VA pension for veterans and their wives

I visited a new assisted living place one day and found out that if your dad fought in a war at least one day and he and/or his spouse is housebound, in an assisted-living facility or in a nursing home then they are eligible for a special pension.  Now if your parents divorced or remarried then the non-veteran spouse is not eligible.  This is a great resource for money that is due them  for one of them serving our country.  This money can be used to help pay for their care.  No one will come knocking  on your door to tell you about it.  I’m using this avenue to tell you about it.  So call your local VA office and ask for an application packet.  You will have to take your parent to a doctor for him to fill out the part about how that they do indeed require care.  If your parent drives a car then they care not considered homebound.  They do have liberal asset limitations, but they do not do a look back like medicaid does.

Caring for the ederly parent

My sister and I took care of our 89 yr old mother in the hospital in June of this year for 1 week. We learned to never leave your elderly parent in a hospital without family to act as an advocate for them. Our mother  had a lumbar laminectomy and due to the medications she became 100% confused. It was very stressful for everyone. This was a time  for everyone in a family to pull together and cooperate to help their parent that has always been there for them. Now is the time to repay the favor. There were times when we know she would not of gotten pain medication since she couldn’t even use the call bell. Always scope out the hospital ahead of time for a private room so you can stay with them at night. After one week, we put her in a rehab place aka nursing home for rehab.  I left my daughter with her until 9 pm and then I gave her her cell phone to call me if she needed to. Well, in the middle of the night my cell phone rang. I missed the call before I could get to it.  So I called the nursing home nurse’s station. I told the night nurse that she had called and to please check on her. She came back to the phone and said that she was fine. I got another call in the early am. This time I made it to my phone in time. It was my mother saying that we will have to make other arrangements as she wanted me to come get her asap. When I got there I found out that they took her phone from her and put it so she could not reach it. Then they scolded her saying, “Why would you call your daughter in the middle of the night?” That was the day I took her in and our journey of taking care of parents began.  I am a registered nurse,  so caring for people is what comes natural to me.  Caring for a parent is somewhat different as this is not just a patient, but my mom.  This blog is to get with other caregivers to help us learn together what resources are available to help us and to share what we have learned so that we can take better care of our parents.