It's Going to be Okay

After spending over two hours at the children's facility, I know my son will be okay there. The lady in charge wanted to see my son again before placing him there, and what she wanted to see was how my son moved around and how he was when I wasn't around. She wanted a feel for how he was going to be when I dropped him off. She was lovely. The nurse aide being assigned to care for my son most of the time is a long-term employee who will be very good. My fears were quelled.

Alright, there is some definite strangeness at the facility. Nothing too strange, but the parents have decorated the rooms for their kids. It's two kids to a room, and I was bewildered at some of the things the parents have done. There are a few kids there that were born healthy and became disabled for different reasons. One boy is a near drowning. One girl contracted an infection. One teenage girl was hit by a car. Many of these kids' parents have put up collages of pictures of the kids before they were disabled. That was just bizarre to me.

The nurse aide asked me what "character" my son liked. My face was blank. My oldest child had a Lion King bedroom theme a million years ago, but my family is not big on collecting or Disney stuff. Apparently, I am supposed to decorate my son's half of the room. I don't know what to do. Maybe some family pictures or is that weird? My son's 12. He likes Sponge Bob, I think, on TV but I don't want to decorate his room with Sponge Bob. He's 12!

We did go buy a small flat screen TV to mount on the wall over his bed. All the kids have these, and it's a good idea! Why didn't I think of this before? We got a wall mount that allows the TV to swivel to where he is in the bed. Okay, it's kind of hospital-like, but he's going to live in a facility.

My son will be fine. It's a nice place. The staff is good.

So, I'm told, let's do an early admit on Monday. I say Great! Then I get a phone call and emails on Friday that there's a glitch due to my son's private insurance. The insurance company is supposed to pay for the first 100 days of long-term care, and they need to approve or deny this. Either way is fine and Medi-Cal kicks in after, but the insurance company has five days to decide.

The admin lady tells me I should call the insurance company on Monday and tell them I am the one pushing for this placement because it's so hard for me to care for him at home and get him to his doctor appointments. She was big on me telling them that I can't get him to his doctor appointments. It's going to be a hard call for me to make. It's more of an emotional toll to care for my son than a physical one. But I'll do it. She's right that I need to do this.

We're getting ready now. We're getting some new clothes and thinking about what to put on the wall. I haven't talked to my son about it. I don't think he'll understand, but I will start to talk about it with him, to him. He's taking his own bed, and I know it will be okay in a couple of months.

His new home is a small building on a medical campus, but just outside the door is a lovely, shaded courtyard with benches and a fountain. It's like a small park, and it's calming. A grandmother sat on a bench and rolled her grandson back and forth in his wheelchair. I believe the grandmother was in greater need of the visit than the extremely disabled grandson, but who knows? I'll be asking myself that question very soon when I visit my son. And that's okay. It really is.