Assisted Living, Food handler

October 10, 2015f

Assisted living

Sept 5 more trouble trouble

Kay, on August 24, LPN's and knowledge defeciency

Assisted living

Lake Washington Seattle. 

I didn't get to go see Kay today as I was very busy trying to decide if I should make a move.  There is lots of discussion with the Kids.  Mostly opposed to it.  There are many things to consider.  Health wise I am OK but my eyes are going and what effect that will have is a very important factor.  I wont say anything more as everything is very tenuous and  no decision is even close.  For now I will describe what it is like getting old and having to face your last days. There is a lot of misconceptions about assisted living.  Most people probably think you get signed up and go to a facility.  Then they do everything and you just live and enjoy. Not so.  read the fine print.  It says when you enter the facility that you must be mobile. If you cant get around you will not be there.  If you go blind and can not find your way to the dining room or medical room you will not be there very long.  The NY Times in  a good article on Assisted Living and it is well worth looking up and getting informed if you have an interest in these matters. 
  

Volunteer Park Museum Seattle WAshington

Wednesday 10/23/2013
Here is a copy of a letter I sent to a friend

It's 4:00  and I decided I cant sleep any more.  So got up and made myself a perfect cup of coffee.  I buy the beans and grind them up for coffee

Is your kitten still suffering?  It's easy to get attached to an animal. They dont complain or want anything.  They just want affection. I'm doing    a lot on the blog if you want to keep up with what is going on. Some new stuff.  This place would rather kill me than do what should be done to keep me healthy. I am 92 and my guess is I have lived long enough. What would this world be like if everyone lived to be 90? 

I may be making a lot of posts about what is going on. Of course this may not interest you.  Are you  living alone now?  You come here and we could fix you up with a girlfriend.  However she would be old and and fat and in a wheelchair. Most likely with diabetes too. If you want to know why there are so many divorces in this country see this place.  You see the true nature of a lot of women.  The men may not be all that much to write home about either.  I don't think I am egotistical to say this having been married 72 years.

Doyal
-----------------------------------------------------
Comment.  There is a lot going on to keep me here but I want to leave.  I must find out about what happens if I become unable to find my way around because of being blind.  My understanding is that I must be able to navigate around on my own.  I saw a woman jumped on by old stone face.  I wont say which nurse, but this lady was pushing the woman in the wheel chair. She was told not to do it again as it was not permitted.  I think that is because the law states anyone under state jurisdiction housed in an Assisted Living Facility must be mobile on their own. I think I was in error when I accused the insurance company of the restriction.  It's very important though because these people will land  on you like a ton of bricks to stay within the law. They just got over the yearly inspection by the State which got comments from the residents who wanted to complain. 

This is one of the better places to live if you can stand the system. 

My problem is that I am going blind and   that may affect  my ability to remain here if I become unable to get around without help..  It was clearly understood when I came here that I must be mobile to get in.  At that time I didn't think I would get to the stage where my eyesight might make me immobile.  This place was made what it is from an old Tacoma Hotel that cold not make it. So this guy bought it and made it into an assisted living facility. Huge, and almost a block long.  Assisted Living facility is not a state institution but a commercial venture created to take  care of all all of that free government money. Then the state began to make laws regarding their operation.  But these were not created by the state.  It does a lot of good however because it gives a lot of poor people work they would not have otherwise.  Socialism at work,  This is true of all government programs.  If it were not for these government programs this country would look a lot like India or other places with their enormous masses of beggars and unemployed. The free market promoters had their chance during the Industrial Revolution.  There was no government regulation of anything. They had their chance.  No society was more cruel than that one.  Remember Les Miserables?  What about Kidnapped by Robert Stevenson?  What about indentured servants  which was white  slavery?  Existing before black slavery and populating the Colonies then Australia with England's surplus population? What about the Muckrakers of the 20's.  Don't expect any compassion from the industrialist and capitalist if they ran the country. They had their chance. 

Be quiet: be happy.

At a UPC group meeting
Isn't she pretty?  But I think all young people are good looking. 

 Some family members have been trying for years for Kay and I to agree to go to first a retirement center then to an institution such as this an Assisted Living facility.  I think that if we were in a place that offers entertainment of sorts to keep us occupied that that would satisfy us when we made the change from independent living as we were.  

