Saturday, May 6, 2017

Toe Socks

In early March my elderly mother broke her lower leg in two places.  The hospital put a heavy cast on it, leaving her toes sticking out, just like on tv.  The rehab center gave her two different crocheted toe socks for her, but Mom asked me to knit her one.  I used the cast sock pattern from Lion Yarns and added a strap to it.  I chose Cascade Pinwheel yarn in Petunia and got a little carried away playing with the colors.



In a small object, the colors didn't change quickly enough and I couldn't quite get the effect I wanted.  Mom was delighted with them, though.  As you can see, the sock fit snugly on her foot and she said it was much warmer than the crocheted toe sock that wasn't elastic.


The Elderly Mother and Rehabilitation Centers

Recently I've just gone through a very stressful time.  It would have been a little better if I knew one little piece of information: how to initiate changing the rehabilitation center your elderly mother is in. There was nothing on the web about it.  After two days of phone calls an admissions counselor of a rehab center told me I had to speak to my mother's social worker.  My efforts started rockily since the social worker didn't have good customer service skills.

The process takes longer when the patient is going from one rehab center to another.  The prospective center has to review the records from the hospital and the current rehab center.  Then I'm pretty sure it considers the patient's bank account.  The social worker contacted six centers and none of them in a month and a half had an opening.  My guess is that my mother's bank account didn't qualify for the for-profit rehab centers.

My mother ended up in a nursing home and rehabilitation center with small, pokey, dark rooms.  The facility is run rather slip-shod  and my mother hates the food. Both of her roommates have been odd and she herself got sick with two ailments at once. It's all because the social worker at the hospital left me a phone message after my mother was moved that since she hadn't seen me at the hospital, my mother was sent to that facility, not taking into consideration at all that the patient's only child lived an hour away.  When the urgent care center called me about my mother's leg, she asked if Mom should be sent to the local hospital or a larger one much closer to me.  Mom and I have agreed that if there is a next time she'll be sent to the one near me.