[Noah930]

My parents are in their 80s. My mom has dementia and Parkinson's. My dad has refused to move from their house, so any attempts to get them to move to a retirement community, elder living, assisted living, etc. have been fruitless. Last fall my dad got to the point where he could no longer take care of my mom, so he tried hiring live-in caregivers. However, he cheaped out and tried to find them via word-of-mouth/under-the-table. But, unless you're super lucky, you tend to get what you pay for. So those live-in caregivers (I think he tried about 3 of them) all backfired. They simply didn't have any skills. But what do you expect for $500/week? He refused to go through a proper agency to get CNA care--mainly due to cost.

So Mrs. Noah & I did our homework (because no one else in the family was motivated to do so) and found my mom a memory care unit. That's just fancy speak for nursing home. They run from $6000-14,000 per month in our neck of the woods. Mrs. Noah works at one of those places on the pricier end of the spectrum. It was explained to her that most residents pay out of pocket for the first month, then use that time to apply for Medicaid (called MediCal in California). Medicaid then picks up the tab. MediCal eligibility is dependent upon income. My parents have too much income (even in retirement) to qualify for MediCal, so they'd be stuck with paying for the $12-14K/month tab.

So we picked a more economical location. My mom lasted there 2 weeks. It was not an unpleasant place. The staff were all so nice. But my dad and sister couldn't bear to see my mom like that--living amongst strangers.

My sister vowed to get my mom out of there. While she volunteered to take my mom in, that wasn't practical, which is how my mom wound up moving in with me come Thanksgiving. Remember in cartoons and comedies where they'd ask for volunteers to step forward, and instead all but one person would step back? My dad relented to hiring a proper caregiver. She'd come to our house during the weekdays, and Mrs. Noah and I would care for my mom during nights and weekends. That was about $1000/week.

It wasn't hard work, to care for my mom. We have medical backgrounds, and Mrs. Noah's a saint. But it was really difficult to balance that with having a household that includes full-time jobs, kids (with their extracurriculars), and pets. First world concerns for sure, but for 8 months, I don't think Mrs. Noah and I went out for dinner, attended a kid's athletic or musical event, or even walked the dog around the block *together*. It was always one of us or the other, as someone always had to be home to watch my mom. And even with a caregiver it could still be stressful, as caregivers have lives, too, and they'd call in sick or have other commitments preventing them from working. What do you do at 9 pm when the caregiver calls and says she can't come the next morning? We tried both under-the-table (but skilled) caregivers and agencies alike. We found some women we *loved,* and others that were just so-so. But it was really wearing on my wife, and she was getting to her wit's end.

We signed my mom up for hospice. That was helpful. They provided medications more easily than insurance did. They provided a hospital bed. They have a CNA come a couple times per week to assist with hygiene/bathing, and a social worker for whatever that's worth. But hospice was free (included in cost of insurance), so my dad was OK with that. He was just paying $1000/week for a caregiver. Actually, the cost was about $2000/week, but my parents have some unusual health insurance policy that reimburses for half the cost of formal (not under-the-table) elder care. Of course, it took Mrs. Noah about a month (and several hours' worth of telephone calls) to get that reimbursement process set up.

A month ago, we had a summer vacation planned. So Mrs. Noah moved my mom back to my parents' house (15 minutes away), and my dad agreed to keep the caregiver, but as a live-in. Fortunately, both my parents seem to be happy (as is Mrs. Noah). Now we're up to $2000/week (actually $4000/week, but only $2000/week with reimbursement), but that's the price you pay for the luxury of living in your own house and not being relegated to a nursing home.