This is truly disgusting! When a property changes hands, it is always tisky for anyone living in it. I live in aren't stabilized apartment in NYC, and the building has changed hands 4 times in the nearly 30 years I have lived here. None of the landlords have been good, but we had one particularly bad one who was trying to get rid of rent stabilized tenants and turn the building into a co-op. Fortunately, that failed and the current owner at least isn't trying that!
It's scary though. I am nearly 75 and have SCRIE, which is a New York program that freezes rent for t3bants over 62 if rent is more than 30% of your income. My rent is still about 50 % of my income because rent gets frozen where it was when you first applied. Still, it saves me about $200 a month at present, and I can't afford to move. Nor do I want to.
Thanks for mentioning your cats. I have 3 and can't imagine having to live without.
Thank you for your comments Cheryl. The advantage these money grubbing landlords have is most of us older than 70 don't have that much money or that much time left to mount a defense.
“It’s worth pointing out that the U.S. didn’t always have such high health care prices relative to other countries. The gap began to widen in the 1980s, as Austin Frakt, a health economist at Boston University, has pointed out. That decade also happens to be when the U.S. began moving more toward a laissez-faire economy.”
Fay, I read the same article this morning in The NY Times emailed newsletter “The Morning”. It’s sickening and disheartening. The quote “charge $5,000 a month or more and then layer on extra fees at every step. Residents’ bills and price lists from a dozen facilities offer a glimpse of the charges: $12 for a blood pressure check; $50 per injection (more for insulin); $93 a month to order medications from a pharmacy not used by the facility; $315 a month for daily help with an inhaler.” didn’t surprise me. Although the assisted living facility my mother lived at in a rural area of California for five years didn’t nickel or dime her, the two skilled nursing facilities she was forced into the last sixty days of her life did. The assisted living facility had cut back on the health and welfare checks, which likely led to the hospitalization and eventual SNF stay from which she never returned. SNFs stink (figuratively and literally) even the Medicare 5-star rated ones. The rural physicians wouldn’t send her back to the hospital when she needed to go for the simple reason the hospital and the physician get dinged by Medicare for return visits. Return visits over a short period of time is indicative of poor care and early discharge. In California, a physician is allowed to be the sole attending doctor for as many SNF they feel comfortable handling and a patient’s personal physician is not allowed to provide care in a SNF with which they’re not affiliated. Mom made it to almost 97, drove locally until we took the car keys away at 91 (a pickup with a clutch!).
You write and have clear thinking for someone your age, much better than at least one person more than a dozen years younger running for president. If you get bored and need a job, you are more than qualified to run for office.
Thank you, Michael. Your Mom must have been a remarkable woman. My main complaint with SNFs was their habit of drugging the hell out of patients to keep them quiet, I had a friend much younger than me in one for awhile, they had her so drugged she didn't know who she was, I called her adult children and they got her our of there. I voluntarily quit driving in 2017 (age 84) I have neuropathy in both legs and consider myself an unsafe driver. I used Uber and Lyft for the next 7 years, the company paid for it anyway and it actually saved them money over rentals. Thanks for thinking I could run for office, but I am happily retired and even my cats wouldn't vote for me - I'm too damned opinionated (LOL)
I'm so sorry. I don't understand how they get away with that behavior, stuffing an elderly patient full of opioids just to keep them docile should be medical malpractice.
There’s no oversight. All a nursing aid has to do is place a note in the file that patient is refusing this or that or being combative (their opinion), usually a result of the staff doing something without explanation to the patient, and the Charge Nurse RN has a standing order permitting use of an opioid or haldol. The attending physician signs off after the fact. Common procedure. Both my brother and wife have extensive medical backgrounds and her denied access to her charts. When they finally saw them, little was documented other than it had been given. Quantity and times not shown.
Right, and if that were a legitimate hospital they would be denied accreditation and fined. There are also fines for administering any addictive drug without a prescription, but with enough money offered some regulators will look the other way. I am very thankful that I do not have dementia or alzheimers, I feel so sorry for those of my fellow residents who do have these conditions.
Fay, you have been amazing all of your life, if anyone can find a way to get some attention for this I know you can. The media should pick up on something like this, but its a shame the politicians who supposedly are there to help don't really give a squat about anything unless they can derive some payment from it.
