Tag: manage

When More Translates to More Options for Failure

holeinnetI visit my mom in her community two to three times a week. There is usually one medical or care issue to follow-up on or navigate. We’ve been monitoring some minor issues with a focus on keeping mom as happy and comfortable as we can. I was planning on a social visit with mom today but arrive to find that her personal care assistant (PCA) is no where in sight. Mom is sitting in the living room staring at a soap opera on television when I arrive. She is dressed, but her hair hasn’t been combed yet and it’s 1 P.M. I brush her hair and take her into the community room to join in the afternoon activity. After joining in the games, I realize it’s 2:30 and I am concerned that I haven’t heard from her regular PCA and send her a text. She lets me know she’s home with a sick son, and apologizes for not texting me.

It’s not the job of the PCA to tell me mom doesn’t have an assistant today. I call the agency to understand why no one has communicated with me. Excuses are made, but I’m just mad. In addition to having mom in a community dedicated to memory care, we pay for the extra assistant to ensure mom is dressed in the manner she prefers, cared for, and happy. Now it just feels like I have more people to follow-up with to find out why no one seems to be on top of mom’s needs right now.

I follow-up with the community and learn that the agency called the head nurse, but none of the staff on my mom’s hallway knew. I’m not sure I’m okay with them parking her in front of a soap opera. I think they should have gotten mom to the activity room. I check my feelings and let the staff know that they should include mom in the activities.

While I love the concept of “many hands make light work,” today it feels like because so many are involved, no one seems to feel responsible.

Mom was fine. She’s safe, fed, and doesn’t complain. It’s my job to be her advocate and I wonder if this has happened before and I never knew about it. It makes me feel like I’m failing in my duties.

My hope was that more resources would help build a stronger safety net and today it feels like I have one with more places for failure. Disappointed. 

Taming the Internet: Keeping Track of Online Passcodes

The average adult has more than 28 online accounts and passcodes to manage. Most of us keep this in our head, on our mobile phone, under the keyboard … which does not make it a fool-proof system for you to manage. What many of us don’t know is what would happen to our online accounts and assets if we were incapacitated as well as when we pass away. Even those with estate plans are surprised to learn of the limitations.

As the primary adult caregiver for my parents, my Dad helped me set up online access to several of their accounts so I could help them. It made my job managing their money and paying bills infinitely easier. As a backup, I created a copy of the list for my siblings. I have also shared the location of my list with my loved ones where they can find it should they ever need to step in and act on my behalf.

My goal this year is to help 250,000 individuals take at least one step toward getting their information more organized. To do that, I’m giving away a free excerpt from MemoryBanc: Your Workbook for Organizing Life, which is available from a variety of online and retail bookstores.

tamingtheinternetMemoryBanc is an award-winning system to manage your documents, accounts and assets, and you can download the chapter covering your online assets “Taming the Internet: Keeping Track of Online Passcodes” that includes:

  • a worksheet for documenting your important usernames and passcodes
  • a worksheet for recording your online security questions and answers
  • information on why documenting this information is important for you and your loved ones

Click here to download this free chapter and get started now. Shared.

 

 

Taming the Internet: Keeping Track of Online Passcodes

The average adult has more than 28 online accounts and passcodes to manage. Most of us keep this in our head, on our mobile phone, under the keyboard … which does not make it a fool-proof system for you to manage. What many of us don’t know is what would happen to our online accounts and assets if we were incapacitated as well as when we pass away. Even those with estate plans are surprised to learn of the limitations.

To get take control of your online accounts and assets, you can download a free excerpt from MemoryBanc: Your Workbook for Organizing Life, which is available from a variety of online and retail bookstores.

tamingtheinternetMemoryBanc is an award-winning system to manage your documents, accounts and assets, and you can download the chapter covering your online assets “Taming the Internet: Keeping Track of Online Passcodes”  that includes:

  • a worksheet for documenting your important usernames and passcodes
  • a worksheet for recording your online security questions and answers
  • information on why documenting this information is important for you and your loved ones

Click here to download this free chapter and get started now.

Hey, I know you.

pillcupI get asked several times a week, and even sometimes several times a day, how my Mom is doing. Caring for my parents is part of my life story.

