Aging in place

One of my goals in this blog is to stay away from whining on and on about health issues. I have read other people's TMI emails / postings and asked, "Wow, what were they thinking in posting all that stuff?"

[If you are thinking in horror that you sent me an update and I reacted with the above question, then you probably did NOT send too much information. It's the clueless folks who don't see themselves as pushing the edges of social ineptitude.]

Yet I cannot ignore the fact that Mike has Parkinson's. As we looked to move to Clark County, our number one criteria in buying a home was for a single story. I told Brooke that we would only stay in the house we finally bought for two years or so, because of the front steps. She said "what steps?" There are three sections that have two steps each, which you don't even notice if you're a 'regular' person. You just walk up the walkway. Brooke reminded me of this story recently, as we were comparing stories of when the limited mobility really sunk in.

Lately I've thought a lot about the need to plan for aging in place. Mike's daughter, Dianne, has a degree in health care administration, emphasis in long-term care. I'm hoping she can give me ideas of what we need to think about. There are a lot of different scenarios. More immediately, we need to have a plan in place if something happens to me, even short term (say, I blow out my knee again).

Side note: when I mentioned this to Mike, his response was, "Well, you have been keeping lots of healthy food on hand. I open the fridge and you have things like grapes, sugar-free jell-o, yogurt."

"Wow, Mike, I'm really not talking about food."

That is as far as we got.

So if you have tips and resources, bring 'em on.