There are two or three  kinds  here at least  of people who are living here.  There are those who before coming here came from a background of perhaps two or three marriages with a couple family sets of children. These come in varying degrees of course.  Or perhaps never married with no visitors to come see them.  Then there are people like Kay and Me who came from a background of one marriage, one family taking up entirely our interests.  To illustrate this when I married Kay I promised her I would never leave her. I intended this marriage to be the one and only family I was going to have. I promised her.  The breakup of my family when I was little profoundly effected me and the other even younger children.  I did not want to inflict that on any kids I expected to have.  Fortunately for me and I think for the family we have lived up to this commitment. So now when due to age and physical conditions we have to make a change we are faced with how to face it  For myself if it were not for Kay what we  have here might be more manageable  than -it is. But one thing is for sure it is not possible to forget 92 years where family was our everything and plunge into a life where strangers substitute for how we lived before.  Especially with Kay in another place not being able to comprehend where she is and what goes around her.  After dinner facing going to bed knowing she is over there sitting in a TV viewing room with other people she is not able to communicate with or in her bed sleeping.   It is not a pretty life and I can not be at ease as long as she is this way.  Besides she is so far out that it is very hard for regular visitors to come and visit her. 

There has been a picture of Kay participating in exercise program.  I don't know what that is supposed to mean other than she is getting involved in activities at the facility and no longer needs family visits.  Or if visitors do not come she is perfectly ok in her new enviorment.  What I think it means is that she is just forgetting from neglect. This is no doubt not what some people want to hear but that's the way it is.

 

Comments to this blog

Not her car!

 I received some comments from anonymous which I appreciate.  I have not figured out how to get them to show when I open   this home page so I cant respond to them.  But all are read.  To the question does she recognize her own picture I am pretty sure she does.  I also saw the PBS show Assisted Living.  I believe that the people who allowed that woman to die from bed sores should go to jail for a long time. Mississippi fined them 600 dollars. Those who abuse the helpless should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.  Mississippi seems to take more interest in a helpless animal than a helpless human being

With nephew Larry Hemry

Follow me on twitter @lfp2

Incident at the Assisted Living Facility

 Extraordinary incident at the Assisted Living facility today.  I was going down in the elevator with a lady I had not seen before.  When the elevator door opened at the next level we heard screaming by a couple women.  There was some sort of incident between two women.  One in a motorized wheel chair and the other using a walker.  I saw the woman with the walker hit or hit at the woman in the wheel chair while advancing towards her.  The lady with me tried to get them to stop.  The woman in the wheel chair seemed to be backing up at the time.   I kept the door open and the fight broke up and the lady with the walker got in and kept complaining the other one had hit her with the mobile I suppose meaning her wheel chair.   After the woman with the walker got out the lady with me said the one who had just got out was combative and that the other lady was very careful to avoid people with her wheelchair and  That things were not always the way they seem. 

Coming back from breakfast in the elevator waiting area someone asked the woman in the wheel chair who was coming back at the same time   where the scratches on her came from and she told her of the incident. 

In the condition some of these people are they in will a hard time keeping a cheerful disposition all the time. This time it exploded.   

Comments on Assisted Living

 I want to arrange transportation to get over to see Kay as soon as I can.  All public transportation systems have small buses to take people who are too handicapped to take the normal bus other people do.  Kay, my wife is in another institution with no one to visit her.  Last Friday I went to the office and asked if I could arrange to get the necessary transportation.  The manager here happily agreed to do the paper work.  As people like this are generally pretty busy I hoped he would get on it ad not put it on a back burner and do it when he got around to it.  It has bee my experience that anytime you do something when you get around to it you never get around to it.  It is my belief that the delay in getting my ok for transportation really indicates what these people really think about the people in this institution.

Kathleen on the left. 

 We went to Tacoma today and we made arrangements to sign Kay in for care. Speed is of the essence because my eyes are going so fast if I delayed I may be blind before we got her in a place that was good for her.  They specialize in people with memory problems.   They also have a place a few miles away that that takes assisted living people.  I hope to get in there and use their bus to see Kay or Access transportation to do a lot of visiting to make up for not living with her. Things are moving fast and Kay and I will be experiencing radical changes in our lives.  I dreaded doing this but after the visit today maybe I wont be so bad.  We will know next Thursday.  No matter what, it will be a radical change. This is probably good for everyone.  Just remember you all.  You will be headed here sooner or later.  So be kind to the old people because you will also need kindness.