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My Mom Is On Lockdown
On the evening of Monday, March 16th, my 89-year-old mother Ginny’s Independent/Assisted living facility was placed on lockdown. No one in and no one out to limit the spread of COVID-19. Although there are several confirmed cases of the virus in the county, at this time, there are none inside the residence. I was not…
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Questions: A Story About a Senior Housing Lease
My primary goal with writing this post is to get input from readers. We had an experience a few months ago with an Independent/Assisted Living home, and I would be interested if anyone can shed some light on whether our experience was unusual or not. I’m going to skip through some of our ongoing story…
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The Night Before
Originally posted on Inked In: It has been more than three years since my mother moved into a seniors’ home. But time hasn’t made the memory of the eve of her move less heart-wrenching. THE NIGHT BEFORE (May 2016): ?Tomorrow we are moving my 89-year-old mother to a seniors’ residence.? She has been in transition,…
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Get Off of My Lawn: The Elderly and Negativity
About two months have passed since our decision to move my 88-year-old mother Ginny into a senior living facility. The best news we received in that time was that she would not be forced to sign a year lease by September 1st after all. Working with the realty company, the condo owners agreed to no…
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A Story of Signs Part II
We remain in town a little longer to make sure my mother Ginny is o.k. from her fall. (See Part I). As it turns out, we also have to say goodbye to Summer. No, it wasn’t the changing of the season but rather Summer is the name of Ginny’s caregiver. I haven’t spoken much about…
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A Story of Signs Part I
I get up at 6:30 am so I have enough time to write a little, shower and pack. We are headed over to Clearwater (a 2 ½ hour drive) for a late Mother’s Day visit. We plan to take my 88-year-old mother Ginny out to dinner and stay for a couple of days. My phone…
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Helping an Elderly Parent : Part 2
I have a featured Guest Blogger this week named Pete Springer. Pete is the author of They Call Me Mom, a book based on his 31 years of experience in the classroom. Pete spent years caring for his mother. That story continues here in Part 2. It offers insight, advice and a real glimpse into…
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Helping an Elderly Parent
I have a featured Guest Blogger this week named Pete Springer. Pete is the author of They Call Me Mom, a book based on his 31 years of experience in the classroom. Pete spent years caring for his mother and has generously written about it. I’m sharing his story over two weeks. Here is Part…
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Taking Over Your Parent’s Checkbook: One Fortunate Solution
I posted a story several weeks ago which examined the question of when is it time to take over the finances of a parent? (For the previous story click here.) My 88-year-old mother Ginny had been exhibiting behavior from putting the wrong checks into the wrong utility envelopes, pulling out checkbook pages and writing out…
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Is It Time Now? A Story About Decision-Making for an Aging Parent
Today started with a surprise phone call from Betsy. Betsy is my sister-in-law who has taken on the part-time job of driving my mom to appointments, the library, the grocery store etc. every week. She lives 15 minutes from my 88-year-old mother Ginny and my mother adores her. She’s been our godsend for about two…