The Energizer Bunny With The Yiddish Accent

My ancient suegra Rachel just keeps going and going. While I was in DC, Wifey visited her at Baptist Hospital -- she was taken there for pneumonia and an eye infection. I know that, when a person is 94.5 years old, pneumonia is often the final condition, and thought I might be coming home to Miami to a funeral.

Not even close. She was discharged from the hospital back to the Palace -- to their rehab unit - and yesterday we visited. She was no worse for the wear -- demanding that we bring chairs from the next bed over to sit -- and telling us loudly how her roommate "must have been very beautiful when she was younger."

I return to my prediction that my mother in law makes it to 100.

Wifey walked over to the ALF part of the Palace and got some of her mother's things. My mother in law looks at Wifey with total love -- always had, and always will. She treated us to the tale of how difficult it was to have Wifey -- after a miscarriage ("de dead boy") and how she and my father in law scraped together shekels to see the "professor in Jerusalem" (the infertility specialist in the new nation of Israel) and how, when Wifey was born, all of my mother in law's past horrors, the Holocaust, the privations of post War Germany -- all of it -- were worth it for the gift of her precious baby girl. 

Yeah -- Wifey has never suffered from self esteem issues...

So after I heard the tales for the 1000th time, it was time to go. They're giving her PT, and will then wheel her back across the parking lot to her regular room. All of this costs a ton of money, but since Rachel is now on both Medicare AND Medicaid -- it's all paid for by the US.

Medicaid planning was truly critical -- as it now stands, we only have to come up with about $300 per month to keep her in the plush Palace. The balance is paid by her Social Security, German Reparations Payments, and a Medicaid Supplement. The last program is pretty new -- Medicaid pays some of the cost of an ALF in hopes of saving money on the more expensive nursing home, which was always covered by Medicaid.

My mother in law's current monthly cost is close to $4000 -- not a small amount.

As I was telling Barry and Donna in DC -- elder care ain't cheap. You don't have to plan if you're very poor or very rich -- but for all in the middle, planning makes decent care possible. I'm glad we got it done before my father in law went into Miami Jewish -- and the plan extended to Rachel's care, too.

We came home, and I sat on the front porch for awhile -- reflecting about Memorial Day.  There was a great old movie on PBS, about the WW II writer Ernie Pyle, and Wifey and I watched.

The action was about the Battle of Monte Cassino, in Italy, and Wifey and I had visited the town with friends we made on a a cruise -- the Fouche family, from Midland, Texas.

Phil was injured during the battle, and spent the rest of the War selling bonds for the government. He had been told a monument was erected in the town of Cassino, and wanted to visit. We tagged along, and it remains one of the most memorable times of any trip I've taken.

We walked through the dusty town, and found the square. Phil saw the placque, and the tall, tough Texan fell to his knees, crying -- thinking about the friends he had lost -- then 50 years in the past. We all hugged -- and Phil told me my Dad, a WW II Vet, would have been proud that I accompanied him.

So it was appropriate for Memorial Day -- I actually had a few vodkas as we watched -- and toasted the heroes of that time.

And my mother in law, also of that era -- is still among us -- 74 years after the War ended.

Rock on, Rachel...