Prepare For Family Emergencies
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Sep 30, 2009
It's been a rough last six days for me. My mother is ill, and it's brought home the fact that she's getting up in years, and may start needing my help more than I had thought. Add to that fact my grandmother living here, and my mother's been taking care of her, and you can imagine that my responsibilities multiplies rather than doubled.
The thing is that sometimes we look at things like this and we're just not sure what we're up to it. I talk often about trying to be prepared for when things go wrong in the workplace, but rarely talk about being prepared for things in real life.
Real life is a bit harder at times. If it's your child, you probably already have plotted out who the important people are for them. When it's your parents, and you don't live in the same town as them, you may not even know who their physician is, let alone where the hospitals are.
And things don't end there. If you haven't taken care of many other things, suddenly you have to think about their bills, and how to get them paid. You have to think about how to get their monies into the bank if a check comes to the house instead of having direct deposit. You have to know where the important papers might be, or if there's money or checks in the house, or valuables, or anything else. In other words, pretty much everything.
I have some things to be lucky about. I'm listed on both my mother's and grandmother's checking accounts. I know where certain things are hidden. But realizing that I didn't even have an idea where the plastic cooking utensils were in the house (how many people have elderly parents who cover everything in the kitchen in plastic?), I realized that there are other things I'm just not prepared for, and don't even know I'm supposed to ask about them.
But I'm going to ask, because I now realize I need to know. And I'm not alone. Folks, you just might have to take part in a relative's health care at some point, and they may not be able to fully communicate everything to you in those times. There needs to be a fail-safe of some kind so that you can help out in any way you can.
We will probably never know it all until it's too late But we can take care of a lot of it before it gets too far. Our parents will appreciate it, as will everyone else who's dealt with them over time. And you'll feel a lot more comfortable as well.
Shucks, I hope your Mamma gets better. There are a few phases that are hard for children to go through when it comes to their parents.
The first is realizing that your parent is not one dimensional and that they have, gasp, a life other than taking care of a child.
Another is the situation that you told here: realizing that your parents are relatively ephemeral and that all humans are as well.
Certainly, there are transitions in between but these two are the most jarring to me.
Indeed, as you highlighted here, it’s important to be prepared for key life events.
I myself am finding out the painfully hard way that “you pay when you don’t pay attention.”
Better I learn it now so that I can help to take care of my grandmother and Mom when the time inevitably comes.
Thanks for your comments Natasha. I’m learning those lessons myself, and I’ll admit that I didn’t feel I was ready to learn them. However, as I’ve gotten to today, I feel a lot better about things a week later. Fast learning curve; I hope.
With so many of our life’s details being handled online now, make sure that someone responsible as your “back-up” … would have access to all of your usernames and passwords.
Thanks Val. I have someone named as a back-up for that stuff, so I’m covered there.
Mitch, it can be difficult to really be prepared for these situations.
Even though I lived with my Mom and cared for her for years, I still didn’t know everything. There were some things she would not do, like making a living will, signing over the property, putting me on her checking account, and so forth. She was agreeable to doing it and said she would, but never actually did it, even though we discussed it multiple times.
It’s important to have a list of all her doctors and other caregivers, lawyers, relatives, friends, and their contact information.
It’s important to have a current list of all medications and conditions for which she’s being treated.
As mentioned, you need a list of online accounts and passwords, banking accounts, insurance policies, and know where things like Medicare and insurance cards are.
Even though I lived with Mom for years and helped her pay her bills and do all those things, it turned out that I didn’t know where some things were and had to search for them when she died. Some of those were birth certificates, marriage certificates, and her will.
I know she had a will. She redid it after Pop died. But, after searching high and low through the entire house and with her lawyer and the courthouse, I never found it. It wasn’t with her other important papers. We had to deal with her estate as if she had no will. (It didn’t make a big difference in her case, but it could have if there had been complicating factors.)
I’m not sure if we can ever be prepared to deal with these things, especially if our parents live in a different area.
I’ve taken what I learned and my daughter and I have addressed these issues. She has my power of attorney. My home and car are in both our names. She knows where my accounts and passwords are and my master password that is never written anywhere to access the encrypted file that contains my other passwords. She has a certified copy of my will and my living will.
My cremation is prepaid and I don’t want a funeral, but others see this differently, so it is good to know what they want done after their death.
We don’t like to think about all these things (and a lot of others), but I think you’re wise to be as prepared as you can be. It’s difficult when you are prepared and it’s a lot worse when you aren’t.
All the best to your Mom and Grandmother!
JD
PS. Here’s some handy information…
http://www.caps4caregivers.org/guide.htm
http://www.boomer-books.com/
http://www.fenwaymedical.com/advice/57-checklist-forncaringnfor-elderly-parents-.html
Thanks for this extra information, John. We actually now have to look into some other possibilities for my grandmother and one would think I’m supremely qualified for it, yet I’m really not. This is going to be an interesting lesson to learn.
I hope it goes smoothly for both of you.
Best wishes to your grandmother.
Thanks John; I appreciate this.