looking back.

January 2019.  My last journal entry in January of this year read…. This new year will not be an easy one for me. This is the year regardless of my mom’s end of life path, I will need to sell the family farm as her money will be depleted.  Getting the reverse mortgage on her home to use the equity to pay the monthly caregiving invoices allowed more time in her home, but unfortunately the money will run out mid year. Selling the farm will be hard and I’ve often wondered what it’ll be like never to return to where I was raised and visited for the past sixty years.  This year I’ll find out. 

And here I am…time to look back.

January: For once I was in Arizona long enough to join a fitness boot camp. I was at a point where my stress levels were over the top due to caregiver issues, my mom running out of money and the farm/home needing more and more attention. I desperately needed to find a way to release the stress, not to mention having issues getting back up when I’d squat to take photos. (Um…hum…aging and lack of exercise.) I was religious about my attendance and by the end of the four weeks my strength had improved a lot. My stress levels? Well, let’s just say it probably saved me from running away to join the circus. It was also a month of catching up with friends, as well as taking an art class to make my 2019 vision/affirmation board. That class was so much fun (especially when you take it with a friend!) and I was so happy with my board. It now hangs near my bed so I can look at it each morning and visualize what I hope will work its way into my life throughout 2019.

February: The beginning of the month was preparing for another journey to Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. In addition, for the past month I started having streaks and lightning flashes periodically in my vision. An ophthalmologist appointment revealed I was experiencing silent migraines due to stress. I was so happy it wasn’t anything serious, plus I considered myself fortunate these migraines were “silent.” The good news they went away. Perhaps the exercise really was helping! The remainder of the month was enjoying the travels and spending time with friends we’d gotten to know over the years of traveling to SE Asia and of course visiting our favorite non-profit organizations we support. But, travel doesn’t make the worry go away. In fact in some ways the worry is amplified. Will I need to cancel at the last minute…will I need to cut the trip short and quickly make arrangements to return to the states. Worry, worry.

March: As soon as I returned to Arizona, I headed to Virginia. Lots of appointments to set up. The most important was to continue the discussion with the nursing facility where my sister and I had hoped to place our mom. A small one in Salem, Virginia called Snyders. We’d heard good things about this facility over the years and the initial meeting at the end of summer last year confirmed this would be a great place for her. Unfortunately there was a long waiting list, but we were hopeful they would come through for us especially with my diligence in following up each month to let them know we were still very much interested – as they had requested. Knowing it’s never good to place all your eggs in one basket, I set up interviews for several more local facilities. This turned out to be a good move as we were later told via the hospice organization (supporting my mom in her home) that Snyders would not accept my mom. It’s really unfortunate the administrator didn’t have the balls to call me up and tell me personally. I really do feel it was because my mom would ultimately end up on Medicaid if the house took a long time to sell.  But, who knows. It’s all a business and a business has to make money. At the same time another nursing facility that owned the caregiver service my mom had paid over the past year (over a $100,000) decided they didn’t want her either. And once again this news was relayed through the hospice organization and once again my calls to understand why were never returned.  My stress levels continued to rise. It was all so pathetic and very telling. Now there’s a lot more to this story, but I don’t want to jeopardize my mom’s care as both the hospice and the caregiving service are still involved in my mom’s care.  Long story why, and I’ll will write it all out one day so I can let it all go.

The second most important appointment was interviewing and hiring a realtor knowing the need to sale the farm would come quick and who knows how long it would take to sell. That was an easy decision based on the great referral from my mom’s eldercare attorney. It was during this trip that all hell broke loose and I seriously thought I was going to have a breakdown. There were a number of home issues that surfaced all at the same time. The biggest being my mom’s driveway entrance. I found it on the verge of collapsing due to increased rains and floods over the past couple of months. This was a huge concern because it was the only entrance to her home for all the caregivers, hospice nurses, bath aides etc. to care for my mom. Like all previous home issues and repairs, trying to find someone who will return your call and then to actually show up was always a nose bleed.  It was no different this time. I needed help. With everything happening at once and on the edge of losing it, I diverted my husband’s flight from NYC (where I was to meet him) to Virginia. His presence helped tremendously. We worked out an interim solution to the driveway entrance that would buy us a week or so until a contractor could get to us which happened about a week later. After we had things somewhat under control we flew to NYC for a short week before heading back to Arizona.

April: I really needed those three weeks in Arizona before I headed back to Virginia. I worked in the garden for my therapy and spent many hours on the phone preparing for what was to come.  Finally a nursing facility agreed to take my mom and that started the process for the big move. After a week or so back and forth with the facility and hospice, a move date was established for April 26. The date to market my mom’s home was set for May 6th because houses were in hot demand and time was of the essence. During this time we also had the roof replaced, a new air conditioner installed and more repairs to the overflowing creeks.  Because everything that could go wrong went wrong with my mom’s move, her actual move date into the facility occurred on April 29th. (Another future journal entry…to release.)

May: This gave us five days until show time.  Five days to clean and stage her home.  Not a small home – a 4,000 square foot home. All I can say is if I had not started two years before, cleaning out my mom’s personal items without her knowledge, this would’ve never happened. Five days beginning at 5:00 a.m. and falling into bed around midnight. The farm listed on May 6th and we had four offers within 48 hours. Then came home inspections and everything else that goes with selling a home.  The rest is history. I’m thrilled with the buyers and so happy that I chose their offer. On top of cleaning and staging and clearing out furniture, my husband and I packed up all my sisters belongings who had lived with and cared for my mom and helped her move to an apartment. Her moving company arrived on May 16th and the next morning we were on a plane back to Arizona. After those four weeks I needed time to process all that had happened.