Judy's Road Home from Rehab
Donation protected
This is my mom, Judy, celebrating her 74th birthday. She's an amazing woman, my mom. She’s been through a lot in her 74 years. Hopefully, she’ll make it through a lot more.
When this picture was taken, she'd been in rehab about 2 1/2 month. She had not planned to celebrate her birthday there. Or Christmas, or Valentine's Day, or Easter, or Independence Day.
About a week before Christmas 2015, I drove over to my mom’s apartment in a panic. My 9 year-old son had been trying to call her that evening, to remind her we were coming over on Saturday to put up her Christmas tree. Night was falling and mom doesn’t like to drive at night, so after about ½ hour of trying to reach her, I became concerned that something was wrong. My worst fears were realized when I found her in her apartment on the bathroom floor. She could not remember how she had fallen or on what day she fell. She could not get up. She was rushed to the ER. A neighbor came to stay with my son as I spent the most agonizing evening of my life at the hospital. She was admitted and stayed there for nearly a week.
Luckily, no bones were broken, no heart attack, no stroke. They were never able to determine exactly why she fell. But she had laid on her side for so long, that there was extreme weakness in her right leg and arm and she could not walk and was sent to a rehab facility for what the doctor surmised would be a ‘lengthy stay.’
Three days later, and completely unrelated, she began having rectal bleeding at the facility and they sent her back to the ER. By then, the bleeding seemed to have diminished, but they admitted her for observation. That admittance saved her life; in less than 12 hours, the bleeding began again, this time in earnest. My mom, who gave birth to 2 children, said it was the worst pain she had ever felt in her life. She asked one of the nurses if she was dying. She truly thought she was. She was given 12 units of blood. Had she not been in the hospital at the time, she would have been gone. Doctors discovered a bleeding ulcer, which the subsequently performed surgery on to resolve the problem.
But this weakened her already compromised state. Rehab has been slow. Very, very slow. So many factors have worked against her. An unhealed wound on her hip. An attack of gout. Yet, she has never, ever refused to try anything her therapist asked her. And six months later, she continues to make progress. Within the last week, they have been able to get her up and walking with a walker. After 6 months! Her therapist says it is amazing. She still has a ways to go, but her progress has grown recently by leaps and bounds. Her goal is and always has been, to keep walking right out the door and go back home.
Unfortunately, Medicare only pays for 100 days of a Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) and even within that 100 days, they do not cover the full cost of care. It does not matter what has happened to you—if you had surgery, took a fall, had a stroke, have been in a coma, have a traumatic brain injury—if you are there longer than 100 days you are on your own with the facility.
She is doing so well; slow but increasingly steady. She just needs a little more time at rehab, to get just a little stronger, a little more confident. But she doesn’t have enough savings left to pay outright for this month at the SNF. And therein lies the problem.
Her time ran out on April 7th, and she has been on ‘self-pay’ ever since, which has resulted in her literally clearing out nearly all of what savings she has. She is on a fixed income from Social Security. She lost my dad’s pension and health insurance when he passed away eight years ago. She doesn’t own a home and has an 11 year old car. Her apartment rent is income adjusted and she is able to just squeak by on SS from month to month, except for things like her Medicare insurance premium, medications, etc, which she has paid out of her savings.
At the end of June, she could go home, but would still need 24/7 care. She’s been advised that her only option is to apply for Medicaid, but to do so would require her to give what little money she has left to the rehab, and she would lose her apartment. She would not have a home to go back to. She feels completely trapped.
This hole in our healthcare has created a situation where you have no choice but to be pulled into the system, a system that you can then never get out of.
Perhaps my mom is a special case. Maybe most people are able to get back up and running in 100 days, or know for sure at that point that they will need the permanent assistance that can only be provided by a SNF and thus Medicaid makes sense. But the town social worker says she’s seen the situation time and again. There is a problem here with the system.
Mom knows how much money she has, and how much each day costs, and she is frightened and worried. She is trying so hard.
She says she prays every day for a miracle. That God will give her the strength to get up, to get moving, to get even better. I remind her that every time she gets out of bed, every step she takes, is a little miracle of its own.
I hope that I can help her create another little miracle right here on this page. I am seeking to collect money to pay for at least the month of July at her facility. It is a lot, I know, but just as each of her steps is a little miracle that when combined with the others becomes something greater, each donation received combines with those from others to reach towards the goal.
My mom is my heart, my soul. Her smile is infectious. Her mind sharp as a tack. I hope this page will help collect funds to allow my mom her ultimate miracle, to return home. With some help, to be sure, but home nonetheless.
