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I'm finally home (after almost a year)
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Yup, I arrived home this Tuesday (March 22).
Unfortunately, it isn't as happy a homecoming as I had hoped. You see, there is an organization here called LifeSpan Resources that puts elderly and disabled people in touch with the necessary services and agencies to keep them living an independent life as long as possible. When talk about me going home started at Hillcrest, I notified my case manager at LifeSpan got the process going to make sure everything was in place. As the day grew closer, the case manager said, "just call me the minute you're home, and I'll send over the state's approval for your aide to start."
Tuesday came, I got home and made the call. "Great!" she said, "I'll send the form over now."
While I waited, I took care of a few other issues, such as getting the company that supplied my power chair to take it and see if they can either repair or replace it -- when the EMTs came to take me to the hospital last April, my chair quit working altogether, even though it had new batteries and none of the cables had disconnected. (Why didn't I do this while I was in the nursing home? My primary insurance is Medicare, and they won't authorize anyone to even look at my chair unless I'm home.)
I kept waiting...and waiting...and then Shawna, my aide of several years, called to tell me that LifeSpan hadn't sent the authorization to her boss yet. I called the case manager.
"I sent the paperwork as soon as you called." she said, "I'm just waiting for the state to respond."
What?!
"The rules have changed." she said, "I couldn't send in the form for you to have an aide until you're actually home."
That isn't what Shawna, her boss, and I were led to believe.
So, it's now Friday, and I'm bedridden.
I have a manual wheelchair, but my shoulders are now so arthritic that I can't push it. I'm also weaker than I was before I went into the hospital, so I need help getting in and out of bed. My uncle, Larry, is now almost 80 and has a degenerative disk condition, so he can't help me like he once did. (But he has been stopping in to check in on me.)
Shawna's boss has been trying to see if the state will pay Shawna backpay so I wouldn't be without the necessary services. No luck.
However, Shawna has been coming over after seeing her other clients to make sure I'm clean and have enough to eat and drink -- although she can get into serious trouble if her boss or LifeSpan found out.
In the meantime, I hope the state hurries up and gets my aide approved!
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“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them." --Ray Bradbury
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