Yes, I am in the middle of a tragedy right now. My partner is in subacute rehab. Discharge planning is not on the immediate horizon, but in my heart of hearts I don't want her to go home. On Medicaid (which she will have to get on) she can have a home attendant every day, but that will then be a full time job for me. I will have to supervise and manage them, some will do a good job, some won't, sometimes the aide will call in sick, and sometimes she won't show up. This is territory I know about. It is less of a problem if the elderly person can supervise the aides herself (for example if her problems are exclusively physical). But I know my partner can't, so this will be my job. It will mean I will never know, from day to day, if I will be in the middle of a crisis. I don't want that. Most of our mutual friends agree, but the social worker at the nursing home where she is getting rehab has (I feel) tried to guilt trip me into wanting her to come home. The place looks like a war zone. Yes, I can use my partner's money to pay people to clean it up (this will need to be done regardless) but how will it stay clean? If an aide is there during the day seeing that my partner eats, changing the bed (and other things), and washing some dishes and some laundry, she will not have time to keep that monstrosity of an apartment clean and organized. And there will still be the mail!!! All those catalogs, and bills and bank statements that my partner can't keep track of or understand.
She is getting good care where she is. True, in the beginning, if she stays there, she will have to share a room, toe to toe, with someone else, but she can be waitlisted for a semi-private, and then a private room. She scarcely knows where she is. She loves to be waited on. She can watch tv, and watch the endless stream of people coming in and out. I can visit her every day. The facility is close by. And then I can leave. And until she physically comes to the end of life (definitely not there yet) I am unlikely to get a frantic call necessitating that I drop everything. I can make plans.
I am not making any now, not until she is settled and I have completed all the paperwork to help her get Medicaid (which she will need regardless). The facility has Saturday concerts at 2:30, so maybe I can do something. And I am planning a solo for Advent/Christmas/Epiphany.
I picked up the Mascagni "Ave Maria" which I had heard and really liked. It's one of those pieces with choices for higher notes and lower notes. So I will sing the lower notes. At the end there's a pianissimo note, usually an A, although you can sing an F. At my lesson my teacher made me sing the A and I actually did it! But I don't seem to be able to replicate it at home. I have tried this, and tried that, and nothing really works. Everything just seems to produce tension. Tomorrow I will try again. It's something to focus on. I won't know if that is something I will sing until we get the Advent/Christmas choir schedule. Ave Marias are usually best for Magnificat Sunday and that is pretty much always a choir Sunday. In fact I am not really sure when I will sing, because the two Sundays are Christmas Day and New Year's Day. New Year's might be a possibility. If my partner is still in the rehab/nursing home I won't be staying up with her at night New Year's Eve and anyhow that has not been our thing for a long time.
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