"“Oh, my, that’s so prutty,” came a voice over my right shoulder. It had been prefaced by an audible, sharp intake of breath. It was the kind of utterance that comes when the eyes behold something of exquisite, unexpected beauty. It’s involuntary and it’s the verbal equivalent of getting down on one’s knees and thanking God.
"It was the summer of 1984. The accent was Texan and the voice belonged to Mrs Earline Fry. And it wafted over my right shoulder because I was sitting two feet, her two feet, below her in the crew seat of a touring coach. I was her group’s travel guide, and Earline was on her first ever trip outside the United States. That’s where she had entered the world 92 years previously, at a time when the century still started with an 18.
"The view that had invoked this expression of wonderment was not some awe-inspiring panorama of the River Rhine, the mechanical majesty of the Eiffel Tower or the baronial pile of some ancient English castle. No, it was a French country road in the southern Jura. And what had embellished it to the point of evoking her appreciation was window-boxes brim-full of hanging geraniums.
"The route from Dijon to Lucerne was very familiar to me, and early on in my guiding career, a colleague had given me the tip for the run over to Switzerland, of slowing to observe Vauban’s magnificent fortress at Belfort and then exiting the motorway to snuck down the D419 via Bessoncourt, Foussemagne, cross the Rhône-Rhine Canal (three times) to Dannemarie, and proceed on to where France starts to look like Switzerland, both landscape-wise and name-wise: Altkirch, Schwoben, Ranspach-le-bas and Hésingue before finally piercing Switzerland at Saint-Louis. It saves you doing a dog-leg on the A36/A35 motorways around Mulhouse and, even if it’s not a fast road, boy, as Earline aptly put it, it is so prutty.
"In the distance, the Jura mountains lure you on to Switzerland, and meanwhile the road alternates between sharp bends and straight rods of tarmac. Eventually, we get to cross into la Suisse at a quiet little country douane, just a few minutes away from the great motorway border post at Basel. Meet me in Saint-Louis, Louis.
"Not every tour guide would do the D419 through Altkirch and, while it was more work for the drivers, I never once had one who denied the road was far prettier than the motorway around Mulhouse.
"Earline would probably have been out of this world before I quit my job in tourism. But, on the Paris-Lucerne run, we would do lunch in Dijon or Beaune, and I always thereafter took the shortcut across the D419, precisely because of Earline. Because she’d so loved the run down that road. Because she’d been entranced, and, I felt, others might like to be entranced, as she was, on her only trip ever to Europe, and her only trip ever outside the US. At 92 years of age.
"She was one of the best tourists I ever guided, one of the most appreciative, and thankful. Because she knew she had this one chance to see everything, and I knew I had this one chance to show it to her."
What a lovely time Earline had, and so fortunate to have a younger person who cared enough to show it to her. Thank you Graham for relating this for us.
I'm grateful for the years I had with my second husband who loved to travel so, every summer we planned a vacation somewhere special. After he died, most of my trips were business, but I still enjoyed my time in almost every State.
I have a very long response but have to deal with a couple of things right this minute. I'LL BE BACK, just like Ahnold!
Back. All fires out for the moment.
Fay, it's appalling what happens. I have a friend who had to put his sister in a home care facility and she's had MS her entire life. No one in the family was still capable of caring for her to the degree she now needs (in her late 60's). This home was the best they could find, and she still had meals missed or FORCED on her, still had abusive carers and still had no real medicine attention unless a family member was there three or four times a week.
Since their mom died two years ago, it's been a real trick keeping her in any home, and we all think it's because she crossed an age barrier which indicates she's not worth the trouble. It's so apparent.
I find, myself, in my "notes" from doctors after visits, that they randomly are initiating diseases they THINK I MIGHT DEVELOP and noting it with a notation that the funding corporations have devised to indicate to them the patients to taper off on approving for more meds because of their age. I have no curable diseases, and after having some of them long enough there is a likelihood that I'll be developing something else, based on history across time by medical associations. It's like being on trial and my atty is appointed by a corporation that owns the jail.
