The past three weeks have posed many emotional challenges. The most recent and personal involved a search for the best assisted living situation for my mom. She is 99, in a wheel chair, and the 24-hour care she has received in her home for the past 18 months is prohibitively expensive. What to do? I recently realized that letting her run out of money and going on state Medicaid was not an option. In that case, she could only choose among skilled nursing facilities with available "medicaid beds," but not among the many assisted living homes she can choose as a private-pay patient. I needed to find care for her before her savings was depleted and use her home as a rental toward her expenses. I have spent the last month doing just that. I met with placement specialists who have shown me adult family homes in Seattle and equivalent homes in the Bay Area, where Mom has always lived. I selected one, and moved my mom there last week. All a very difficult process, my mom is griev...
I began this blog when my mother was ill and needed enough of my attention that I could not concentrate on longer-form works I wanted to write. I set those aside to distract myself with cookie-making and this blog. Please find my new blog (2020) entitled "Time NOT Lost" at karenbrattesani.blogspot.com, where I explore the behavior I see around me -- both my own and that of others -- and what it says about our changing culture during the coronavirus pandemic. And, I hope, beyond.