I am struggling with coming up with a positive answer when I am asked. For my longtime readers, you know that I work to find the positive and usually a laugh in the midst of this phase of my life. It’s getting harder. I wonder if it’s because I’m more attuned to the struggles of dementia. Both for the person with the disease and those around them. Most people just don’t understand the disease and admittedly, it took me a while to figure out how to engage, manage, survive and navigate my visits and care-giving tactics.

My Mom is fading away. Many days now I find her in the activity room. I’m glad the community created a program to engage my Mom and she enjoys it in the moment. I recently noticed that she doesn’t use my name when I arrive but looks at me, smiles and says “Hey, I know you.” I wonder if she remembers my name.

I enjoy our visits. I don’t have to think how to manage around her paranoia. She follows my lead and often asks what to do. On my last trip we cleaned out some drawers and I was able to return about 2,000 trash bags to the community that she had been hoarding. When I handed over the bag, the community staffer smiled at me and asked if I was going to try to get the pill cups on my next visit. My Mom is enamored with those small cups. For another day. Relished. 

POST SCRIPT

In reviewing my blog, I found I had written this same header back in February, 2012. I also did a version on a story my brother shared with me when he visited in May, 2012.  It reminds me how long this has been going on as well as how quickly I have forgotten so much that has transpired before this point. Survived.

Making Good Decisions When Managing Someone Else’s Money

Many of us who are caregivers, are also managing finances and bill payments. I was the child who lived the closest to Mommanagingsomeoneelsesmoney and Dad when their health started to fail, and although my siblings wanted to help, they were separated by too many miles to realistically play an active role in paying our parents’ bills, acting as their medical advocates or managing their household. Those responsibilities naturally fell to me, and the amount of information I needed to manage quickly became overwhelming when it was added to all that I was already doing for my family.

Desperation is the mother of invention, and I decided to create an organizational binder that would help me collect and catalog my parents’ information. I created a one-stop-shop reference resource that helped me save time finding information. Perhaps most important, it allowed me to easily hand over all of our parents’ information—in the form of one, easily transportable book—when a sibling came to town to provide some much-needed caregiving relief. The system launched MemoryBanc.

In addition to managing a lot of new information, I ran into several unexpected roadblocks along the way: During my parents estate planning process, I was given and held their Durable Power of Attorney (DPOA). However,  despite the validity of the DPOA,  it took many phone calls and in some cases several months for the DPOA to be acknowledged and processed.  When some financial services firms refused to accept it, my father and I set up online access to the accounts so I could help them by directly acting on my parents behalf online.

In talking with friends about my experiences, I also realized that planning for future, life-changing events is something all of us seem to recognize as being important, but it’s one of the first things we put on the back burner. There are a million excuses, and I’ve lived many of them. But we need to change our attitude that doing it “later” is okay:  According to the 2011 Disability Insurance Statistics Bank: JHA Disability Fact Book, “43 percent of all people age 40 will have a long-term disability event prior to age 65.”

For these reasons, I strongly urge every adult to work with a lawyer to create a Durable Power of Attorney. It should only cost a few hundred dollars.

If you are named as the fiduciary in a DPOA, you should download the free publication called “Managing Someone Else’s Money“. It includes great recommendations as well as good information on steps to take if your run into a roadblock using a valid DPOA. Recommended.  

 

Helping someone with Dementia find Meaning and Purpose

helpinghandMy daughter and I visited my Mom yesterday and as we were leaving my 11-year old turned to me and said “She’s a lot worse.” I have noticed that instead of one or two odd-ball comments, she now has whole sentences that don’t make sense.

She is also doing things that don’t seem very nice, but I know under her actions there is good intent. My Mom is a life bridge master and created and directed games around Northern Virginia. Several of them were in the Retirement Community where she now lives. I was told that she has been very disruptive at the games and have visited and seen the resistance to find her a partner lately. About a year ago, she tried to willingly turn over the games to a woman who volunteered. My Mom was having a hard time getting the bridge boards together. I know the woman had a very hard time because my Mom would forget she turned over the game and try to take it back over. Apparently, she still forgets which causes trouble.

A few weeks ago, the woman who was running the games got ill and has been in the nursing unit. My Mom went to go take her “boards” back from the community room. When I asked her why, she couldn’t tell me.  She is having a hard time putting her ideas together and communicating her intent — the first week she told me the story, it just sounded like she felt like this was her opportunity to steal back the equipment she turned over to the new volunteer director. Yesterday, she finally told me she was getting them ready so they would have boards to use so they could still have their games.

