How to Set Up a Nursing Home at Home!

As I’ve mentioned previously, our father made us promise from a young age that we would never put him in a nursing home. Sort of sad since now that he is finally home from the hospital, he doesn’t even recognize his home. The other refrain was “we’re all going to die.” Brothers, seriously, how often did we hear that? Fortunately, our father was a successful real estate broker and can afford to have all of this care at home. For someone who had a serious stroke here’s what you will need:

1. A Hospital Bed (good quality as the ones covered by Medicare are outdated and uncomfortable and are not electric).
2. Diapers
3. Pads for Beds
4. A Wheelchair
5. A Walker
6. Adult Wipes
7. A lot of sheets
8. A nurse and an aide 24/7 from a reliable agency
9. A physical therapist
10. An occupational therapist
11. Additional supplies as requested by the above
12. An account at a grocery store that delivers
13. A pharmacy that delivers
14. An account with an ambulette company or the ability to request yellow cabs or Uber with wheelchair access for doctor appointments
15. A calendar to note the dates for all of the above to avoid conflicts
16. Someone to do laundry—there will be a lot
17. Endless amounts of patience (that’s not me)
18. An ability to endure verbal and physical abuse (again, not me)
19. Someone who cares enough to manage all this (me)

So, as I said, ironically, my Dad, so far, does not even know he’s home or even which country he’s in. He keeps talking about Canada where he lived for a year and also an apartment on 115^th street which I assume was in the 50’s when he went to Columbia Business School. However, maybe he’ll get better, or sort of better, and then appreciate that he is home with all of his beloved things and his memories of my mother.

One of my volunteer activities is delivering books to residents at a nursing home. Today I asked Lois, also a stroke victim, how things were going, and if she was getting PT and what her goals were. She said her goal was to “walk right out of here,” but said that insurance was no longer covering her PT because she wasn’t making enough progress. Which means that, unless her family starts advocating for her, and even not necessarily then, she is NEVER going to walk right out of there. This seemed terribly sad to me as her mind is fine, but she is stuck in a wheelchair in a nursing home.

All of the time and money we are spending on my Dad may be for naught but I can’t give up on him yet. And we are trying to do what we think he would want. He has only been home for a week but is already taking steps with a walker and has had a non-family visitor. Her conversation with him didn’t totally make sense, but he was in there somewhere. What’s sort of funny is that he’s so used to ordering people around that he yells at me, “do it! Do it!” And I say, “Okay Dad, what is it that you want me to do?” “Just DO it! You do this for me, and I’ll do something for you.” “Okay Dad.” Oh yeah, he’s still in there! We never know who we’re going to get, but then, we never did.