I thought my family was bad and nasty. BIL takes the cake (hub's brother). Yesterday I had gotten a call from one of the owners of the home father-in-law lives in.
FIL's mental health has decreased in the past 6 months to the point that he can't name his wife and on good days he might state his own name. The 'sundown syndrome' has also increased and together with the caretaker, we have been treating it conservatively without additional medications or doping him up. I should also add the price of his stay at the home is tiered to how much care they need. FIL entered the home over 2 years ago at the lowest tier. The reason for the raise: over the past few months the sundown syndrome has increased to the point that he is now wandering around stark naked at night and cries that he wants to go home and then tries to wake up the other patients in the home (there are currently 2 women and 4 men) and tries to climb into bed with them crying for his mommy. He is also totally incontinent now but has been doing this stripping thing so he pees everywhere.
The owner called me to let me know that they will be raising the price of his care due to this but not to the top tier (he will now be one step from the highest tier) which is an additional $500.00 per month for a total of $4000.00 per month. Personally that is not bad. Most nursing homes run over $7000.00 for his type of care without the personal attention. I love where he is at - it is closer knit and there is a consistency of 2 sets of 2 caretakers around the clock during the week (one set of 2 works 3 days around the clock then the other set works 4 days around the clock, reversing that schedule the next week). All 6 patients in the home have dementia and some have additional problems (Parkinson's, etc). They have home cooked meals according to their diet. They have great dementia activities on a daily basis. The home is immaculate and there is no MRSA, or problems normal nursing homes have. Even their bed-ridden patient never developed a bed sore the entire time they lived there which is a very good indicator of how well they take care of the people there.
I called BIL last night to let him know of the increase. OMG he went ballistic. I gave him 3 warnings to not yell at me or I would hang up the phone. I had my cell at arm's length. He yelled at me that he wasn't yelling or even raising his voice. I tried to tell him during another of his rants that I had my cell phone volume on low and still at arms length I could hear him. His complaints: I did not let him know that the nurse practitioner had been visiting him every 2 weeks due to his Coumadin (blood thinner) fluctuations and that he was wandering at night and incontinent pretty much all the time now. His point also was that I was to handle the medical and he was to handle the financial. I stated I was aware of that arrangement. He said I wasn't handling then medical then if he was getting worse and didn't let him know. I stated I had let him know - in emails and if he had been visiting his father, he would have known this. He said he hadn't checked that account. I said not my problem. I said that he hasn't kept me up to date on financials or any increases in bills either - not once in over 3 years since we took over the medical and financial aspects of MIL and FIL. He screamed that it was none of my business and that I was trying to deflect the situation. I said that was the last time time he was ever allowed to yell at me for nothing - that we all knew FIL's prognosis and that he is hanging on with only 20% heart function the way it was and that we knew the dementia was going to get worse. He wouldn't listen. I hung up. I had given him 3 warnings. I told husband I was never going to speak to him again.
I wonder what crawled up his undies? But his attitude was out of this world. Kinda scary to know that he works on top secret things for the government and is the top engineer. I wonder what his retention rate of good engineers is if he treats his employees like that?
