Senior Living after RVing

[etexlady]

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I can't find anyone to drive me to the hospital.

You know, the medical facility's rules don't often take into account the problems they cause for the patients. I scheduled a colonoscopy and planned to have a taxi transport me to and from the surgery center. The doctor's office called the day before to confirm my appointment and questioned me about my plans. The caller said they would have to cancel the appointment if I did not bring someone with me. They were adamant about not releasing me to a taxi service saying I could be taken advantage of by the driver and then they would be liable! I was able to get a friend to transport me but she had to take off a couple of hours from her work. Ridiculous.

[Pooker]

Such a great post! Seems like all of us have hidden concerns. The available facilities are so varied from place to place. Some states or areas have very little in the way of senior services, others have a lot of choices. The senior complexes of mobilehomes, apartments, casitas, and the like are fine while you are mobile. They usually offer activities, etc. RVing may or may not be an option as your body gets cranky about climbing up and down the steps, doing the cleaning inside and out, or if you start falling a lot.

I have a 92-year-old friend who gave up her mobilehome and moved to an assisted living place she could afford. It was horrible. Folks just laid on their beds waiting to die (or the next meal whichever came first!) You had to be mobile enough to walk to the dining room. If you weren't you had to move across the parking lot to the nursing facility (which cost a lot more). A son convinced her to check out better places even though it was almost to her financial limit. She is now in a lovely place. Has her own large room with a tiny kitchenette, can take all her meals downstairs in the dining room, has laundry and cleaning service, an activities director and a nurse on call. I think the cost is around $3500 a month. Same facility also has senior apartments that are much cheaper. Still have meals included, but more on your own. There are also small cottage type quarters, but I don't know if you buy those or rent (perhaps both). In any case, these two places are only 3 miles apart, but miles & miles apart in what they offer!

I worry about the future, too. And know I shouldn't. We can ruin the present by worrying about the future. I'm just saying that this friend really believed there weren't any alternatives available here, but discovered there are many! We have to do our homework. And be prepared to change our lives a few times before we leave. That's not easy!

Pooker

[AlmostThere]

Looks like retirement states have the better facilities for the aging. That's wonderful to hear.

This is my experience with nursing homes:
In the late 70s I worked in a nursing home in Illinois and it was deplorable. The staff was underpaid, including the kitchen workers, and the food showed it. No one cared about anything! I was in housekeeping and people were tied to their wheelchairs for hours with big puddles of urine under them. They said they didn't put in catheters because of infection, easier to let them urinate on the floor. I saw people in wheelchairs being hosed down for their bath time. Many times I slipped into an empty room and cried. The final straw was while I was mopping one gentleman's room. This man was so gentle and he spent the day singing, so I started singing along with him as I mopped. The receptionist (who loved to stalk people and rat them out to the supervisor) walked by. I thought nothing of it but soon got called into the office and told I was "written up" for watching TV with one of the patients!! No way was I going to sign. I stood up, dropped the housekeeping keys on her desk and walked straight out the door. To this day I can still recall the smell in that building.

In another city in Illinois my grandfather had to be put in a nursing home. It was just as bad. I would consider a 55+ type community but a nursing home would be out.

[judi]

I'm well acquainted with co-housing, having done a study of the concept in Sweden. It's a great idea for many people, especially if one desires to live in a co-housing facility of mixed ages. I've been thinking about a concept of co-housing for seniors with varying stages of assistance/care. I think having your own personal private space is important, as well as having instant contact with friends. On paper it would seem like a retirement home with step-up care as needed, but the design concept must be very different. Really, it would be more like family living, but with friends. Of course the big bugaboo would be money, as always!

