Author: Andrew Huey

I realized yesterday that I’ve spent every Christmas of my life so far with my parents. I always came home from college for Christmas break. After college, I’ve always driven to my folks’ house, either back in Roselle Park or down in Whiting, for Christmas.

I did drive over to my Mom’s assisted living facility this morning and spend a little time with her, but she’s not really in a condition where it would make sense to take her home with me for the day, or take her out to dinner or anything. She had a minor fall this morning, and is a bit unsteady on her feet right now, so I don’t think it would be a good idea to take her out and risk another fall.

So I’m spending most of the day alone here in my apartment, watching MythBusters, and taking care of a few miscellaneous chores. I’ve been trying to think of something I could do today to honor Dad. I think maybe just relaxing today, and continuing to be responsible about taking care of Mom, would make him happy.

If anyone reading this is feeling any charitable impulses today, consider the Alzheimer’s Association. They’ve been quite helpful over the last few months, as I tried to figure out what was going on with Mom, and how best to deal with it.

The last few months have been… eventful. That’s the best word I can think of for it. My dad was in the hospital from the end of August until the end of September, when he passed away. I spent a lot of time in October starting to settle Dad’s estate, and doing a lot of stuff for Mom. At the beginning of November, I found out that the company I work for was not going to make it out of Chapter 11, and my entire staff was laid off. Right after Thanksgiving, I moved Mom from her home in Ocean County to an assisted living facility here in Somerset County. After only a few days there, she wound up in the hospital. She got a pacemaker, and some adjustments to her medications, and went back to assisted living in about a week. Her dementia seemed to get a lot worse while she was in the hospital though. They discovered that she had a C. Diff. infection, and started treating that. She’s a bit better now, but still not back to “normal”. Meanwhile, at work, we got kicked out of our building at the end of last week. We were bought by a larger company, and all our servers are in Michigan now, and I’m working out of my home, mostly.

I still have a lot of work in front of me, with regard to making sure Mom is OK and taken care of, Dad’s estate getting settled, keeping my old company’s systems running for a little longer, and trying to help the new company take over all of our operations.

Sometimes I feel sorry for myself, but I try to remember that I do still have a job, unlike many of my friends, and, due to my Dad’s diligence and thriftiness, I should be more than able to pay Mom’s assisted living bills.

I have no idea what 2010 will bring, but my mantra right now is “one day at a time.”

I stumbled across the site for the Mature Market Institute today. They do an annual market survey on costs for assisted living, nursing homes, and stuff like that. It’s no surprise that the Bridgewater NJ area is one of the most expensive in the country for assisted living. The national average is $3131 monthly. Wilmington, DE is the most expensive, at $5219. Bridgewater NJ is $4354. I’m paying more than that for Mom, since she’s in an Alzheimer’s unit, and requires a pretty high level of care. I’ve got a claim open on her long-term care insurance, but I haven’t gotten an answer from them yet, so I’m paying for Mom’s care out of Dad’s retirement savings right now.

There are a bunch of other interesting (and sometimes useful) papers on their site. There are a couple on “discovering what matters” that look like they might be worth reading. And there’s a caregiver’s guide for Alzheimer’s Disease that has some good info in it.

This site is run by MetLife, so I’m guessing that there may be a certain bias on certain subjects, but everything I’ve read there so far seems reasonable.

I’ve mentioned previously that my Mom is suffering from dementia, and I’m looking to get her into assisted living. I just thought I’d post a couple of useful links for anyone in a similar situation. First, there’s a paper titled Understanding the Dementia Experience [PDF] that I found quite helpful in trying to understand what my Mom is going through. And I’ve started reading a book called Long-Term Care: How to Plan & Pay for It that seems to be a pretty good book, though I haven’t gotten too far through it yet. I have to say that my Dad did a great job in preparing for this, since he bought long-term care insurance for my Mom several years ago. The LTC insurance should help us out a lot.

If you’re considering assisted living for someone in NJ, please read this. I haven’t been blogging much since my Dad passed away, largely because I’m trying to spend as much time as possible with my Mom, while also settling Dad’s estate, and trying to figure out what I need to do for Mom in the long term. I’m thinking that my Mom is ready for assisted living, but the costs involved are pretty scary. She does have long-term care insurance, but there’s a max payout on that, so it’ll run out if Mom lives long enough. And Dad had a fair amount of savings, but, again, assisted living costs could drain those savings. I’m hoping that, if that happens, I’ll be able to transition Mom over to Medicaid, and just pay for her room & board myself. I hope I can manage to choose a facility that will do right by us, and not try and kick Mom out if she has to go on Medicaid. It’s a lot of responsibility, and a lot to work out.

I haven’t been posting anything lately, because my father, Chester Huey, has been in the hospital for the past few weeks. Early yesterday morning, he passed away. I usually don’t post a lot of personal stuff on this blog, but just in case anyone’s reading this, and they knew my father, but haven’t heard yet, I thought I’d post some information here. We will have viewing hours for him at Manchester Memorial Funeral Home in Whiting NJ on Wednesday 9/30, probably from 2-4 pm and 7-9 pm. He will be interred at the Brigadier General William C. Doyle Memorial Cemetery in Wrightstown NJ, probably on Monday 10/5. We’re still finalizing things.

I’ve been working on an obituary of sorts that I may eventually post here. I owe my Dad a lot — for everything from buying us a TRS-80 and giving me my first exposure to computers, to introducing me to George Orwell’s Animal Farm (“Four legs good, two legs bad”).