What I do see when I visit my Mom is how many things she can still do. My daughter hurt her foot and is now using crutches. On our trip, I would stop by the front door to let out my daughter and my Mom. My Mom would hop out of the car and get the door open to help my daughter. She was attentive and tried to assist with small tasks during our entire visit.

That is the missing component now for my Mom. She has been a tinkerer her entire life and having small tasks or someone to help would do her a heap of good. The Assisted Living community can keep her safe, but they just aren’t staffed or designed to keep her mind engaged doing activities she is interested in joining. They do offer bingo and movies and Zumba — but those aren’t things my Mom is interested in. I bet she would be interested if they offered activities that would help others. My Mom was a caregiver for my Dad, but now that he is gone, I know with the right guidance, she could still help others. Wondered. 

Please let me know if you have suggestions or are familiar with programs or facilities that offer more purposeful activities. 

A Beautiful Farewell

walkingcaissonThe funeral went off beautifully. There were lots of possible last-minute issues but the icy roads, rain and cool temperatures failed to impede us. Wonderfully, the rain stopped so we could walk behind my Dad’s caisson to his gravesite.

My Dad requested a “life celebration” and I worked to imagine I was witnessing one of the many military ceremonies held in his honor that I attended over my Dad’s career — which helped me be proud instead of sad. The picture I included was taken by my nephew as we walked to the burial site.

Telling my Mom that we would have half the burial service inside the chapel if it was cold outside was acceptable to her. My brother brought her to the service and we worked to keep things simple and calm. We were expecting more than 100 guests and had asked that the medical team at Assisted Living provide her with something that would help her experience the day but minimize her anxiety. Unfortunately, she knew there was an extra pill in her cup, and refused to take it.

As we are sitting in the pew and she takes in the flowers and photograph of my Dad, she turns to me and says “I can’t understand why I can’t stop crying. I don’t want to cry in front of all these people.” My brother had the pill she refused to take in his pocket. I suggested that she take it because it would help her enjoy the day and minimize the tears. She told me to go get that pill. She was able to take it before the ceremony started and immediately seemed to gather her strength.

My Mom did brilliantly. She was able to speak to most of the guests and managed through the entire reception. We had moments when she would ask where Dad was, but those that attended and surrounded us only responded with loving smiles on their faces. Celebrated. 

Forgetful Eccentric or Dementia?

black KedsI witness my mother’s continued and now even exaggerated behaviors to feel independent and in control of her life. She will comment to me that her brain is failing her, but any attempt to assist her now is rebuffed – and it usually comes with a few barbs. The staff is regularly reporting that she is “verbally abusive”. I know it’s the dementia, but sometimes it is hard to differentiate that from child memories of being scolded.

If you haven’t experienced the dynamics, it will surprise you to know how much someone with moderate dementia can manage. Every person with dementia is different and my Mom is feisty and very mobile. Of late, my time with my Mom feels more like I’m dealing with a forgetful eccentric. I often find that most people believe personality changes are normal as you age — they are not and are often signs of a health-related issue.

My Dad’s funeral is this Friday and on my visits I try to work my Mom through bits of a discussion to make sure she has clothes to wear. When the cold weather arrived, I realized her winter coat was missing — and given that my Dad’s burial is in January — I am glad I still had my Mom’s old fur coat in storage at my house.

Sadly, one of our family friends suddenly passed away. Last Friday, we attended the funeral and I was oddly thankful that I could use this to see how long it would take to get my Mom ready, ensure she had clothes to wear and how she might manage through the service. When I called my Mom as I was driving over, she answered the phone and was crying. She told me she had a horrible pain in her chest. I asked her to pull the little red cord in her apartment so the doctor would visit immediately. She refused and said she would wait until I arrived. Thankfully, I was minutes away.

When I arrive she insists that the pain has gone and opts to attend the funeral instead of going to the Emergency Room. The staff arrives and my Mom tells them she has no pain and needs to leave to get to a funeral. They are following up with tests next week, but the moment has passed and my Mom is not going to concern herself with pain she doesn’t really remember now.

