Tuesday, March 16, 2010

What's in a Word?

I recently finished reading Cost, by Roxana Robinson.  It is a horrific tale of a young man, Jack, and his family, who are torn apart by his heroin addiction.  Most of the book is the story of the family's attempts to help Jack overcome his addiction.

After Jack is evicted from a half-way house for drug use, he returns to the streets.  His mother, Julia, trying desperately to continue a life of her own, lives in constant fear of the telephone and the news that it will one day deliver to her.  Each time it rings she is jarred with a rush of thoughts and the accompanying adrenaline.

As I read this, I remembered my own similar fear of the telephone, which lasted for several years while my mother was living on her own, coping in her own way with dementia.  I lived in a constant state of worry, and the telephone was the device I shared with Julia in her situation.

My mother's psychiatrist, who refused to commit her to a care home, said that this worry was my "problem".  I understood what he meant of course, that it was mine to deal with as best I could.  He separated it from my mother's situation.

As I read these last pages of Cost, however, and the pain that Julia was enduring, I was comforted to learn that my reaction to the situation was probably "normal".  Our lives are all entwined in relationships with those people whom we love and care for.

Don't get fooled into thinking that you have a "problem".  It is more "normal" than you think.

Friday, March 12, 2010

It's All about Definitions

When I began to consider moving my mother from living independently, I was confronted with a barrage of terms used to describe various living situations. In addition, different terms seem to be used by the private sector to describe strictly private (i.e. non government-funded) "communities".

The questions I needed answers to in order to choose a facility included:

  • How much care does she need?
  • What does it cost?
  • Should I be looking at private or publicly funded facilities?
  • What options do I have with respect to location? (She and I weren't living in the same Health Care Region.)
  • How would her doctor be involved?
  • Where do I start???

As I began my research, I realized I needed to understand the terminology being used (Assisted Living, Long Term Care, etc.). Here is an excellent source of information.

I started looking at alternative living arrangements on multiple fronts. (Yes, I was looking at this like a war zone.) My mother's doctor suggested that she be evaluated by a psychiatrist, so I began booking appointments for that. I called the Fraser Health case worker with whom I had been working for several years, and asked to have her living conditions reassessed. At the same time, I began calling private facilities and visited a few that I thought might be appropriate.

For us, the case workers at Fraser Health became the solution to my problem. When they assessed my mom this time, they decided that she needed immediate placement in a long term care facility, as long as she would agree to move.

And as it turned out, "Assisted Living" was not the appropriate level of publicly provided care: the case workers determined that she needs more than 1 1/2 hours of personal assistance each day. So, they have their own definition, and a pretty easy way of determining where a patient should be placed.