An Aide

My mother-in-law had a recent hospital stay, after her one day stay I previously talked about. Things fortunately worked out, but for a while, they were ugly. Apparently my mother-in-law told one of the nurses that it hurt her to sit up. The nurse had indicated that it was important and my mother-in-law pushed her away.

The assisted living facility where she was at did not want to take her back after this. This was considered abuse, and it may have been. I did not see it, I do not know how hard she pushed, or what her frame of mind was, or the manner in which it was done, when it occurred. The bottom line was, it looked like she may have needed to be moved to a nursing home.

She stayed in the hospital for about a week when the hospital said there was no medical reason for her to stay any longer. The nursing homes in the area did not have any vacancies, so it was a question of what we would do.

The assisted living facility told my wife they would take her back but ONLY if she had an aide, 24 hours a day. Of course, this would have to be paid at her own expense. If you add the monthly cost of the assisted living facility to the cost of a full time aid, the monthly fees were astronomical. Still, this is what had to be done.

My mother-in-law was miserable. She did not like having an aide and did not want to admit she needed one. In fact, at the hospital, before everything was signed, my mother-in-law told the aide service she could do all the things herself and got up to show them how she walked. I was there when she did this and she looked good. If she had done it earlier in the week to show the hospital staff and showed the staff she was willing to work with them, I am convinced the assisted living program would not have required her to have an aide. Still, she made her bed, so to speak, and now needed to lie in it.

Fortunately the assisted living facility decided after a few days, three I believe, that she no longer needed to have the aide, that she could do all these things herself. She was thrilled to be rid of the aide. The important thing now is to keep her grounded in reality as to how much she hated having the aide so she does not revert back to the way she was, refusing to eat, refusing to come out of her apartment, and refusing to do things for herself.

I hope we are successful because that will make everyone’s life a little easier, especially her own.