[Excel]

Judi....Thank you for all your input...As I said before... I don't want to live in my RV...it's way too small & I don't want to end up in a nursing home either... good ones are hard to find as I learned from a friend who cared for her mother... where things just 'disappeared' that she had brought for her Mom's comfort. Disgusting.... Don't know what the answer is but I know this from when we (ex & I) built our house in the Santa Cruz mountains.... Building codes (cabins, main get together house, land costs, designs & their approval, water, utilities, etc., (could go on & on).... would be beyond expensive... of course it would depend on where we built said Retirement Community, and if it ever came to fruition, it could not be free.... taxes & utilities, etc. would have to be paid. Sure, one could base payment on how much income one had.... but, all in all this would be a project for someone who knows how to make it happen... & if it even made sense to try. Another thing, whatever land purchased/built on, etc., would have to be somewhat close to health care facilities, shopping, etc. I'm all for figuring out something and adding my $$$ to the pot, I just don't know if it's possible.... Blue Marlin is looking better & better...reservations required ?????

[sharon]

The kids have already decided....summers in Arkansas and winters in SoCal. But the more I think about it the more I don't want to be extra work for them. I may look into another solution. I got LTC insurance years ago when it was offered at work. In fact when Jack passed they refunded every penny I had paid in for him because we didn't use it...6,000.00. Every year they send me a statement that shows how long the money will last if I have home health, assisted living and nursing home using average costs for my area. At one time I had thought to cancel it, but at 60.00 a month I kept it and now than I'm older I'm glad I did. I consider myself blessed to be on good terms with my children and my sisters. My sister and I took care of my grandma and then my great aunt until they passed. We didn't consider it a burden. Well, maybe sometimes with Aunt Oma, she was pretty much a PITA, but it was just attention getting stuff. I laid down the law to her and she pretty much behaved herself at my house. I couldn't do that with grandma, so my sister had to come up and do it before she went on vacation. Grandma still scared the heck out of me even tho I was in my 40's. Guess I was afraid she was gonna make me go out and cut a switch off the plum tree!

[mitch5252]

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Go, Grandma! You probably deserved, it, didn't you?

..

[Bethers]

I've been thinking about this since it was first posted, but have a more relaxed view. After going through the ordeal with my mother - where any aLTC wouldn't have really made much difference except giving us more choices in which nursing homes she could be accepted to - I've learned all things aren't equal. And I found nursing homes that cost way more that I wouldn't want to step inside to visit, and others that took Medicaid (like the one we did put my mother in) that was caring and acceptable. I say simple acceptable, because it's not a place anyone wants to be. BUT, she needed 24 hour a day care, didn't know where she was and we soon discovered after we got permission to bring her home weekends (my sister and I) that we couldn't do it all ... but we continued. I didn't sleep every other weekend from Friday morning until Monday night except cat naps when my husband was around - even with his help and my sisters and it was the same for her on the opposite weekend. Then came the weekend when the aids and I were getting her ready and getting her in my car and she (who again, didn't really know where she was) said to my sister and me "where are we going? Why do you keep taking me from my home?" Well ... she had become comfortable in that little room with the green walls in the nursing home that was "hers" and anothers. She had become familiar with it where ever her mind was. So, after that weekend, we decided to bring her home less often ... it was US we were really doing it for, not her.

I'm way off track .... but we really don't know what will happen to us and where that will lead. I don't have children and sure hope, like some of you have stated, that I can just go in my sleep, or as a friend did a couple years back (and one of my grandfathers) keel over with an aneurism and never wake up. No heroic measures. The gentleman who started the singles forum had a heart attack in his rv a couple years back and was dead when we sent someone in to find him. And believe me, having a caring group of people even on the internet, can be all you need. We knew he should have been online and he wasn't. We called the rv park he was in and had them check on him. So when I and others start asking where regular posters have dissapeared to (without warning) there's a reason - we do worry. In his case we were too late, but he died as he wanted to - enjoying his freedom in his rv - moderating on rv.net and being the founder/runner of the singles forum. He was happy to the end. If possible, that will be me - somewhere in my rv.

