Hello everyone:
I was talking to my financial consultant recently. Our topic of conversation was long term care. Here’s what I took away from our chat:
Do you have long-term care insurance? It is extremely expensive to get long-term care; yet you really can’t afford to be without it. Long-term care insurance (LTC), an insurance policy, helps provide for the cost of long-term care beyond a predetermined period. LTC covers care not generally covered by health insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid.
To get into one quality long-term skilled care facility in my area, you are expected to give a one-time “facility gift” of $50,000. The care then runs between $10,000 and $11,000 per month, depending on the level of need. That is a substantial chunk of change, so I hope you can see the need here.
Where would you get the money to pay this kind of bill? The pool of insurance for long-term care usually plans on the costs running about $125,000 per year. However, keep in mind that a joint plan provides this for you and your spouse; if one of you has used it up, there is nothing left for the other spouse to draw on. Folks usually last about four years in one of these facilities. If they stay home and get care, the lifespan is usually 15 years.
Do you qualify for long-term care? If you have pre-existing medical problems, the answer may be “nope.” You have to plan on using long-term care insurance or you could end up in a Medicaid facility.
The interesting thing about these places is that, if the treatment you need is not available locally, they can ship you off to the nearest place where it is available.
I heard a horror story lately where an elderly woman who was not insured needed specialized care. One day when her daughters came to visit her, the daughters found out that their mother had been shipped some other place three weeks before their visit that day (they really needed to visit their mother more often!).
It took a while before they could even learn where their mother was, since folks had forgotten by then and they had to look it up. As it happened, the mother was shipped from Maryland to Pennsylvania. The daughters, who apparently had not seen fit to visit their mom very often when she was local, now had to drive a distance to check on their mom. that’s not a scenario you want to experience, so be prepared!
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
If you are familiar with the movie Diary of a Mad Black Woman, there was a scene where the betrayed wife Helen (Kimberly Elise) was taken by Medea (Tyler Perry in drag) to her former home and her old closet.
Medea encouraged Helen to tear up the clothing of Brenda, the other woman (Lisa Marcos). As they utterly destroyed the closet’s contents, clothes flew all over the place. This was a great source of relief to Helen and Medea as they took revenge on the adulterous husband Charles (Steve Harris) but it, along with the wholesale chain-sawed destruction of the living room, led to their being taken to jail. It is not a good way to get a closet organized, although it did relieve some tension.
My sister-in-law knew a gal whose hubby died unexpectedly. A relative of the lady came into her house and removed all of the dead man’s clothing; she thought she was helping out, but the lady had wanted to do it herself, as part of the grieving process.
She had planned on making a comfort pillow out of one of her hubby’s dress shirts, but that plan was nixed by her relative’s over-eager approach to cleaning out the closet. Make sure the person is ready; let things happen in their own time.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
Do you know anyone who requires care? Maybe this person has a caregiver who accompanies him or her everywhere he or she goes. A common reaction to the disabled person is that he or she is ignored or overlooked while folks carry on a conversation with the care provider.
This disabled person could be elderly person who is demented or a fairly young person who is in a wheelchair.
Would you like to be a blessing to both the caregiver and the person receiving that care? Talk to the care receiver. Do not do it in a demeaning way, but actively listen to what the person is saying. If you can’t understand a word, act as if you do. Make that person feel important, valued.
If you approach someone in a wheelchair, get down on that individual’s level, which may mean you have to sit down. Talk to the person as if he or she is important- because disabled folks are just as important as those who are not.
Whether or not someone is able to respond as he or she once was, everyone likes to feel like what he or she says is important. By showing that person is valued, you bless not only the disabled individual, but you bring joy to the caregiver, as well.
Do you have a special way of showing others they are special? I would love to hear your story!
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
Do you have long-term care insurance? It is extremely expensive to get long-term care; yet you really can’t afford to be without it. Long-term care insurance (LTC), an insurance policy, helps provide for the cost of long-term care beyond a predetermined period. LTC covers care not generally covered by health insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid.
