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The CPI and RPI both make me froth at the mouth. That 'basket of goods' - computer games, ready meals, sliced wholemeal bread, cellphones... Excluding house prices. Excluding utilities. Excluding prescription fees and care fees and train tickets and, it seems to me, most of the things you have to buy whether you want to or not.

I expect those rising costs include a generous increase in staff wages to reflect more closely the true value of their work and expertise. Yeah right.

$3 a month is actually quite generous. Gordon Brown, our last Prime Minister but one, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer once managed to award our OAPs ten pence a week extra. There were many, many sarcastic letters to editors along the lines of 'don't spend it all at once.'
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Madge the search function is not a blank line with the world "search". It appears as a magnifying glass on my kindle on the Aging care ribbon, right side. When activated then you will see the search box labeled "search aging care". Just think back to your Nancy Drew sleuthing days.😉

On my phone it is under the hamburger, the first option.
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madge - that's terrible. I am speechless - especially for what they are offering your mum. Are you going to be able to manage?
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Golden
mom’s resources are nearly spent and her small long term care policy which covers $94 a day compared to the $345 a day that hoca will now be charging is up in a year

I’m quite beside myself - I’ve been covering the cost of private caregivers out of my savings which I really can’t afford at my age
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Are you sure there no way she can qualify for medicaide MsM? Or, since you have additional caregivers anyway would a smaller group home be a possibility?
(I'm sure you looked at every alternative already but dang, there ought to be something😟)
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My whine tonight is what I heard on the news.
Springfield,Mo. is known for it's cashew chicken and the man that originally brought it to our town is 98 years old.On his way home from his restaurant last night,he had a man flag him down,asking for help,so he stopped and was going to give the man a $5,00,when the man pulled him from his car and took his wallet and ran off.
They showed the poor,old man on tv tonight and it was SO sad.He's still SO shook up.It really scared him.
I'm just thankful that he didn't get hurt.....worse.
And I hope they catch the thief~
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Just a minute.

$345 *a* *day*.

I was going to say "you could stay at the George V in Paris for that!" but actually no you couldn't. Turns out the room rate at the George V is more like $1700. I will be staying elsewhere for my next mini-break, then. Oh well.

And you're paying *separately* for supplemental one-to-one care out of your own pocket?

This is completely bonkers.

There seems to come a point in care provision where the cost issue detaches itself from the real world and floats off into fairyland. And we don't have any real option but to go with it, and act as though it's only to be expected.

There are two headings.

#1 (the one that actually matters) - what are the options for the Viking's care? Who are you talking to about this?

#2 (more of a philosophical and policy discussion) - how about you go back and break down what she is actually getting in return for her money, she as an individual resident, and see if you can make it add up to anything like that.

I'd be in favour of care providers - the groups or companies rather than the individual homes - having to publish detailed annual accounts. I mean, if the rise in fees did mean doubling CNAs wages who would mind so much? But if a board member needs a new Merc, or the regulators think hard-working public employees are *entitled* to better healthcare schemes than the rest of the population, or Medicaid is squeezing rates on the understanding that self-funders can make up the shortfall... All of those nice ideas may have their respective merits, but I get so fed up with the assumption that people like your mother should pay for them without complaining.

What's inflation doing in California at the moment? They've just hit you with a 5% increase, yes? - it's not unreasonable to ask *what* costs are rising and by how much.
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madge - ((((((((hugs))))))) Is there no other alternative? It seems, from your posts, that the Viking is not getting great care where she is. My heart goes out to you. I am so thankful for our affordable care. Prayers for peace for you and for a very good solution. There has to be something better! Could CWillie's suggestions work?
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I have been turning chocolate cakes out of their tins more or less without incident for more than forty years.

I just took it into my head to do two at once, sandwiched between cake racks. Slide, crash, all over the shop... You would never have thought that two little cakes could make that many or such widespread crumbs. What WAS I thinking?

Is this the beginning of the end?

Who can I blame???
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MsMadge,
Have other resident's rates been raised accordingly?
There are rules, raise the same to the residents, or something like that.
If just your Mom was raised you might consider what is happening could be a "constructive discharge" or "constructive eviction".
What to do?
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Purest self-pitying whine - I have SUCH a headache.

I have taken painkillers, I have been out for some fresh air, and I have done my breathing exercises.

But there are men at the front of the house operating a hydraulic platform that beeps and runs off a diesel engine; and there is a man at the back of the house painting window frames with quite the smelliest, fumiest paint ever, and although I know they won't be there for ever and I should just go and lie down upstairs until the working day is over I don't seem able to control the stress I'm feeling about it. Find I keep holding my breath so as not to scream at them hysterically.