I completely understand those who have LTC, but it's not for me. If/when the time comes and I can't care for myself - hopefully my mind will go elsewhere as my Mom's did and I won't care too much about where I am. And hopefully I'll have the caring people around me she did. And like her, let my money run out. We did, as mentioned by Judy, I believe, prepay her funeral, which was allowed, and we could even take something like $100 a month to let her buy presents etc for folks. Most months we forgot, but we did do it others. I told my nephew all of this will be on him - and he laughed and said he believed I'd outlive him cuz I live a healthier lifestyle.

I loved the retirement village my Mom lived in but guess what? They had an extended care facility and a nursing home - and although places she was guaranteed a stay and less expensive because part of her deal - we hadn't really looked them over in advance. When the time came, as lovely as the retirement village was, the nursing home was NOT. Yikes ... we couldn't even think of letting her stay there.

One of the things I've been looking for since I started full-timing, was a place to eventually call home at least half the year. But there are still too many places I want to see and go back to and no one place has wanted me to put down roots. Maybe none will. Several have spoken to me and I would love to return ... but for long term? So that's really hard for me. As long as I'm able to get out and about, I just know I don't want to have snow, real cold, ice for more than a couple days visit - so north or even central states are out. For me. If I become housebound, that wouldn't matter.

Like CArol, I don't put too much thought into it - as I have also lived not worrying too much about my surgeries in the past, my almost death a couple times ... I just savor each morning I wake up and have another day to go on.

[Liz]

I just savor each morning I wake up and have another day to go on.

Amen, Beth. I too am no where near ready to park my RV. I plan to keep on the RVing lifestyle as long as I am able or until it's not fun anymore. Don't expect that to happen for many years. It was after my experience with my husband (his disability was due to an automobile accident) and before I started RVing that I thought about my own end of life and took out the LTC insurance. The reason I am thinking about "places" for when the time comes is that as you say, we don't know when that will be....could be sudden. I just want to know there are some options out there that would be palatable to me.

[retiredhappy]

I, as many of you, hope to go in my sleep. Someone mentions a nursing home that ONLY cost $3500 a month - OMG that's a lot more than I make in a month. As for a nursing home, I'd rather die first. If I can't have my dogs and my own bed then I won't go. Years ago I bought a book about suicide for the aged. I would rather go quickly than linger in some horrible nursing home.

[bfandlw]

Blue Marlin is really looking good !!

[rvgrammy1953]

This last summer when I was doing all that medical stuff, my sister, Barb, had mentioned that she & my sister, Becky, we're fighting over who was going to "get Lori" if something happened to Ernie..... Both have 2 story farm houses in great shape and have decided that they could "care" for me quite well... I said, "Wait a minute! I'm not that old and am in fairly good health....and I don't think I can do the snow thing anymore." I then told them we like our RVing life, and I just may continue even if I had to by myself.....At this point, I really don't know....right now we discussing getting a place in southern GA for the winter and still live in the RV in PA in the summer.....but haven't made any plans yet.....just looking into things....still have more traveling to do..... Maybe in another couple of years after my SS kicks in , then we'll re-evaluate things.....I also think that I would like to be near our son and grand-daughter later on....but not live with them....so see options all over, but not ready to decide.....I did tell Ernie about Mitch's idea of the Blue Marlin Resort....He & I are all for that....

[Azusateach]

Mitch, have you ever, really seriously, given thought to putting several pads with hook-ups on your property?

Laura

[sharon]

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Go, Grandma! You probably deserved, it, didn't you?

..

NOOOOO! I was just trying to get her to take her meds. She wouldn't. Period. So I called my sis and she came up and told grandma that if she gave me any more trouble she was putting her on the greyhound bus back to Tulsa. Yikes! Grandma stuck her tongue out at me and called me troublemaker. I sure do miss that old lady!!

[VickieP]

Mitch, have you ever, really seriously, given thought to putting several pads with hook-ups on your property?

Laura

Waaaaaay, too expensive!
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10720&hilit=Gravel

(Yes, I searched Mitch's posts for the word gravel...
usually it's the word trash, for her cooking experiments! )