Some days it's all I can do not to be rage-filled. At no time have I been aware of all this crap going on literally on my actual record. I have an appointment with this doctor today, and it's going to be a lot longer than the usual 7 minutes he's allotted. I doubt he'll dump me in a video call, even though in the office he's ALMOST never looked me in the eye.
It's enough to make you wish you were a retired movie monster and could just stomp on the entire building where these weasels make this crap up.
Meanwhile, back at WinterIsComing, it's snowing so lightly outside and not sticking at all, and I love the change of seasons.
Your voice is needed Fay and your voice is valuable. Thank you. “There must be a beginning of every great matter, but it is the continuing unto the end, until it be thoroughly finished, that yields the true glory.” -Sir Francis Drake
It's heart-wrenching. DOROT in NY deals with these difficult problems and helps untold #s of people. The subject is very, very complicated. The solutions are usually unique to individuals. However, don't expect sensitivity from the press, the politicians, gov't leaders, or from the wealthy who are apoplectic about gov't funding for people who need the money or for resources for those people. They got theirs. End of story. IMHO.
I agree JBR, there's also the attitude we (people in my age bracket) are going to die soon anyway so who cares. They're right of course, but we'd rather not die homeless (:-)
Didn't know if I should like this. But Thanks for sharing your feelings. I suppose if you are going to be 91 in April, you are one month younger than my mother would have been had she not died of covid. My father was born in 31 and had lied and joined the new air force branch at 15 who I guess just needed bodies because from my understanding, some of the officers transferred from the army air corp, and some enlisted and nco's were promoted by transferring they were so short on bodies they were recuiting people my father's age, they would just tell the cruit to say he was old .enough. That's what he told me at any rate. He had just turned 17 when I was born, my mother was not yet 15. Although my father was only an enlisted man, somehow he returned from Korea with a college degree, and began working on a master's. When she got pregnant her parents had cast her out and she had taken refuge with another family. But my mother had not hurt from my father. I think she was about seven months along when the people who had taken her in had located my father's parents in a small town some forty or fifty miles away. When my grandfather was informed he told my mother to wait in his house and he drove to Chanute Air Base in Illinois. I'm still not exactly clear where that is in Illinois. What my grandfather told me is that my father tried to say he couldn't marry my mother until he got permission and the paperwork to authorize it might take several months. That wasn't good enough for my grandfather, he first found a night duty clerk and then forced him to call the base commandant (,more than likely the exec.) my grandfather said he was bringing my mother the next day and they's better have the paperwork ready. I guess you remember those days of forced "shotgun" marriages. The commandment, or whoever had my father called into his office and ordered him to return to Indiana and marry my mother and they would locate an off-post apt and his pay would be deducted. So I guess he returned with my grandfather and they got back around one on the morning, a justice of the peace was awakened and then my grandfather drove them back to the Chanute.. But a blizzard had begun and it snowed heavily that morning and it took nearly twenty-fours as he forced the vehicle over country roads in those pre freeway two lane roads, I wasn't due for a couple of months, but she went into labor and then passed out. The base only had a two-bed hospital but there I was born. But my mother remained in a coma and I believe she was transported to a city hospital probably Chicago. So I was taken back to my grandfather's house and when my mother returned to live with them and go to high school.
And now some want us to return to those good old days. I'm going to try to survive to the good new days if our justice system holds against our political system. It is my prayer at any rate (not to any god, their all human manifestations any way .
Take care Ms. Fay, there must still be life in our old frames. Somehow I have a silly notion we are needed right now even though we may be sometimes seemingly disregarded, I believe we are needed . I believe "old" Joe Biden is needed most of all. I think he is correct, age has give him wisdom and he's a far better leader than he would have been when he was younger.. I pray for him to no god as well, he seems more frail every day. You know I do not believe "our" democracy is sufficiently democratic , but insufficiently democratic gives an opportunity for it to become more democratic. But much suffering and many deaths might occur before we could ever have another to rebuild any new democracy.were to fall to Trump's vision for our future.
Thank you, Ken, life must have been difficult for your mother. Actually my birthday is early March. I take it you were one of the 'baby boomers' 1946 to earl;y '50's. Do not Grow Old was intended as a humorous piece - aside from suicide, we don't really have a choice in when we die.