To get into one quality long-term skilled care facility in my area, you are expected to give a one-time “facility gift” of $50,000. The care then runs between $10,000 and $11,000 per month, depending on the level of need. That is a substantial chunk of change, so I hope you can see the need here. Where would you get the money to pay this kind of bill?
The pool of insurance for long-term care usually plans on the costs running about $125,000 per year. However, keep in mind that a joint plan provides this for you and your spouse; if one of you has used it up, there is nothing left for the other spouse to draw on. Folks usually last about four years in one of these facilities. If they stay home and get care, the lifespan is usually 15 years.
Do you qualify for long-term care? If you have pre-existing medical problems, the answer may be “nope.” You have to plan on using long-term care insurance or you could end up in a Medicaid facility. The interesting thing about these places is that, if the treatment you need is not available locally, they can ship you off to the nearest place where it is available.
I heard a horror story lately where an elderly woman who was not insured needed specialized care. One day when her daughters came to visit her, the daughters found out that their mother had been shipped some other place three weeks before their visit that day (they really needed to visit their mother more often!). It took a while before they could even learn where their mother was, since folks had forgotten by then and they had to look it up. As it happened, the mother was shipped from Maryland to Pennsylvania. The daughters, who apparently had not seen fit to visit their mom very often when she was local, now had to drive a distance to check on their mom.
I hope you find this information helpful. It is not meant to provide legal information, but simply to provide a guide towards preparing you for long term need ahead of time.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
I met up with a former high school teacher a few years ago, running into him at the mall. After asking what he was doing now, he told me that he was back at the same high school after a five-year break.
He immediately (and voluntarily) launched into an explanation, telling me that he had met a wealthy, older widow a few years before and that she had taken him into her home (and her pocketbook).
Over a period of a couple of months, she began giving him lavish gifts; her financial advisor cautioned her repeatedly that she was running through her estate very quickly, but she told him to mind his own business. One day, she asked her counselor if she should marry her much-younger boyfriend and she was told, “You might as well. You’re spending all of your money on him.”
They got married a short time later and their spending increased. He told me that they thought nothing of taking friends to Paris for the weekend or going to New York City for lunch.
He said that they had spent money like drunken sailors on shore leave, until one day when they found out they were broke. They were forced to sell her gorgeous house and their numerous expensive cars.
When I ran into him, they were living in a very modest home with economical cars. He said, “I spent all of her money and now we are back to where I was before I met her.”
To his credit, he did not divorce her and move on, he was actually taking care of her, albeit at a considerably lesser lifestyle than they had become accustomed to. His hard-earned advice: Be careful with your money and spend carefully!
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
While you are in the grocery store, do you go to the self-scan or the line with a cashier? If you are efficient, you may find it faster to scan the grocery items yourself (the register people are lovely individuals, but they are paid by the hour to be there). If you are interested in socializing, see a cashier.
A huge waste of time in the self-scanning line is those folks who do not bag their groceries as they scan. In some grocery stores, you have to place your purchases on a weighted platform as you scan. There are bags there; go ahead and put your items in a bag. Some people put their items on the platform, scan their entire shopping cart full of food, pay, and then bag the groceries. Not only are you placing your stuff on a possibly-germ-infected platform, but you are wasting your own time!
You have to put each item in the bag with enough force that the system picks up the fact that you put your item in the bag (it doesn’t take much pressure to do this), but you can get through the register in half the time if you bag as you go. Some platforms have poor sensors on the outside edge of the platform, so try to stick to placing your newly-bagged groceries in the center of the platform so that you won’t need to wait for customer assistance (voice of experience here!).
Other stores do not have platforms at all; they just have belts that take the purchases to the end of the checkout. Bag some of the items as you go, if there are no baggers to help you. Waiting till the end sometimes means that the next customer in line will begin scanning while you are still bagging and your things can be trampled by their things (there is a large divider available in some stores, but they don’t always get used by people who are in a hurry).
If possible with that type of setup in the store, scan some items, bag some items, scan some more, bag some more, and finish up pretty quickly. If you have too big a backup, the computerized register will tell you to bag some items before you continue scanning. I try to beat her to the punch and bag before she asks.
