There is a huge problem in America many are not aware of, nursing homes.   The list of issues is limitless but is all caused by one problem, read below. Let your Congressmen(women) know you care about this very important issue  and would like to see our Congress review and delve into it and any potential recommendations for positive change.  I welcome your comments. 

Here is my letter sent to both representatives in US Congress in both Senate and the House in Michigan and Tennessee. If issues are not brought up by voters, too often they are ignored.  

     I am a concerned voter who would like to bring your attention to an issue that is bi-partisan. The network of nursing homes deserves careful review by members of Congress as a national problem and some would say a disgrace.  We are seeing an epidemic problem in the making as America is growing its elderly population.  Currently there are 16.5 million Americans over the age of 65 years old.   Many of these still vote and have family members concerned about this issue that are registered voters as well.

     Nursing home issues stem from a central problem, understaffing.  With so many patients with dementia or Alzheimer’s, the care patients receive is 100% reliant on the staff at these facilities which is not sufficient.  According to the Alzheimer's Association 2020 Disease Facts and Figures report, 48% of all nursing home residents have either of these two diagnoses. 

     My mother, Margaret Lillian Ketterman  was one of these patients until she died September 24^th of this year.  My letter is in behalf of my mother at her request when she was dying.

·         Her home was The Laurels of Sandy Creek which is in Michigan (Wayland). 

·         As a co-guardian of my mother, I was responsible with my sister for overseeing her care and attending to her needs.

·         This was nearly impossible many times.  The front desk would answer a call but there was no nurse available to update her status on a given day or hold the phone to our mother’s ear. 

·         Though my mother had dementia, it affected her body more than her mind so she had general awareness of her condition and that of the staff there. She was concerned about making the few staff available that had not quit yet angry so seldom used her voice thus was entirely reliant on us.

·         We had monthly care calls for our mom set up by the social worker at the facility. No nurse was available for the calls the majority of the time.

·         Her hospice nurse, brought in to the care my mother when it became obvious she was dying, had to provide some basic needs that were not being met, e.g. bathing, food she could and would eat.

     These conditions are the norm in nursing homes all across the country. Please consider contacting hospices in your district and ask them how well nursing homes are staffed and what problems they see due to a lack of employees there.  Make an impromptu unannounced visit to a nursing home in your district and observe the number of nursing staff on a floor, sometimes is appalling.

     The law in the state of Michigan is that court appointed guardians must visit once every 3 months. This is not sufficient for a deteriorating patient when staff is unable to adequately address their growing needs.   I was unable to locate the visitation requirements for guardianship for elderly in the state of Tennessee but know that guardianships are not a working solution for issues for seniors in nursing homes. An estimated 1.3 million adults are under guardianship in this country, 85 percent of them over 65 per AARP.

General Statistics:

·         Population of Michigan residents in nursing homes in 2020 – 36,749; In the state of TN: 26,647

·         Note: In 2019, the state of Tennessee had an estimated population of 6,829,174 people, and 16.7% of that population is aged 65 and over

·         Population of US residents in nursing homes in 2021 – 10,077,331

  My suggestions are as follows:

·         Form a committee to review the need for improvement in overall care of both nursing home residents and nursing staff.

·         Examine the pay scale for staff to see if this is a contributing factor in high turnover rates.

·         Is this problem worse in homes like the one my mother was in that are almost entirely reliant on federal/state aid, e.g. Medicaid patients?

     Without aggressive action, we are treating residents no better than inmates though they have committed no crime. Note, that as of 2015, monies going to nursing home care amounted to 169 billion dollars. Voters will be responsive to changes and strongly support agenda to implement change.

Sincerely,

Veronica A. Gliatti

Co-Guardian - M.L. Ketterman

Please do your part and contact your representative!

My mother (in front)  with her older sister and brother in 2021. 

Bye For Only Now Mom.......

That dollar bill you sent me,

It came on Monday with the mail,

It reminded me of my birthday

And how you remembered it always without fail.

 

I think you tried to show me

How much you cared with that card,

And thank God I got it,

When my life was getting hard.

 

We sailed in and out of each other’s lives,

Capturing moments here and there,

Never letting down those unforgiving walls,

To show the depth of our care.

 

But when it mattered most

Is when you said good-bye

We knew we both had closure

As we both embraced and cried.

 

As you sail to heaven,

With that beautiful smile on your face,

I hear the sounds of your laughter,

It fills me up in that empty space.

 

Forever I will love you Mom,

Forever I will care,

The blessing of you in my life

Is a legacy I proudly wear.