Suicide is a choice for persons with a terminal painful illness with no treatment available. Unfortunately it is also a choice made by people with mental illness that could be treated and possibly cured if it weren't so damned expensive. I have been a satisfied member of Kaiser Permanente Healthcare Preventive Maintenance since 1965, but they only allow 12 treatments a year for individualized mental health. No restrictions on other critical illnesses like cancer, heart disease, diabetes.
Fay, I was directed to your newsletter by HulitC. Seems to me that you paid for the services promised and they are not being delivered. This is elder abuse!! I would notify the county, your congresspersons, and the state health departments. Are you in California?
Yes, Marlene I am in California (Sacramento area) and apparently, since I personally am not affected by the lack of services there is nothing Adult Protective Services, California Disability Legal Services or any of the seven attorneys I contacted could do. If those in poorer physical and mental health don't request services for themselves - tough patooties, I've offered to help individuals apply but to no avail, for some reason they are too scared to ask for help for themselves. I did get some help for my neighbor, but that was it. There is a very large crack in the law between Independent Living and Assisted Living. Evidently, it is accepted by the Legislature that everyone in Independent is like me, can feed themselves, shower, dress, and take their own medications. What they fail to understand is how expensive Assisted Living and more so Skilled Nursing Facilities are. So, many close relatives drop their elderly parents and grandparents into Independent Living, which, even when operating with all the promised amenities given, are not set up for those with mental impairments. The majority of residents here are younger than me but in much worse condition. My knees and lumbar region may not work, but with the help of an upright walker I do fine. My brain is not as sharp as it was five years ago, but it still works, if I forget a word now and then I can look it up on line (grateful for my computer) The only two services I needed were wellness checks (living or dead) and 24/7 desk service - this affects me because, since I don't drive, I rely on delivery, but nothing can be delivered if the front door is locked. California Department of Health and Human Services is supposed to have inspectors for all the Assisted Living and Skilled Nursing Facilities in the State, but they are so understaffed that we're lucky if these places are inspected once every two or three years. If the facility is notified of a pending inspection, they present as perfect. But read the number of responses to this post regarding the drugging of patients to assure their docility. Nothing hits the news unless there are a number of deaths in a specific facility or physical or sexual abuse. Personally, I think every time one finds a relative is being drugged it should be reported with a demand to know the findings. Friends are of no value as you have to be a close relative to be listened to.
I am in CA too, in the East Bay. You’re a pretty sharp cookie, Fay. I understand everything you’ve told me. I used to work with disabled students and knew a few who were housed by the ILR (Independent Living Resource) which really helped them. If seems nationwide, Assisted Living facilities truly are failing unless one is an elite one. I hate it. All of us are getting older and the likelihood of us ending up in these places is pretty dang high.
So you’re in Newsom’s home. Who is your congress person? Is this someone you can contact and get their office to respond?
Hi Marlene, I am in Congressional District 6, Dr. Ami Bera (D) is my Representative in the House of Representatives. I worked on three of his campaigns and yes he does respond to emails. As I said though, Independent Senior Residential is not licensed and therefor has no rules or regulations other than those applying to ordinary lease/rentals. Believe me, I spent 7 weeks phoning every agency I thought might be helpful to no avail. Except for a slap on the wrist fine for failure to provide a thirty day notice a landlord can do anything he/she wants - except discriminate on the bases of race, religion, gender; in other words all the usual culprits.
Ah, the delights of capitalism. We’re all just cannon fodder. Let them eat cake. Unions & socialists tried working for group betterment, but even that got co opted by the greedy (inside & outside)
Hedge funds & private equity exist to find ways to extract cash from a business until they’ve sucked it dry.
I’m only 65. I’ll probably stay in my house until it falls down around me.
Good luck. I’m with you in spirit. (& I have a 67 year old sister in an environment that might follow your glide path. I’m worried for her)
This is truly disgusting! When a property changes hands, it is always tisky for anyone living in it. I live in aren't stabilized apartment in NYC, and the building has changed hands 4 times in the nearly 30 years I have lived here. None of the landlords have been good, but we had one particularly bad one who was trying to get rid of rent stabilized tenants and turn the building into a co-op. Fortunately, that failed and the current owner at least isn't trying that!
