I am new to all of this and am needing some assistance and guidance on what to do. My father is 70 years old and has always been very independent. He is also very hard headed and has refused to go to the doctor for the past 20 years. About a month go he got really sick and had no choice but to be admitted into the ER where he then spent about a week and a half in the hospital. Before this he had a lot of pain and swelling in his ankles, is blind in one eye, significant vision loss in the other eye, and significant hearing loss. After being in the hospital they diagnosed Afib, Stage 3 kidney failure, edema, and heart failure. He had some mild confusion which was attributed to him being so weak. He got stronger and agreed to go to short term rehab, only for Medicare to deny it 😔. So he goes home and is still weak, we are trying to get home health to come in but we have a lot of issues since they do not want to make appointment times and he would have to go to the main floor to let them in. So the other day he seems really agitated and confused and we want to take him to the hospital but he will not cooperate. After a while he seems to go back into a moment of clarity. The next morning he is completely confused and thinks my sister is the nurse so she takes advantage and says we are going to the doctor. We are not admitted into the hospital again but with this time a very rapid cognitive decline. Over less then a week it’s like a whole new person. They are saying he has vascular dementia and atrophying the brain. They are doing a MRI to find out how bad, but it’s bad. The doctor sends someone to talk about pallative care and hospice and all that. This is where we run into the large issue. With the heart failure he has maybe 6 months left and we don’t know what to do. It’s not safe for him to go back home alone. He can’t live with me because I live in a one bedroom that you have to access 20 stairs to get to. We thought living with my sister who is POA would be an option but it’s not now. He lives off $800 month in social security and Medicare will not pay for a short term stay so we are applying for long term Medicaid. We have two types of facilities that take pending Medicaid and Medicaid and I don’t feel like they are viable options. I used to do Nursing Home Screens and let me tell you they are bad. One has always been really bad and just also had 10 COVID deaths. The other is on a federal watch list for having so many complaints and issues during inspections. So to put him in one of these horrible places to die alone since we can’t see him seems wrong. Has anyone been in a similar situation and what did you do? Any advice? Any resources out there?

Thank you for listening, I’m sorry if it’s all over the place.

Jillian