Mom had a stroke. What do I do now?

[Sue J]

mountainsoft,

I've been following this topic and realized you are the same poster whose wife is making twice weekly trips to help her mother with the stoma bag and picking up the responsibilities that her sisters used to carry. http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ent-86691.html

So you are dealing with elderly issues for both your mother and MIL. I wish I had some advice or could tell you how to solve this.

I just wanted to let you know that I realized the spot you are in and that those of us who have gone through elder issues understand what you are going through. Tough times on a practical level (distance and logistics) and then emotionally, too.

Good luck getting through all of this. Ask for help, from family or professionals, if you can and accept it if it's available. You can't do everything for everybody.

[mamadogmamacat]

Having close family on both sides with mental health issues, I feel for what you are going through. I also know how easy it is to fall back into the same patterns of relationship one had as a child when dealing with very difficult relatives in a crisis even when we are well into adulthood. Hopefully your DW can help you avoid that or perhaps one or more close friends who are not family. They are often the best for advice, other than professionals too of course, in situations like this. definitely avoid that aunt, as I doubt she will have the perspective to be of any help with this. Also, stroke recovery, other than in the very first few hours, which your mother did not get help during so that is nothing one can do anything about now, is very slow and one often plateaus, either for good or for quite some time before progressing further, so really it is good advice to go ahead with that vacation. She will almost certainly be unchanged when you get back.

[mountainsoft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sue J I've been following this topic and realized you are the same poster whose wife is making twice weekly trips to help her mother with the stoma bag and picking up the responsibilities that her sisters used to carry. http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ent-86691.html

Yep, that's me, and the thread with my adult daughter living at home. http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ome-86731.html My life that has become a soap opera.

My wife's Mom finally acknowledged she is quite capable of changing her own stoma bag. So she has been doing it herself when we can't make it, which is really helping right now.

My daughter researched rents in the area, and agreed to pay us $400 rent to live at home. That too will come in handy with the added gas and food expenses we'll have driving to and from my mom's place.

We cancelled our mini-vacation. The rental place wouldn't refund our money with such short notice, but they gave us a voucher we can use in the future. Though honestly, I doubt we'll make use of it, since it's not an area we would usually travel to. There was just a unique event in the area we were hoping to see. Turns out the area is still buried in snow this year, so we couldn't have seen it anyway.

We're meeting with moms rehab center today to see what information we can get from that.

[mountainsoft]

Met with the rehab center. Medicare will cover 100% of her stay for 20 days, then it's a fixed amount like $164 per day after that. Medicaid will pay once she has sold her house and spent her assets below $2000. She seems fine with all that, and it takes a big burden off us. We just need to clean out the house and get it ready to sell. It's in a remote area, and the house is in really bad shape, so it may take a long time to sell.

Mom has improved a lot over the last few days. She is regaining usage of her right arm, and is having a lot less difficulty speaking. They've had her up and walking around, but she still can't get out of bed on her own.

Her doctor visited today for the first time since she entered rehab. Unfortunately, the doc says she still has a heart arrhythmia and blood clots in her neck. So she is at high risk for more strokes or heart failure. Not good news, but she signed a do-not-resuscitate order.

Mom seems to be trying to mend ties with family she has cut off the last 20 years. Considering the situation, she seems happy and upbeat.

There's no way to know what the future will hold, but it's nice we have the chance to see her again. And, a lot of weight has been taken off my own shoulders, so I'm sleeping better and haven't been dealing with the headaches. We're busy trying to clean out her house so we can put it up for sale.

[mamadogmamacat]

Before putting too much effort into the clean up, you may want to consult a few local RE agencies. The house may in such bad shape it will only sell as a tear down anyway.

[mountainsoft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mamadogmamacat Before putting too much effort into the clean up, you may want to consult a few local RE agencies. The house may in such bad shape it will only sell as a tear down anyway.

I'm not planning to do any repairs to the house. Selling As-Is. We're just getting the photos, financial documents, furniture, and other personal items she wants to keep. The rest is going to the dump.

[daylatedollarshort]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainsoft My daughter researched rents in the area, and agreed to pay us $400 rent to live at home. That too will come in handy with the added gas and food expenses we'll have driving to and from my mom's place.

I'm glad to hear things are getting sorted out on all fronts. That is good news on your daughter paying rent.