I spent most of my life hating my mother for what she wasn’t instead of loving her for what she was.  I don’t think it fully hit me till she died. Now there is just a bit of an empty space where a lot of good memories could have been filled.  Coulda, shoulda, woulda.  Moments that passed in the wind silently without a lot of forethought.

I was raised by my biological mom for a few years, than an in-house nanny for a few more and then a step-mother for most of my remaining growing up years. I think I was pretty clear where I stood with all of them but my real mother.  I felt like, to the nanny, I was a paycheck but I grew to be someone she loved  to and to  my step-mom,  I was part of a package deal. When she married my dad, she tried to love me but there was always something that blocked the way. And to my real mom, Margie, I never quite knew where I stood. It was easier to believe all of the ugly things said about her by many than to figure out who she was on my own, understand her life choices and accept the fact that maybe, inspite of her demons, she loved me.

This blog isn’t, in many ways, about my mother’s life but about a daughter’s understanding of acceptance of one’s mother.  We moms, speaking from experience,  are not perfect but yet we try to measure up to this immeasurable stick of expectations we put on ourselves and society feeds into. My friend recently said to me that over half the people she has met in her life came from dysfunctional families. She feels the number is closer to 75% plus.  America is flooded with families struggling to survive, meet the demands of life in these complex times and along the way, try to maintain a semblance of normalcy.  It is a hard road to tow.

 For me, I have learned we are all complex beings motivated and touched by all kinds of stimuli, some we can control and some we can’t.  We do the best we can do with what we are given and try to make up for the difference.   Acceptance of ourselves as well as for others for their short-comings is critical to happiness.  Accepting someone else’s misgivings is a closer step to God, fulfillment in a sense.  It shows a depth of compassion and understanding.  It is the goal we should all aspire to practice.

With my mother, she lived a troubled life. She had some mental issues that, in her day, were never addressed properly and thus, she was judged by, yes, even me by an impossible standard to reach.   As she aged and I learned of her many roadblocks, disappointments and weaknesses I saw a beautiful soul that was just trying to do the best she could do with what she had. I am not so sure any of us are that different than my mom, trying to get by on what we know to be true. Her truths were just jaded by life’s experiences to her and her processing of those challenges.   She never got the help she really needed till far too late in her life. When she finally got it, was diagnosed and treated, the beauty of my mother came out.  Along with that, beautiful petals of the chapters of her life became evident, a true understanding of who she was and an outpouring of her life’s pitfalls.

 I am not writing to share those publicly because my mother was a proud woman. She wouldn’t want those shared. But she would want others to know that living a troubled life lends itself to making unhealthy choices. Those choices formulate the story of your life and those around you, and yes, even those omitted from the chapters of your life.   Loss of time with loved ones, and losing a connection to those that should matter in your life simply because of circumstances is a tough pill to swallow. Too often, priorities become jumbled with the tedious parts of living and by the wayside goes the things God would want us to focus on.  We must take these lessons and share.

 What I have learned, through my mother’s death, is the pricelessness of moments.  I am grateful that her and I had the sweetness of our memories to keep us both warm inside as mother and daughter now that she is gone.  I am saddened we didn’t have more. But,  I feel blessed for the closure we both got and the unconditional love we experienced in the end.   I saw the beauty in God’s creation in my mom, finally but in some sense, a little too late. It is far gone the chance to build more memories with my mother. We both stood in the way of that happening for complex reasons at the time that no longer make sense.

 I pray that in reading this you will learn to accept your parents for who they are instead of what you wish them to be. Don’t make excuses for not making them a priority either because you are their legacy and they must know they matter. And remember that it is only through acceptance and understanding can we find unconditional love.

 Click here for Memories of Margie 

And She's Back......

Wow, I haven’t written on this blog in far too long. When one loses the drive to write, it is extremely hard to overcome. I have three books out and then, for some reason, I put the brakes on any and all writing. I suppose I became my worst critic deciding I had nothing worthwhile to say and my writing was not up to par, some unimaginable standard I established for myself.  As if my writing had to mirror some other author I deemed superior. 

In its place, I indulged in my passion, reading. The litany of books I have delved in to the pages of has been extensive.  What I had found is that the more exposure you have to different authors, the more views you are offered. I have also realized that each author has their own paradigm of what makes a novel work and a choice of what style of writing best serves their story.  Some of the decision making is based on what is the author’s personality and comfort zone. And I came to the conclusion, after having read countless books this past year that my style of writing, in–your-face story telling  without elaborate embellishments,i s not only my preferred way to write but my preferential style to read. 

 

And thus, I will try to make time to write. I miss so many of you that follow me and long to hear from you, your stories, comments and feedback.  Thank you for egging me on to get back to blogging!