Smoke and Mirrors

Happy Monday to you! A few weeks ago, I talked about the variety of phases I journeyed through during my bloggy sabbatical. If you missed Phase One, you can read about it here. Today I am going to continue on to Phase Two.

Not long after my mother’s immediate medical concerns subsided, the facility was going to release her from the rehabilitation phase of her treatment. At this time, I knew that I was not going to be able to bring Mom home. I talked to her at length about the entire situation and although her first choice was to be back in her place, she understood all of the reasons keeping that choice from happening.

I truly believe that God was at work with this entire situation. I’ve heard the horror stories from others in the same position that the process of placing their parent into a long-term care facility was a nightmare. The fact that my mother was so understanding was a sign to me that God was in the lead.  

Just before I could rest in the fact that everything would work out perfectly, the case manager of the facility approached me to let me know that the bed mom occupied was actually contracted to the insurance company and they had no open bed available for any long-term patients. She handed me a book of about a jillion different convalescent homes and requested I relocate her within two weeks.

Being the little rule follower that I am, I took the book home and started calling the facilities. With each phone call, I was questioned about mom’s situation and denied the transfer. This process brought me to tears on a daily basis because I was so worried and scared that the current place would kick mom out. Every time I would see the case manager, she would pester me about the transfer.

I spent hours researching facilities, studying their ratings and speaking with various administrators about transferring patients between convalescent homes. After several torturous weeks, I finally figured out that most of these facilities do not want to deal with long-term patients because it is not financially beneficial for them to do so.

The current facility was on a mission to get that bed back and cleverly played the ”smoke and mirrors” trick with me. They could not legally kick her out but they had no problem pressuring me to a near breaking point in hopes that would free up a bed. 

Once I had that revelation under my belt, I turned on the old “hide and seek” approach to my visitations. I showed up on Sunday afternoons when I knew the administration would not be around. I snuck in close to lunch hours and shift changes when everyone was busy. I also made sure my mom had her cell phone and carefully selected incoming calls at home. Bwahahahaha!

Finally, I was completely exhausted from this dodge-ball life so I went to the administrator and explained that to date, I was unable to find another facility and I would make sure to let her know as soon as I found one. Done! That was at the end of December and no one has mentioned the transfer again!!

Can you see now why it took me such a long time to get back to blogging? After this endeavor, I was ready to check into a facility myself!!

Have any of you had to deal with this type of “smoke and mirrors” red tape??