[bmcgonig]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainsoft Met with the rehab center. Medicare will cover 100% of her stay for 20 days, then it's a fixed amount like $164 per day after that. Medicaid will pay once she has sold her house and spent her assets below $2000. She seems fine with all that, and it takes a big burden off us. We just need to clean out the house and get it ready to sell. It's in a remote area, and the house is in really bad shape, so it may take a long time to sell. Mom has improved a lot over the last few days. She is regaining usage of her right arm, and is having a lot less difficulty speaking. They've had her up and walking around, but she still can't get out of bed on her own. Her doctor visited today for the first time since she entered rehab. Unfortunately, the doc says she still has a heart arrhythmia and blood clots in her neck. So she is at high risk for more strokes or heart failure. Not good news, but she signed a do-not-resuscitate order. Mom seems to be trying to mend ties with family she has cut off the last 20 years. Considering the situation, she seems happy and upbeat. There's no way to know what the future will hold, but it's nice we have the chance to see her again. And, a lot of weight has been taken off my own shoulders, so I'm sleeping better and haven't been dealing with the headaches. We're busy trying to clean out her house so we can put it up for sale.

That's sounds like a pretty ok outcome given how awful it could be. Glad that she's mending fences and feeling better. And you too.

I had thought that the house was exempt from Medicaid spend down?

But if not, given that all the money from the house probably goes to Medicaid it might make no difference to you what it sells for, so price it cheap?

[mountainsoft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bmcgonig I had thought that the house was exempt from Medicaid spend down? But if not, given that all the money from the house probably goes to Medicaid it might make no difference to you what it sells for, so price it cheap?

I think the exemption only applies if you're married. They made it clear we would at least need the house up for sale before they would start paying, even if it hadn't sold yet.

As you say, I don't care what the house sells for. She has to go broke anyway, so it really doesn't matter. Just want to sell it quickly, though doing everything from a distance will probably take me longer to set up.

At some point we need to get a storage unit and move all of her big items to storage till we figure out what to do with them.

[LOL!]

Two anecdotes:

In order to clean out my deceased MIL's unkempt house, the kids went through and picked up things they wanted like piano and large furniture. Then they staged an advertised "garage sale" which let the masses pick through things and pay small amounts. Then they had a dumpster delivered to the driveway and put everything else in it and had it carted away. The cleaned out house, sold "as is" in a few days.

Recently in my neighborhood, a family from the east bought a house sight unseen that had been foreclosed on. They showed up and the previous owner was still in it. The story I got was he hadn't paid anything in 5 years and was a hoarder. The place was invested infested with fleas, cats, a huge bee hive in the attic (my wife talked to 3 beekeepers outside the house deciding if they had enough people to take care of the aggressive hive), a backed up sewage pipe, upstairs toilet that had leaked feces and created a collapsed ceiling, a covered swimming pool full of gunk, algae, turtles (size of dinner plates), frogs, and tadpoles, and the other usual hoarder stuff. The new owners got the sheriff to physically remove the squatter and moved everything they could to the driveway where it got picked over and then called a company to have leftovers hauled away. Then the joys of clean-up and renovation could begin.

[mountainsoft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LOL! Then they staged an advertised "garage sale" which let the masses pick through things and pay small amounts. Then they had a dumpster delivered to the driveway and put everything else in it and had it carted away. The place was invested with fleas, cats, a huge bee hive in the attic

A garage sale would be too much work from a distance, and she really doesn't have anything worth selling anyway. In the future we may try selling some of her smaller belongings.

I do think we'll end up having to get a dumpster. Right now we've just been bagging up garbage and storing it in the garage. We've already got over ten large bags from just two rooms.

Thankfully, she didn't have any pets and we haven't seen any signs of insects anywhere.

[Walt34]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainsoft I'm not planning to do any repairs to the house. Selling As-Is.

When dealing with the elder law attorney about FIL's issues and the house, another option is to sell the house at auction if the house just sits with no offers. For us the house sold in three or four days so we got lucky, but an auction is an option too. At least in MD, Medicaid would have had no issues with doing it that way.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainsoft A garage sale would be too much work from a distance, and she really doesn't have anything worth selling anyway. In the future we may try selling some of her smaller belongings. I do think we'll end up having to get a dumpster. Right now we've just been bagging up garbage and storing it in the garage. We've already got over ten large bags from just two rooms. Thankfully, she didn't have any pets and we haven't seen any signs of insects anywhere.

