One small step at a time...

After discovering the state my dad and his house were in that first weekend, we needed a plan of attack.  Here is the first of many lists I started:

1)      Get electricity back on

2)      Go through bags of mail and business papers and random notes to get a sense of what might be going on and where everything stands financially

3)      Set up new bank account and try to limit access to it

4)      Set up medical appointments through the VA

5)      Schedule appointment with eldercare attorney

My uncle graciously said he would take care of no. 1 first thing Monday morning.  He also said once we had a doctor’s appointment set up, he would be happy to take him to the appointment.

So I started with 2.  I wish I had taken a picture of all the bags to show how bad it was.  But here's a sampling...

 



 

Yes, I even used empty beer cases to tote the papers home...

 

 

 It took about a week to sort through everything in piles from medical, personal finance, business, weird notes, bills (paid and unpaid), and random clubs and subscriptions he signed up for.  As I read through the notes and things he documented, it became clear real fast that there was a woman involved who was taking advantage of him and his situation.  We’ve met her before and had always been suspicious of her.  Now we were seeing firsthand the checks she wrote to herself.  Sometimes he signed them, sometimes she signed them.  The debt uncovered was mind boggling.    After the damage was assessed, I was able to gather what was needed to meet with the eldercare attorney we had recommended to us.  Little did I know what a painstaking process that would become. 

 

Here's the after...

The next step was to get him in for a diagnosis.  I honestly just thought it was depression, maybe mixed with alcohol.  I just figured he didn’t care anymore, and maybe he snapped somewhere along the way and had some sort of mental break.  I also believed the doctors would never be able to figure it out.  Especially at the VA, which was the only place he could afford to go.  I expected to get a clean bill of health that would leave us scratching our heads.  I honestly didn’t know where to begin.   I started with his primary care physician who speedily squeezed us in for 10/23…when I had called on 8/29.  Sorry, not good enough.  I called a VA social worker and left a 5 minute message on her voicemail, trying to explain a lifetime into a single message.  She called me back and got us in 9/3 to meet with her.  I also left a similar bumbling message for one of the neuropsychologists and scored an appointment for 9/16.  My uncle planned to take my dad to the 9/3 visit with the social worker.  I had no idea how to explain the behavior we were seeing.  How to portray the severity of the difference between the way my dad is now compared to how he used to be.  At an appointment that took place in front of my dad.  So I wrote up a 1 page summary for my uncle to take with him and hoped that maybe he could show the therapist in private.  Now we just had to figure out how we were going to get my dad to agree to go, and not let the woman taking advantage of him find out about it, so she couldn’t talk him out of it.