It was a bitterly cold day so my Mom puts on slacks and has on a blouse and sweater. My only concern is that she will only wear black Keds. My Mom was always well-dressed with 40 shades of flats and purses to coordinate with her skirt and blouse. Now, she can be found in ratty jeans, a blouse and sweater (or sweater vest) and black Keds. I ask her if she is planning on wearing the black Keds to Dad’s funeral. We have snow on the ground and bitter weather in our forecast and I can’t imagine standing by the gravesite during the ceremony in Keds.

The most difficult moments I’m finding are when my Moms current wishes collide with her former self. I am not going to battle my Mom over her desire to only wear Keds, but am considering how I might figure out how to get her into some boots for our grave site burial this Friday. My first thought is to hide the Keds and put a pair of comfortable but attractive boots in her closet. Pondered. 

Divide and Conquer and the Modern Family

My husband and I married in our thirties and we have the divide and conquer philosophy on many of the household duties. My friends and colleagues have mentioned divvying up financial and household matters. When Consumer Reports recently cited that only 30% of couples knew the major financial assets and how to access them, I was not surprised.

ModernFamilyWhile I hope we are not as wacky as the family on the TV show Modern Family, to this day, my husband and I still keep our own bank accounts that are jointly titled. We decided to make one the household bill pay account and the other the rainy day savings account.

I am the owner of the bill pay account. When we were first married, I would write checks twice a month. When my career put me on the road, my husband took over the bill-paying duties from “my account.” He immediately set up online bill pay. When my days of travel ended, I took back the bill pay duties. When I first logged in, I didn’t see any of the bill pay accounts. I had wrongly assumed that the bill pay accounts and pending transactions would be available for both online users to our joint checking account. That is not the case; you can only see the bill pay accounts created under your login. I immediately took over my husband’s username and now we both use one login. I’m now on a soapbox recommending this setup to all of my clients.

If either my husband or I were unable to pay the bills, the other could easily step in. Sharing usernames is against both of our banks’ user agreements and if I call for support, they won’t answer my questions because I am not allowed to be in my husband’s account. Silly! I’m not a big rule breaker, but that is one I break all the time.

Now that I am caring for my parents, the online access offered by every company and most state and federal services has been a major time and frustration saver for me. When my parents’ insurance company and the financial institutions that hold several investment accounts refused to accept my durable power of attorney (this is a lot more common than you can imagine and I will cover this next month), my dad worked with me to set up online access so I could act on my parents’ behalf.

Setting up online access to your accounts does not negate the need to have a current will or power of attorney. However, this information will make it infinitely simpler for someone to step in and help if you are unable to manage your accounts, if even only temporarily.

To get your details organized, you can download a free copy of the account and documents checklist, or order the MemoryBanc Register that will prompt you through the process.

I hope you will consider making this change to how you manage your household accounts and bill payments. It’s a kindness your loved ones will appreciate if the information is ever needed.

Sincerely,
– Kay
Kay Bransford
Chief Curator and Founder, MemoryBanc

Can we order one of your books?

MemoryBanc RegisterOn the past few visits with my parents I have taken phone calls that were orders for the MemoryBanc Register. My mom let’s out a “hot dang!” then asks “can we order one of your books?”

My brain reels. Try as I might, I’m the kind of gal who has the witty response a day after it would have been useful. My defense for this has been to stick with the truth. So I tell my mom I already have a book for them.

Recently, my mom has been appreciative of the help and telling me now how much she is struggling to put information together. I have never shared with them they have been the inspiration for my business. She has no idea how many MONTHS I spent trying to find all the information on their accounts. She doesn’t know how frustrating it’s been to try and help them. My parent’s do not understand how many things they were failing to manage (bills, household maintenance) and many simple fixes their Power-of-Attorney could have fixed were derailed.

The blessing of the Internet has been that I could set-up online access to act on my parent’s behalf. I had enough personal information and knew what their PINs would be. It’s been over two years since she called me to ask how to put money in the bank. Just last week we uncovered another bank account and a life insurance policy. It’s no wonder that the Washington Post reported that there is over $32 billion dollars of unclaimed funds are sitting in state treasuries just waiting to be claimed.

It’s time to put the book in front of my parents (or a summary at least) so they can see, touch and feel more connected to their own estate. Documented.