygen tank, and without the oxygen there is no breathing for her. She uses a cane to get around her apartment.

I can't remember having so much fear. When I had my babies, I feared that I'd fail, but I didn't. I succeeded and still continue to succeed as a parent. I am blessed. But the paralyzing fear that my Mom isn't safe, it's something I never knew I'd have and it's an awful feeling. I pray that she'll eventually want to come to live either with us or closer to us. That door is always open to her, and I hope she changes her mind, and I hope it doesn't take something drastic like, God forbid, another fall to make her change her mind. 

Until then, the twice-a-day phone calls will have to suffice, and the prayers continue for her safety.