Making the Move

There isn’t a single thing about the move into memory care that's simple or direct.

Photo by Taylor Beach on Unsplash

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that the elder care system in the United States is just as thoroughly compromised as every other piece of our social architecture. I knew that intuitively before I started researching memory care options for Mike, but now I understand it in all kinds of deeply specific ways.

For example: most memory care facilities have waiting lists. (Those that don’t, based on my experience, are places you wouldn’t want your loved one to be living, if you had any other option.) To get on a waiting list, you need to make a deposit—to write a check that won’t be cashed until you sign a lease with the facility, but must be covered the very minute that lease is in place.

To secure a higher position on the waiting list, you make a larger deposit. I won’t spend too much time wallowing in the guilt I felt when I leapfrogged the line of people who, no doubt, need memory care for their loved ones just as urgently as I do but were able to make only the minimum deposit.

In an attempt to assuage my guilt, a friend generously pointed out that I’m just one person working within a system that I have very limited power to change by myself. I understand that this is true, but it feels like a justification for acting selfishly.

Still, what’s the alternative? Going to the back of the line out of a sense of fairness wouldn’t have made the system work any differently. Maybe it would have made me feel a little better about myself, but probably not. My guess is that I’d be too busy providing dementia care to worry about dealing with a guilty conscience.

Even with a lease officially in place now, the path toward memory care has been rough. So many choices, so many decisions.

Do we stick with the primary care doctor who has some knowledge of Mike’s history—including the years before his dementia diagnosis—or do we transition to the medical provider who visits patients at the memory care facility?

Do we stick with the dentist Mike has been seeing for over 20 years or change that provider as well? The visiting dentist would be much more convenient, but that practice is out of network for our insurance.

As is the pharmacy that services the memory care facility.

Cash or convenience? That is the question.

I’ve mostly opted for making things easier when I can, since this transition is already difficult in so many ways. But sometimes that’s out of the question—I can’t possibly pay for Mike’s medications out of pocket, for example. This means I’ll stick with our current pharmacy and continue to manage Mike’s refills myself, then have them delivered to the facility.

And I’ll pray that, when our insurance goes through its annual renewal period later this year, something will change. All these out-of-network providers will magically be brought into the fold. My life with be as streamlined as possible.

I’m not holding my breath, but I am holding out hope.

At this point, almost all the pieces are in place. I’ve completed a dissertation-length stack of paperwork, picked up the keys to Mike’s apartment, and started moving a few things in. I’ll have some larger pieces delivered. I’m doing my best to make his new space look as familiar to him as possible, which mostly means that our current bedroom—apart from the bed and my dresser—will be disassembled and reassembled somewhere else.

It feels a little like living in an episode of The Twilight Zone, creating a parallel universe designed to help Mike feel like he hasn’t moved at all. Until he steps out of his room, at least. There, unavoidably, everything will be new and different.

But it will be that way for me, too, as I try to reconstruct our room—my room. Do I move a chair from the living room into the bedroom, to fill the space where Mike’s favorite reading chair used to be? If I do, what will I buy to fill the newly empty space in the living room?

Or do I leave the living room alone and buy a new chair for the bedroom? I’m going to have to buy new art for the walls anyway—maybe that smaller space is the only thing that needs to change right now.

And maybe it doesn’t really matter, since everything outside that room will be new and different anyway.