As you bag items, keep similar items together. If something requires refrigeration when you get home, put it with something else that also needs to go into the freezer or frig quickly. Don’t over-bag- if your items are too heavy, they will break through the plastic or paper bag, usually at a very inconvenient time. This happened to me! Once I had a small cart absolutely filled with groceries. One of the bags burst and the items went rolling away as I walked down the slopped parking lot. As I reached for the fallen items, the cart took off. I seized my fallen purchases and raced after the cart, grabbing it right before it crashed into someone’s vehicle. A nearby customer (he was too far away to do anything but laugh) yelled at me “nice catch, lady!” Lesson learned: don’t overstuff the bags or you will be sorry! I keep the empty plastic bags to use as garbage can liners in my bathrooms.
Another reason it is a good idea to keep similar items together is because you might get distracted when you get home and forget to put something away. Later, it may come to you that something is missing from your shopping order and you can go look for it.
My dearly beloved deceased aunt had a loaf of bread in her shopping one week, but she brought it in with the mail and forgot about it. When we found the loaf of bread years later; it was as hard as stone. She apparently thought she had forgotten to buy it; she never went into the room where she had stashed it, except that day when she came home from the store. You don’t want your heirs to find the bread (or anything else that is perishable) years after the fact.
Want to have a bit of fun at the register? Push the Spanish language button on the machine and then scan the membership card from a different store. The polite lady in the computer gets really testy really fast when you do that! (Well, maybe it’s just that I am easily entertained, but her blood really gets boiling!) My Spanish is not fluent enough to understand what she’s saying but it sure sounds like she’s mad!
Have a great day!
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
Have you ever noticed that sometimes you flush the toilet and the toilet just keeps running and running and running? It’s not supposed to do that.
If you do what I usually do, you juggle the handle to get it to stop. This is a temporary fix. You need a long-term solution or the water will keep running with future flushes.
What should you do? The first thing to do is to take the lid of the water closet off (this is your water tank). There is a chain on the contraption in the tank. Is it slack? If so, you need to unhook the chain and then re-hook it so that the chain is not pulled so tightly. If the toilet still continues to run, that is not the problem.
You should then look at the round piece of rubber that covers the drain in the bottom of the tank. Push on it a few times, to see if it is sealing well. It may be shot and may need to be replaced.
You will probably want to empty out the tank before you remove the round rubber cover, so turn off the water next to your wall and flush the toilet. This will make the toilet empty and it won’t be able to re-fill itself.
The rubber piece comes off pretty easily, so take it off and then take it to the hardware store to get a replacement. Bringing the piece with you will ensure that you get a new one that will fit your toilet. When you get back home, replace the rubber piece by reattaching it to the toilet. Turn the water back on at the wall and the toilet will refill. Flush it again, to make sure that it will stop.
If neither of these issues is the problem, you may need to replace the entire flushing mechanism; you can either pay a plumber about $100 minimum to make a house call or you can take a picture of your toilet, bring it to the hardware store to get a new mechanism, and then (following the directions on the package) replace the mechanism yourself. This will take a couple of hours and will require a wrench, a screwdriver, and a bucket.
I hope that this helps solve your running toilet problem!
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
One of the hardest things on earth is watching a parent decline in health and/or mental capacity.
You know how it is: little things, such as going to the grocery or serving oneself at a family buffet become impossible. There isn’t enough strength for the former or enough agility for the latter.
A once-buff person becomes pathetically thin and bony. An active mind becomes clouded with fears and an inability to communicate. Hearing loss is common, as is the inability to form sentences.
Life can become centered around the need to use the bathroom. The shower can become a marathon-level challenge for someone who does not see the need to use soap or shampoo.
It can become necessary to supervise the individual constantly, telling and re-telling the same information to the elderly person. The ability to remember information quickly becomes a thing of the past. A once-mentally agile person becomes someone in need of constant reassurance.
It is quite sad. What can you do? Love the person, both as he or she is and as he or she was. Remember the happy times, and trust that you will make it through this day, this hour, this minute. Try to arrange for play dates for YOURSELF! You need a break and need to not feel guilty about it.
This is a part of the cycle of life. How do you cope with this?