When this picture was taken, she'd been in rehab about 2 1/2 month. She had not planned to celebrate her birthday there. Or Christmas, or Valentine's Day, or Easter, or Independence Day.
About a week before Christmas 2015, I drove over to my mom’s apartment in a panic. My 9 year-old son had been trying to call her that evening, to remind her we were coming over on Saturday to put up her Christmas tree. Night was falling and mom doesn’t like to drive at night, so after about ½ hour of trying to reach her, I became concerned that something was wrong. My worst fears were realized when I found her in her apartment on the bathroom floor. She could not remember how she had fallen or on what day she fell. She could not get up. She was rushed to the ER. A neighbor came to stay with my son as I spent the most agonizing evening of my life at the hospital. She was admitted and stayed there for nearly a week.
Luckily, no bones were broken, no heart attack, no stroke. They were never able to determine exactly why she fell. But she had laid on her side for so long, that there was extreme weakness in her right leg and arm and she could not walk and was sent to a rehab facility for what the doctor surmised would be a ‘lengthy stay.’
Three days later, and completely unrelated, she began having rectal bleeding at the facility and they sent her back to the ER. By then, the bleeding seemed to have diminished, but they admitted her for observation. That admittance saved her life; in less than 12 hours, the bleeding began again, this time in earnest. My mom, who gave birth to 2 children, said it was the worst pain she had ever felt in her life. She asked one of the nurses if she was dying. She truly thought she was. She was given 12 units of blood. Had she not been in the hospital at the time, she would have been gone. Doctors discovered a bleeding ulcer, which the subsequently performed surgery on to resolve the problem.
But this weakened her already compromised state. Rehab has been slow. Very, very slow. So many factors have worked against her. An unhealed wound on her hip. An attack of gout. Yet, she has never, ever refused to try anything her therapist asked her. And six months later, she continues to make progress. Within the last week, they have been able to get her up and walking with a walker. After 6 months! Her therapist says it is amazing. She still has a ways to go, but her progress has grown recently by leaps and bounds. Her goal is and always has been, to keep walking right out the door and go back home.
Unfortunately, Medicare only pays for 100 days of a Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) and even within that 100 days, they do not cover the full cost of care. It does not matter what has happened to you—if you had surgery, took a fall, had a stroke, have been in a coma, have a traumatic brain injury—if you are there longer than 100 days you are on your own with the facility.
She is doing so well; slow but increasingly steady. She just needs a little more time at rehab, to get just a little stronger, a little more confident. But she doesn’t have enough savings left to pay outright for this month at the SNF. And therein lies the problem.
Her time ran out on April 7th, and she has been on ‘self-pay’ ever since, which has resulted in her literally clearing out nearly all of what savings she has. She is on a fixed income from Social Security. She lost my dad’s pension and health insurance when he passed away eight years ago. She doesn’t own a home and has an 11 year old car. Her apartment rent is income adjusted and she is able to just squeak by on SS from month to month, except for things like her Medicare insurance premium, medications, etc, which she has paid out of her savings.
At the end of June, she could go home, but would still need 24/7 care. She’s been advised that her only option is to apply for Medicaid, but to do so would require her to give what little money she has left to the rehab, and she would lose her apartment. She would not have a home to go back to. She feels completely trapped.
This hole in our healthcare has created a situation where you have no choice but to be pulled into the system, a system that you can then never get out of.
Perhaps my mom is a special case. Maybe most people are able to get back up and running in 100 days, or know for sure at that point that they will need the permanent assistance that can only be provided by a SNF and thus Medicaid makes sense. But the town social worker says she’s seen the situation time and again. There is a problem here with the system.
Mom knows how much money she has, and how much each day costs, and she is frightened and worried. She is trying so hard.
She says she prays every day for a miracle. That God will give her the strength to get up, to get moving, to get even better. I remind her that every time she gets out of bed, every step she takes, is a little miracle of its own.
I hope that I can help her create another little miracle right here on this page. I am seeking to collect money to pay for at least the month of July at her facility. It is a lot, I know, but just as each of her steps is a little miracle that when combined with the others becomes something greater, each donation received combines with those from others to reach towards the goal.
My mom is my heart, my soul. Her smile is infectious. Her mind sharp as a tack. I hope this page will help collect funds to allow my mom her ultimate miracle, to return home. With some help, to be sure, but home nonetheless.
Organizer and beneficiary
Stephanie Rauch
Organizer
West Hartford, CT
Judy Rauch
Beneficiary