It's scary though. I am nearly 75 and have SCRIE, which is a New York program that freezes rent for t3bants over 62 if rent is more than 30% of your income. My rent is still about 50 % of my income because rent gets frozen where it was when you first applied. Still, it saves me about $200 a month at present, and I can't afford to move. Nor do I want to.
Thanks for mentioning your cats. I have 3 and can't imagine having to live without.
Thank you for your comments Cheryl. The advantage these money grubbing landlords have is most of us older than 70 don't have that much money or that much time left to mount a defense.
From that same NY Times article:
“It’s worth pointing out that the U.S. didn’t always have such high health care prices relative to other countries. The gap began to widen in the 1980s, as Austin Frakt, a health economist at Boston University, has pointed out. That decade also happens to be when the U.S. began moving more toward a laissez-faire economy.”
Reaganomics strikes again.
Fay, I read the same article this morning in The NY Times emailed newsletter “The Morning”. It’s sickening and disheartening. The quote “charge $5,000 a month or more and then layer on extra fees at every step. Residents’ bills and price lists from a dozen facilities offer a glimpse of the charges: $12 for a blood pressure check; $50 per injection (more for insulin); $93 a month to order medications from a pharmacy not used by the facility; $315 a month for daily help with an inhaler.” didn’t surprise me. Although the assisted living facility my mother lived at in a rural area of California for five years didn’t nickel or dime her, the two skilled nursing facilities she was forced into the last sixty days of her life did. The assisted living facility had cut back on the health and welfare checks, which likely led to the hospitalization and eventual SNF stay from which she never returned. SNFs stink (figuratively and literally) even the Medicare 5-star rated ones. The rural physicians wouldn’t send her back to the hospital when she needed to go for the simple reason the hospital and the physician get dinged by Medicare for return visits. Return visits over a short period of time is indicative of poor care and early discharge. In California, a physician is allowed to be the sole attending doctor for as many SNF they feel comfortable handling and a patient’s personal physician is not allowed to provide care in a SNF with which they’re not affiliated. Mom made it to almost 97, drove locally until we took the car keys away at 91 (a pickup with a clutch!).
You write and have clear thinking for someone your age, much better than at least one person more than a dozen years younger running for president. If you get bored and need a job, you are more than qualified to run for office.
Thank you, Michael. Your Mom must have been a remarkable woman. My main complaint with SNFs was their habit of drugging the hell out of patients to keep them quiet, I had a friend much younger than me in one for awhile, they had her so drugged she didn't know who she was, I called her adult children and they got her our of there. I voluntarily quit driving in 2017 (age 84) I have neuropathy in both legs and consider myself an unsafe driver. I used Uber and Lyft for the next 7 years, the company paid for it anyway and it actually saved them money over rentals. Thanks for thinking I could run for office, but I am happily retired and even my cats wouldn't vote for me - I'm too damned opinionated (LOL)
Drugging is why we moved her from SNF 1 to SNF 2. It’s a huge problem.
I'm so sorry. I don't understand how they get away with that behavior, stuffing an elderly patient full of opioids just to keep them docile should be medical malpractice.
There’s no oversight. All a nursing aid has to do is place a note in the file that patient is refusing this or that or being combative (their opinion), usually a result of the staff doing something without explanation to the patient, and the Charge Nurse RN has a standing order permitting use of an opioid or haldol. The attending physician signs off after the fact. Common procedure. Both my brother and wife have extensive medical backgrounds and her denied access to her charts. When they finally saw them, little was documented other than it had been given. Quantity and times not shown.
Right, and if that were a legitimate hospital they would be denied accreditation and fined. There are also fines for administering any addictive drug without a prescription, but with enough money offered some regulators will look the other way. I am very thankful that I do not have dementia or alzheimers, I feel so sorry for those of my fellow residents who do have these conditions.
Fay, you have been amazing all of your life, if anyone can find a way to get some attention for this I know you can. The media should pick up on something like this, but its a shame the politicians who supposedly are there to help don't really give a squat about anything unless they can derive some payment from it.
Big Pharma ads are the biggest revenue stream of television news. The media will never bite the hand that feeds it.