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
I was talking to someone recently who was telling me about his elderly father. He was sharing the importance of keeping physically and mentally sharp so that a nursing home would not be necessary quite so soon.
He had some good points. If you don’t use your brain, you’ll lose it, as the old saying goes. How do you keep sharp?
My great aunt kept physically strong by walking everywhere. It is important to note that she lived in middle Tennessee, which is known for being full of hills. She walked everywhere except to the grocery. As a ninety-year-old, she finally started taking a taxi rather than trying to make it home with her groceries in hand. That was a concession not willingly granted, but the practicalities (and her physical strength) made it necessary.
My great aunt kept mentally strong by continuing to work a full time job at the age of 93. Not everyone can or will want to do this, but if this is not your idea of a nice way to spend your 90s, how about working crossword puzzles, reading books, and doing jigsaw puzzles? These are all ways to use it, not lose it.
What ideas do you have for keeping physically and mentally “with it?”
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
We all know someone who seems to accomplish a whole lot in her 24 hours. Maybe she is your college professor who teaches 6 different classes at three different colleges, all of which have different starting dates. Perhaps she also writes two blogs twice a week while writing a novel and making presentations on the topic of her dissertation. Perchance she is also keeping her family fed, clothed, and the house clean while also running 8 miles a day, biking 3 miles a day, and walking 4 miles a day.
What in the world? Is this woman nuts? Does she ever sleep? Is she Superwoman? Nope. None of the above (I hope). She is simply organized.
So how is this done while not losing one’s sanity? For starters, she keeps a “to-do” list and crosses things off as they are accomplished. She makes a daily list of what must be done and also has a list on the same page of what it would be nice to do that day. If something is vitally important, it needs to be done FIRST so that the rest of the day will not be spent fretting about having not gotten it completed.
Let’s follow her through a typical day. She keeps her exercise clothes in the bathroom and puts them on before she is totally awake. By the time the fog clears, she is already dressed to exercise, so she might as well do it. Three miles on the bike, eight miles on the treadmill and that is done. BTW, if she was taking a class right then, she would have a study guide for one of her classes blown up into 16 point font and displayed on her bulletin board in front of the treadmill so she could study while running. If she was not taking a class, she would pray for her students and the folks on her church prayer list (again, posted on her bulletin board, filling otherwise non-productive time). Ninety minutes later, she is done and it is only 7 am.
Next, she gets ready for her day, studying while blow drying her hair or reading a current magazine in the 7 minutes it takes to get her hair dry. That way, she is keeping up with the world in general while using otherwise non-productive time. She does her makeup without distraction because telemarketers haven’t figured out that she is up and at ’em by 7 am. She dresses in an outfit suitable for the entire day (when possible) so that she only has to dress once.
Breakfast means Bible study time and/or catch up with the family. She is out the door by 8:30, to walk 4 miles, grocery shop, or run errands. Home by lunchtime means no fast food (that adds pounds very quickly) and on to her online classes.
She can check in on 6 classes within a couple of hours, if there are not many assignments due. She grades on a daily basis, so that there are very few marathon grading sessions and so that her students can get immediate feedback on every assignment. They appreciate knowing how to improve their grades for the next assignment by following her in-depth feedback on this one. She keeps a month-at-a-glance calendar next to her computer so that she can track which week each of the three colleges is in, which students will have assignments due that week, and when her discussion boards open to students.
During the online class time, she makes a point of getting up and moving every 45 minutes by setting an oven timer. She also has a Varidesk, which allows her to fluff her pillow as need be. Classes are usually completely done by 2:30 or 3, so she can take a few minutes to fold the two loads of laundry she did while teaching (the 45 minutes between breaks is enough time to transfer washing into the dryer and then take it out when it is dry).
She can spend the rest of the time until dinner preparation time to blog or write her novel. To remain faithful to writing, she sets her oven timer for 45 minute increments. After visiting with the family during dinner, she can spend more time writing until Jeopardy is on. Following the game show, there is time to watch a little bit of Doc Martin before an early bedtime.
Do you think she is nuts or just well-organized? I hope you think the later, instead of the former!
Best,
Dr. Sheri
P.S. Welcome to my life!