Carrie, the boys and I had a great visit with Grand Dad this weekend. On Saturday, we spent the morning with him, he lounged on his bed, was pretty animated, and looked GQ with a new haircut. It was a beautiful day outside and we tried unsuccesfully to get him to go outside with us and enjoy it. He was worried that it would be too cool and he doesn't want to try to wrestle his jacket on over his shoulder. We were getting concerned that he is just being a hermit in his room, becasue he is not eating in the dining room, and doesn't seem that interested in getting out, but he does get out twice a day for physical therapy, etc.
On Sunday, he was sitting in a chair fiddling with something when we arrived. We had a great visit and he even joked about us breaking him out of there. I told him we will send a cake with a file in it, but probably the easier way was for him to just complete his rehabilitation and that would be that. We discussed his next move and I told him that we weren't sure where it would be, but that we were looking at places and I explained that we will find the best one for him - he seems excited about living around native English speakers and I know that he has enjoyed not having to cook for himself at the Rehab facility - I really think that he is looking forward to being out of that apartment and into a new environment.
Saturday afternoon, Scott and I toured 5 new Assisted Living facilities, and each of them seemed very nice and the staff were genuine and caring. A couple of them has residents that seemed a little more aged, or debilitated than others, but they were all nice and would be a caring environment for Grand Dad. After looking at these facilities though, I feel that the best one was the one that Ken I toured 4 weeks ago - Peter's Creek - it was the most homey and did not feel institutional at all.
We still need to wait a bit to find out about his DSHS (Medicaid) status before any decisions on his next place can happen. We have heard back from DSHS about eligibility for the rehabilitation place that he is currently in, but have not heard from them about his eligibility for the Assisted Living. Scott has left messages with the DSHS case worker and we hope to find out this week. One of the challenges in finding an Assisted Living community for him is that very few AL's accept medicaid payment, or they have a limited number of rooms that accept Medicaid which are usually full. The buildings that Scott and I toured on Saturday were all private pay, or private pay for a year before roll over to Medicaid, or their Medicaid slots were all full.
We also discovered that Grand Dad may be eligible for a Veteran's Benefit called "Aid in Attendance" because he served during WWII. This benefit, if he truly does qualify would give him $1,600 per month and it would not affect his Social Security Payment, which means that he would be bringing in around $2,700 per month. This benefit does not work with DSHS, because if he were receiving the VA money, it would make his income too high to qualify for DSHS. I will be following up with the VA this week to make sure that he does qualify. So there are still some answers we need to get before Assisted Living options can be fully discussed.
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