This, now, plus a comment in another post about "travel" was the reason I wrote this: https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/a-slow-shortcut-to-saint-louis. The offer still stands, and if you're not inclined to click, here's the relevant portion:
"“Oh, my, that’s so prutty,” came a voice over my right shoulder. It had been prefaced by an audible, sharp intake of breath. It was the kind of utterance that comes when the eyes behold something of exquisite, unexpected beauty. It’s involuntary and it’s the verbal equivalent of getting down on one’s knees and thanking God.
"It was the summer of 1984. The accent was Texan and the voice belonged to Mrs Earline Fry. And it wafted over my right shoulder because I was sitting two feet, her two feet, below her in the crew seat of a touring coach. I was her group’s travel guide, and Earline was on her first ever trip outside the United States. That’s where she had entered the world 92 years previously, at a time when the century still started with an 18.
"The view that had invoked this expression of wonderment was not some awe-inspiring panorama of the River Rhine, the mechanical majesty of the Eiffel Tower or the baronial pile of some ancient English castle. No, it was a French country road in the southern Jura. And what had embellished it to the point of evoking her appreciation was window-boxes brim-full of hanging geraniums.
"The route from Dijon to Lucerne was very familiar to me, and early on in my guiding career, a colleague had given me the tip for the run over to Switzerland, of slowing to observe Vauban’s magnificent fortress at Belfort and then exiting the motorway to snuck down the D419 via Bessoncourt, Foussemagne, cross the Rhône-Rhine Canal (three times) to Dannemarie, and proceed on to where France starts to look like Switzerland, both landscape-wise and name-wise: Altkirch, Schwoben, Ranspach-le-bas and Hésingue before finally piercing Switzerland at Saint-Louis. It saves you doing a dog-leg on the A36/A35 motorways around Mulhouse and, even if it’s not a fast road, boy, as Earline aptly put it, it is so prutty.
"In the distance, the Jura mountains lure you on to Switzerland, and meanwhile the road alternates between sharp bends and straight rods of tarmac. Eventually, we get to cross into la Suisse at a quiet little country douane, just a few minutes away from the great motorway border post at Basel. Meet me in Saint-Louis, Louis.
"Not every tour guide would do the D419 through Altkirch and, while it was more work for the drivers, I never once had one who denied the road was far prettier than the motorway around Mulhouse.
"Earline would probably have been out of this world before I quit my job in tourism. But, on the Paris-Lucerne run, we would do lunch in Dijon or Beaune, and I always thereafter took the shortcut across the D419, precisely because of Earline. Because she’d so loved the run down that road. Because she’d been entranced, and, I felt, others might like to be entranced, as she was, on her only trip ever to Europe, and her only trip ever outside the US. At 92 years of age.
"She was one of the best tourists I ever guided, one of the most appreciative, and thankful. Because she knew she had this one chance to see everything, and I knew I had this one chance to show it to her."
What a lovely time Earline had, and so fortunate to have a younger person who cared enough to show it to her. Thank you Graham for relating this for us.
I'm grateful for the years I had with my second husband who loved to travel so, every summer we planned a vacation somewhere special. After he died, most of my trips were business, but I still enjoyed my time in almost every State.
I have a very long response but have to deal with a couple of things right this minute. I'LL BE BACK, just like Ahnold!
Back. All fires out for the moment.
Fay, it's appalling what happens. I have a friend who had to put his sister in a home care facility and she's had MS her entire life. No one in the family was still capable of caring for her to the degree she now needs (in her late 60's). This home was the best they could find, and she still had meals missed or FORCED on her, still had abusive carers and still had no real medicine attention unless a family member was there three or four times a week.
Since their mom died two years ago, it's been a real trick keeping her in any home, and we all think it's because she crossed an age barrier which indicates she's not worth the trouble. It's so apparent.
I find, myself, in my "notes" from doctors after visits, that they randomly are initiating diseases they THINK I MIGHT DEVELOP and noting it with a notation that the funding corporations have devised to indicate to them the patients to taper off on approving for more meds because of their age. I have no curable diseases, and after having some of them long enough there is a likelihood that I'll be developing something else, based on history across time by medical associations. It's like being on trial and my atty is appointed by a corporation that owns the jail.
Some days it's all I can do not to be rage-filled. At no time have I been aware of all this crap going on literally on my actual record. I have an appointment with this doctor today, and it's going to be a lot longer than the usual 7 minutes he's allotted. I doubt he'll dump me in a video call, even though in the office he's ALMOST never looked me in the eye.