I hope you have some signed piece of paper stating you can do this, otherwise it's illegal and could turn really bad for you.

[Walt34]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunset I hope you have some signed piece of paper stating you can do this, otherwise it's illegal and could turn really bad for you.

Well, maybe. We had a POA for FIL's stuff, but his mother is in a nursing home and it seems she's unlikely to ever leave. To sell the house either he'll need a POA or she will have to sign the paperwork, if she's able to at the time. As for now, yeah technically I guess it could be called burglary, trespassing, destruction of property and the like, but given the circumstances I don't see anyone bringing any charges.

Another, and probably expensive, option is for him to obtain a court-ordered POA. It gets expensive because judges are (rightfully) reluctant to take away someone's rights without a very high standard of proof, and that requires time-consuming testimony from at least a couple of doctors.

[mountainsoft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Walt34 To sell the house either he'll need a POA or she will have to sign the paperwork, if she's able to at the time. As for now, yeah technically I guess it could be called burglary, trespassing, destruction of property and the like, but given the circumstances I don't see anyone bringing any charges.

At some point I do need to get a POA, but I have no idea where I would obtain one? Any tips?

Mom gave me her purse and keys to the house, along with encouragement to clean it out. So, no legal worries. Just following her instructions.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainsoft At some point I do need to get a POA, but I have no idea where I would obtain one? Any tips? Mom gave me her purse and keys to the house, along with encouragement to clean it out. So, no legal worries. Just following her instructions.

Aren't the POA at the state website, so you download and fill in the name and sign it ?

[mountainsoft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunset Aren't the POA at the state website, so you download and fill in the name and sign it ?

State website? I'm not sure what you are referring to.

Mom still isn't able to sign her name after her stroke, even though she is of sound mind. What do I do about that?

I assume a POA would need to be notarized, but she is two hours away from me. I could easily take the form somewhere and sign it in front of a notary, but she doesn't have that option. In addition, I live in Washington, her home and documents are in Washington, but she is currently in rehab in Oregon?

Once I have a POA, what do I do with it? Do I need to take it with me anytime I go to her bank, or present it during other financial transactions?

I don't know anything about POA's, so any info would be appreciated.

[evilanne]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainsoft A garage sale would be too much work from a distance, and she really doesn't have anything worth selling anyway. In the future we may try selling some of her smaller belongings. I do think we'll end up having to get a dumpster. Right now we've just been bagging up garbage and storing it in the garage. We've already got over ten large bags from just two rooms. Thankfully, she didn't have any pets and we haven't seen any signs of insects anywhere.

Is there anyone in the area that does estate sales? You may be right in that there isn't much of value but it doesn't hurt to get a second opinion and they will do it for a percentage of the proceeds if they can make money off of it--you don't even have to be there.

[Sunset]

Here in IL, the State of IL has a website and on it they have POA forms, you download the form, fill it out and the person signs it.
For example here in IL:
https://www.illinois.gov/sites/gac/F...ges/Forms.aspx
https://www.illinois.gov/aging/About...irectives.aspx

I know in Canada, the Province of Ontario has the same thing a gov't website with the approved legal forms (which don't require a notary). So I bet many States have it as well.

So perhaps WA has it too.

When you have this, you simply show it to the bank (they may photocopy it to cover their butts) and then you can do whatever that person could do as you are acting in their place.

If it's just the banking you are thinking about, then phone her bank and ask if they have an official power of Attorney they could supply for you to fill out (if the State does not have one).

[akck]

Here's a link to POAs:

WashingtonLawHelp.org | Free legal information and self-help materials and a guide to legal aid programs in Washington.

This might be useful too:

Washington Probate --- Washington State Probate Instructions & Forms

Be aware that your mother can have another stroke at any time, so try to get all legal documents taken care of immediately, while she can still sign them. My FIL HAD a stroke shortly after his wife died. He partially lost the ability to talk, but was able to function. His speech was improving, but 3 months later, he had another stroke, losing all speech and most motion ability. He ended up in a nursing home until he passed away, unable to communicate any wishes. The only saving grace was all his legal documents where in order.