Friday, January 6, 1984

Well, Love's back! And my life is totally disrupted again. Love is one of the wittiest, most charming, intelligent and gorgeous men in the world. He is fantastic, but he thrives on crises, plural of one crisis. There is only one thing lacking in my life when Love is here - peace. Unfortunately, I thrive on serenity, with lots of peace and quiet.

He called around to try to arrange some supplementary income while he is recuperating, but not even the paperwork can be done before he gets out of the hospital. I know he will feel like going in person to all these agencies after a five-coronary, heart, bypass surgery! Ha! Why can't this be started now? He will need food stamps, and enough money to live on, etc. I imagine he will stay here; I will have another dependent. He has no health insurance where he works. Township Welfare Relief seem to be the only thing, besides food stamps that he will qualify for, $224.00 totally. I am doubtful that $144.00 welfare a month, plus $80.00 in food stamps will pay for the extra gas and electricity, telephone, water, automobile gasoline, hand soap, razor blades, deodorant, shampoo, laundry soap, bleach, dish soap, medicines, etc., let alone the extra food.

Ila, my Mom's friend, was here. We talked about her eighty-three year old mother and what happened when Ila wanted to take care of her, like I'm taking care of Mom. Her mother only had Medicare insurance , so only 80% of her doctor bills and special equipment, minus bathroom fixtures, was paid for. Her mother's Social Security is only $350.00 a month. Instead of the taxpayers paying an additional $200.00 a month to take care of Ila's mother at Ila'a house, we are now paying an additional $485.00 a month for her care in a nursing home, or $1,035.00. Does that make sense to you? Every time Ila goes to visit her mother, which is almost everyday, her mother is hungry, thirsty, "shitty" or "pissy". Wouldn't it have been better to arrange for Ila to take care of her own mother?

Before anyone can be admitted to a nursing home for any reason, they must submit forms to the Aid to Dependant Children's office, and must be approved by the ADC office before admission. If any property is held by the patient, it is assigned to the ADC agency before admission into a nursing home. When insurance or Medicare runs out, if the patient isn't able to go home, the property is attached, and sold to pay for the expenses. When that money is gone, us taxpayers foot the bill. There are two alternatives: (1) keeping the elderly person at home, or (2) the elderly person, having enough foresight, signing their property to someone else five years prior to their admission to a nursing home. My father would shake him urn off the was if he thought I would arrange for the proceeds of the house he built to be taken out of the family or the proceeds either. I don't know about anyone else's aging parent, but my Mom didn't have enough sense to sign anything out of her name five years ago, and I feel she is fairly typical.