It's enough to make you wish you were a retired movie monster and could just stomp on the entire building where these weasels make this crap up.
Meanwhile, back at WinterIsComing, it's snowing so lightly outside and not sticking at all, and I love the change of seasons.
Your voice is needed Fay and your voice is valuable. Thank you. “There must be a beginning of every great matter, but it is the continuing unto the end, until it be thoroughly finished, that yields the true glory.” -Sir Francis Drake
It's heart-wrenching. DOROT in NY deals with these difficult problems and helps untold #s of people. The subject is very, very complicated. The solutions are usually unique to individuals. However, don't expect sensitivity from the press, the politicians, gov't leaders, or from the wealthy who are apoplectic about gov't funding for people who need the money or for resources for those people. They got theirs. End of story. IMHO.
I agree JBR, there's also the attitude we (people in my age bracket) are going to die soon anyway so who cares. They're right of course, but we'd rather not die homeless (:-)
WHAT a rip off! I’ve more to say, but not now—meeting tonight. Mas tarde!
Didn't know if I should like this. But Thanks for sharing your feelings. I suppose if you are going to be 91 in April, you are one month younger than my mother would have been had she not died of covid. My father was born in 31 and had lied and joined the new air force branch at 15 who I guess just needed bodies because from my understanding, some of the officers transferred from the army air corp, and some enlisted and nco's were promoted by transferring they were so short on bodies they were recuiting people my father's age, they would just tell the cruit to say he was old .enough. That's what he told me at any rate. He had just turned 17 when I was born, my mother was not yet 15. Although my father was only an enlisted man, somehow he returned from Korea with a college degree, and began working on a master's. When she got pregnant her parents had cast her out and she had taken refuge with another family. But my mother had not hurt from my father. I think she was about seven months along when the people who had taken her in had located my father's parents in a small town some forty or fifty miles away. When my grandfather was informed he told my mother to wait in his house and he drove to Chanute Air Base in Illinois. I'm still not exactly clear where that is in Illinois. What my grandfather told me is that my father tried to say he couldn't marry my mother until he got permission and the paperwork to authorize it might take several months. That wasn't good enough for my grandfather, he first found a night duty clerk and then forced him to call the base commandant (,more than likely the exec.) my grandfather said he was bringing my mother the next day and they's better have the paperwork ready. I guess you remember those days of forced "shotgun" marriages. The commandment, or whoever had my father called into his office and ordered him to return to Indiana and marry my mother and they would locate an off-post apt and his pay would be deducted. So I guess he returned with my grandfather and they got back around one on the morning, a justice of the peace was awakened and then my grandfather drove them back to the Chanute.. But a blizzard had begun and it snowed heavily that morning and it took nearly twenty-fours as he forced the vehicle over country roads in those pre freeway two lane roads, I wasn't due for a couple of months, but she went into labor and then passed out. The base only had a two-bed hospital but there I was born. But my mother remained in a coma and I believe she was transported to a city hospital probably Chicago. So I was taken back to my grandfather's house and when my mother returned to live with them and go to high school.
And now some want us to return to those good old days. I'm going to try to survive to the good new days if our justice system holds against our political system. It is my prayer at any rate (not to any god, their all human manifestations any way .
Take care Ms. Fay, there must still be life in our old frames. Somehow I have a silly notion we are needed right now even though we may be sometimes seemingly disregarded, I believe we are needed . I believe "old" Joe Biden is needed most of all. I think he is correct, age has give him wisdom and he's a far better leader than he would have been when he was younger.. I pray for him to no god as well, he seems more frail every day. You know I do not believe "our" democracy is sufficiently democratic , but insufficiently democratic gives an opportunity for it to become more democratic. But much suffering and many deaths might occur before we could ever have another to rebuild any new democracy.were to fall to Trump's vision for our future.
Thank you, Ken, life must have been difficult for your mother. Actually my birthday is early March. I take it you were one of the 'baby boomers' 1946 to earl;y '50's. Do not Grow Old was intended as a humorous piece - aside from suicide, we don't really have a choice in when we die.
true. but i'm not sure suicide is really a choice.