Oww poor head... :(
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I arrived at the NH this morning to find a smallish bruise on the back of mom's hand but it was swollen down into her fingers.
Me: What happened to mom's hand?
Nurse: Hm, she is retaining fluid.
Me: Yes, but why?
Nurse: Well her hand is always hanging down, it should be raised
Me: But her hand has been hanging down for years, why is it swelling now?
Nurse; Well she's retaining fluid

And around we go🙄
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Cwillie 😥
Will staff prop mom's arm atop a pillow when she's in bed and in her wheelchair?
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Thanks MsM - they've got mom's arm on a pillow now. Once again I'm left to wonder how nobody seemed to notice this until I pointed it out, her fingers are noticeably swollen.
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A lunchtime conversation at mom's table.
PSW:Hi Wilbur would you like the hamburger or the sandwich?
Me (softly): His name is Wilmer, Wilmer with an M, not Wilbur with a B
PSW: (blank stare) His name starts with W
Me: No, in the middle - w.i.l.m.e.r, Wilmer with an M
pause
PSW: So Wilbur sweetie, what would you like on your hamburger?
Me:😖
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[mutters] Fr fcks sk - !

CW, you'll just have to write it down for her.

That would have been a red mist moment for me, I'm afraid. I lose all sense of goal-oriented moderation. I'd have written it down on a napkin and stuffed it up her nose.

WHY DO PEOPLE THINK IT'S OKAY TO BE SO F***ING THICK?!?!?
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The sad thing is that this man transferred in from the AL side of the building and has been in the NH side for more than a week, possibly more than 2 (I tend to lose track of time). So
1 - He's lived there for years, so even if this particular aide hasn't met him before there are others who have
2 - I already said something to this woman before
3 - He's been on the NH time long enough for her to have bothered to check she's got it right
4 - This woman is one of the ones I've come up against before who tend to be so obtuse you know it has to be deliberate, wilfully deaf and blind to anything but their own views and yet super faux friendly and cheerful. (btw did you catch the elderspeak?)
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Somewhere in the aide's thick head is the name "Wilbur", as names in the category of "W"...and for some confounding reason she cannot think outside of this "box" her brain has created that there are many variations of names or concepts. My last inclination would be to write it down for her, but it still may not register with her. If names don't register it makes me wonder what else she does not "get".....
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At hoca, all the men have the same name
staff calls everyone, daddy
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🤯 😖🤬
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I have a horrible feeling that isn't a little joke, MsMadge?
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And they wonder why the residents are often grumpy or don't answer.. "Whats my name this week?"
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Maybe, they figure no one knows their own name anymore so why should they bother to use it. Not that that is right but perhaps that's how they justify it to themselves.
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IDK, I think it would be the same as having your teacher call all the students son and daughter (or dearie, honey, sweetie, little girl, little boy) - can you imagine the outraged parental response?

I understand that it can be hard to remember names (something I'm terrible at) but these people are together for many hours a week, and although there is turnover even the larger places generally aren't seeing all that many new faces each month.
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Not a joke, CM
just part of the charm of the place,
which was so chaotic at lunchtime today,
I was ready to join in with the screaming

decided to to try something new and rather than just sit outside asked mom if she wanted to go for a walk - sure she says

so we escape out the locked fence and go to the corner
pushing her wheelchair wasn't too bad so we go a bit further down the street
I ask if she wants to turn around or keep going - keep going she says
until we hit some cracks in the sidewalk and then she's had enough

turn around and see why it was easy pushing her chair - there's a slight incline - it was twice as hard going back
and while I'm punching the code and trying to hold the gate open, mom says hurry up, as I look, she's rolling backwards- good grief
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MsMadge, that stupid code, and trying to hold on to the wheelchair, while pushing it over the hump in the doorsill.... I'm trying to master that technique, but you can guess how it's going....
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Try going in backwards, Mally
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I think the healthandsafety people say that at any time you haven't got two hands on the wheelchair both brakes should be applied and locked. Which gets a bit fiddly but does save you losing escaped elders.

Quite a few years ago there was a terrible accident in a branch of Asda, now part of Walmart, where they had a kind of escalator ramp intended for shopping carts leading down from the car park to the store. It had a cleverly designed surface so that their carts' wheels couldn't roll on it, but unfortunately it didn't occur to one caregiver that this wouldn't work on her charge's wheelchair. A witness was quoted as saying that the poor elderly lady "must have been doing at least 45mph when I saw her."

Reflecting on times gone by, I think you've got two options when it comes to wheelchair access.

#1 Carry a small wooden wedge for temporarily propping doors open; and - especially when officious staff members then screech at you about fire regulations -

#2 Lose your inhibitions about ordering complete strangers to hold the door/move the chair/get out the way/bring those packages.
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Uhm, the doors there don't have an auto opener and level threshold? Isn't that all part of the ADA?

Just outside the town where sis lives there is a NH up on a small hill. One day we were driving past it when a woman on a wheelchair careened down the sloped driveway into the road in front of us, it was a miracle that the chair remained upright and that it wasn't hit by traffic. Brakes. Always use the brakes!
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CWillie, how scary! And doubly scary for the poor lady in the chair! I'm glad she was okay.
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