Times, they are a changing

We’re going to Tulsa on Saturday to move Mom down here. I actually think she’s pretty excited. I’m excited too, I’ve missed being around her, and I’m looking forward to having a little more help with Dad (I haven’t managed to get up there to see him yet this week, bad daughter).

Did ya’ll ever think that I would be the voice of reason in my family? Neither did I. Kinda sucks really, but there you go. Gotta do what you gotta do. Now that we’ve got Mom’s house up for sale, and we’re going to get her set up here, we need to make some decisions about long-term care for Dad. Unfortunately, at the rate we’re going, we’re going to have enough money to keep Dad in the nursing home for two more years at the most. Then we’re going to be right back in the situation we were in before. So Chris and I have been talking about our options:

1. Win the lottery
2. Run away to Mexico and live on the beach
3. Talk to DHS and see if there is anyway we can get Dad qualified for Medicaid
4. Buy a duplex, Mom and Dad live in half, Chris and I live in half. I quit work and take care of Dad
5. ???
6. ???
7. any other ideas welcome

Personally, I like #2 the best.

I get my accountant’s holiday in a couple more weeks, I’m planning on making an appointment to talk to someone at DHS, but the basic situation hasn’t changed. Dad has too much income every month to qualify, he doesn’t even qualify for the trust deal. But I’ll go talk to them again and see.

Right now, Chris and I are leaning toward #4. If we buy a duplex now and have it set up for the wheelchair (while we still have the money to do it), I can try to get my boss to let me work part-time from home (most of my stuff is done through email and internet anyway). Then I’ll be right next door to get Dad up and down, give him his medications, fix lunch, etc.

Bad part about this deal – if I’m a stay at home person, I’m going to be expected to have a clean house, and have all of my laundry done, and dinner on the table when my husband gets home! I’m really liking #2 right about now.

But, I would still go to school – I absolutely refuse to give that up. After all this hard work, I’m not quitting now.

Good part about this deal – Dad’s out of the nursing home, much money saved. Enough that if I can’t work part time, they could pay me a minimal amount every month for care giving so that we could pay our own bills.

Bad part about this deal – it’s going to make it even harder for Chris to get Zebra off the ground. The original plan was to work for someone else until things picked up a little, and my salary would cover most of the bills until things really picked up (two or three years down the road). If I’m not working, Chris is going to have to get a job where he gets at least 40 hours per week, and as much overtime in the summer as possible. That’s going to make it difficult for him to do the stuff for Zebra.

Also, it’ll be almost impossible for Chris and I to go anywhere for a weekend, or even overnight. Chris thinks that we can probably hire someone to come in for a weekend to give us a break. We’ll have to look into that and see.

Right now we’re just brainstorming, no decisions have been made, and we haven’t even discussed this with Mom and Dad yet. Dad’s going to say “Hell yeah, get me out of here.”

Just got off the phone with Mom. I’m pretty proud of her, she’s working on packing up, make plans, dealing with getting the utilities turned off, etc. All in all, I think it’s going to work out okay. Think positive, huh?

Still, Mexico would be nice.