Suicide is a choice for persons with a terminal painful illness with no treatment available. Unfortunately it is also a choice made by people with mental illness that could be treated and possibly cured if it weren't so damned expensive. I have been a satisfied member of Kaiser Permanente Healthcare Preventive Maintenance since 1965, but they only allow 12 treatments a year for individualized mental health. No restrictions on other critical illnesses like cancer, heart disease, diabetes.
Fay, I was directed to your newsletter by HulitC. Seems to me that you paid for the services promised and they are not being delivered. This is elder abuse!! I would notify the county, your congresspersons, and the state health departments. Are you in California?
Yes, Marlene I am in California (Sacramento area) and apparently, since I personally am not affected by the lack of services there is nothing Adult Protective Services, California Disability Legal Services or any of the seven attorneys I contacted could do. If those in poorer physical and mental health don't request services for themselves - tough patooties, I've offered to help individuals apply but to no avail, for some reason they are too scared to ask for help for themselves. I did get some help for my neighbor, but that was it. There is a very large crack in the law between Independent Living and Assisted Living. Evidently, it is accepted by the Legislature that everyone in Independent is like me, can feed themselves, shower, dress, and take their own medications. What they fail to understand is how expensive Assisted Living and more so Skilled Nursing Facilities are. So, many close relatives drop their elderly parents and grandparents into Independent Living, which, even when operating with all the promised amenities given, are not set up for those with mental impairments. The majority of residents here are younger than me but in much worse condition. My knees and lumbar region may not work, but with the help of an upright walker I do fine. My brain is not as sharp as it was five years ago, but it still works, if I forget a word now and then I can look it up on line (grateful for my computer) The only two services I needed were wellness checks (living or dead) and 24/7 desk service - this affects me because, since I don't drive, I rely on delivery, but nothing can be delivered if the front door is locked. California Department of Health and Human Services is supposed to have inspectors for all the Assisted Living and Skilled Nursing Facilities in the State, but they are so understaffed that we're lucky if these places are inspected once every two or three years. If the facility is notified of a pending inspection, they present as perfect. But read the number of responses to this post regarding the drugging of patients to assure their docility. Nothing hits the news unless there are a number of deaths in a specific facility or physical or sexual abuse. Personally, I think every time one finds a relative is being drugged it should be reported with a demand to know the findings. Friends are of no value as you have to be a close relative to be listened to.
I am in CA too, in the East Bay. You’re a pretty sharp cookie, Fay. I understand everything you’ve told me. I used to work with disabled students and knew a few who were housed by the ILR (Independent Living Resource) which really helped them. If seems nationwide, Assisted Living facilities truly are failing unless one is an elite one. I hate it. All of us are getting older and the likelihood of us ending up in these places is pretty dang high.
So you’re in Newsom’s home. Who is your congress person? Is this someone you can contact and get their office to respond?
Hi Marlene, I am in Congressional District 6, Dr. Ami Bera (D) is my Representative in the House of Representatives. I worked on three of his campaigns and yes he does respond to emails. As I said though, Independent Senior Residential is not licensed and therefor has no rules or regulations other than those applying to ordinary lease/rentals. Believe me, I spent 7 weeks phoning every agency I thought might be helpful to no avail. Except for a slap on the wrist fine for failure to provide a thirty day notice a landlord can do anything he/she wants - except discriminate on the bases of race, religion, gender; in other words all the usual culprits.
Good Grief!! Bureaucracy at its best. UGH! There must be some way to cut through all of the BS.
I haven't given up hope and I keep trying. But it is discouraging (:-)
Ah, the delights of capitalism. We’re all just cannon fodder. Let them eat cake. Unions & socialists tried working for group betterment, but even that got co opted by the greedy (inside & outside)
Hedge funds & private equity exist to find ways to extract cash from a business until they’ve sucked it dry.
I’m only 65. I’ll probably stay in my house until it falls down around me.
Good luck. I’m with you in spirit. (& I have a 67 year old sister in an environment that might follow your glide path. I’m worried for her)
The inflationary spiral is affecting everyone.
Also, once upon a time grandparents lived with a family member.
You cannot pay someone to care.
I hope things get better for us but i don't see a light at the end of this tunnel yet.