By proceeding, I agree that I understand the following disclosures:
I. How We Work in Washington. Based on your preferences, we provide you with information about one or more of our contracted senior living providers ("Participating Communities") and provide your Senior Living Care Information to Participating Communities. The Participating Communities may contact you directly regarding their services. APFM does not endorse or recommend any provider. It is your sole responsibility to select the appropriate care for yourself or your loved one. We work with both you and the Participating Communities in your search. We do not permit our Advisors to have an ownership interest in Participating Communities.
II. How We Are Paid. We do not charge you any fee – we are paid by the Participating Communities. Some Participating Communities pay us a percentage of the first month's standard rate for the rent and care services you select. We invoice these fees after the senior moves in.
III. When We Tour. APFM tours certain Participating Communities in Washington (typically more in metropolitan areas than in rural areas.) During the 12 month period prior to December 31, 2017, we toured 86.2% of Participating Communities with capacity for 20 or more residents.
IV. No Obligation or Commitment. You have no obligation to use or to continue to use our services. Because you pay no fee to us, you will never need to ask for a refund.
V. Complaints. Please contact our Family Feedback Line at (866) 584-7340 or
[email protected] to report any complaint. Consumers have many avenues to address a dispute with any referral service company, including the right to file a complaint with the Attorney General's office at: Consumer Protection Division, 800 5th Avenue, Ste. 2000, Seattle, 98104 or 800-551-4636.
VI. No Waiver of Your Rights. APFM does not (and may not) require or even ask consumers seeking senior housing or care services in Washington State to sign waivers of liability for losses of personal property or injury or to sign waivers of any rights established under law.I agree that: A.I authorize A Place For Mom ("APFM") to collect certain personal and contact detail information, as well as relevant health care information about me or from me about the senior family member or relative I am assisting ("Senior Living Care Information"). B.APFM may provide information to me electronically. My electronic signature on agreements and documents has the same effect as if I signed them in ink. C.APFM may send all communications to me electronically via e-mail or by access to an APFM web site. D.If I want a paper copy, I can print a copy of the Disclosures or download the Disclosures for my records. E.This E-Sign Acknowledgement and Authorization applies to these Disclosures and all future Disclosures related to APFM's services, unless I revoke my authorization. You may revoke this authorization in writing at any time (except where we have already disclosed information before receiving your revocation.) This authorization will expire after one year. F.You consent to APFM's reaching out to you using a phone system than can auto-dial numbers (we miss rotary phones, too!), but this consent is not required to use our service.
*If I am consenting on behalf of someone else, I have the proper authorization to do so. By clicking Get My Results, you agree to our
Privacy Policy. You also consent to receive calls and texts, which may be autodialed, from us and our customer communities. Your consent is not a condition to using our service. Please visit our
Terms of Use. for information about our privacy practices.
This may well come to a direct confrontation with your husband. That might be forestalled by sitting him down and sweetly lecture him on the dangers of contracting Covid, but it also needs to be very firm in letting him know as well that his mother can NOT come into contact with you or your children. I would start masking your children just to be on the safe side. And prepare for a confrontation with your husband.
Does Canada provide a way to test for Covid in the home? MIL doesn't sound like the kind of person who would be agreeable or suitable for testing in a public place.
"Of the 73 million children in the U.S., fewer than 700 have died of COVID-19 during the course of the pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/graphics/2021/10/08/covid-19-kids-cases-hospitalizations-deaths/8361479002
You and your husband are at a slightly higher risk due to age, and if you have any other issues (smoker/former smoker, overweight, diabetic, immunocompromised, etc) I think you are right in being upset that your husband made this arrangement without first consulting you, but are over-reacting a bit regarding your elderly MIL endangering your kids. It's the other way around. I hope you stay well and can find a solution that works for everyone.
I get that you don't want covid in your home and that it's especially galling that your exposure is coming in the back door through family when you have sacrificed and been so careful to guard the front door, but the reality is that omicron is just so infectious and increasingly pervasive that many very careful people are now testing positive. The plus side of this is that very little children usually have mild symptoms if any, especially with omicron.
I think the problem of covid is just compounding your anger at your husband making this decision without you plus your dislike of your MIL - don't forget this is his mom, try your best to work with him on this.
When you sent MIL into your sister's home, you did so knowing the risk involved, since there are several people living in that household, right? Now that those family members are sick, what are they supposed to do? Care for this elder AND the sick family members???
Take MIL out and get her tested, then you can relax a bit knowing her status.
Even if she tests negative, you all run the risk of eventually getting The Virus if you breathe air and leave your home at any time for any reason, let's face it. Same as we ALL do. It's an eventuality we're all facing, vaxxed or unvaxxed. In fact, the vaxxed are facing MORE positive tests than the unvaxxed these days, that's a fact. To live is to face illness every day. Being that you are vaxxed, you should feel better to think you'll face a lesser degree of illness if you do test positive and become symptomatic in the first place, right? That was the point in getting jabbed to begin with, or so we're told. The children face very mild symptoms, if any, that's also a fact.
I personally think you have a bigger problem inviting an angry and aggressively demented elder to live in your home (assuming that's where she lives) & be exposed to your children on a daily basis than you do dealing with potential Covid. Covid goes away in pretty short order while demented elders only get progressively worse.
Best of luck with all of this.
The biggest slip up was to not have Mil tested at that time.
If the sisters plotted to send her to your place, it could be that she did test positive already, but they could not take care of her. Where is Mil's usual residence?
Get Mil tested.
Monitor her temperature, do you have a non-contact forehead thermometer?
Follow now the protocols recommended for having a Covid positive person in house. Until 5 days are past (or more-up to 14 days). Do you know what the
recommended protocols are?
When and if my dH brings Covid home, I would put him in a motel. Well, at least I will consider that.
If she were to be placed in say, for example, respite care, they would test her, and likely not take her with a positive test.
If she tests positive, the kids will not be allowed at school, being exposed to Covid?
So much to be angry about, and I feel for your difficult circumstances.
Now is the time to put that energy into isolating Mil and protecting others in the household.
I'm also assuming it isn't as simple as just getting MIL tested, tests are in short supply in much of Canada, in my province they are currently limited to front line HCW and high risk individuals who are showing symptoms.
My third comment is that sending someone off to respite care isn't as simple as placing a phone call, the person has to be vetted, there must be a bed available, and many facilities are under heightened restrictions as they try to keep covid out or limit the spread of any that is already there.
I would also be talking to a lawyer next chance I got. There is no reason for you to remain in this one way relationship.
So. What do you want to do?
There are two subheadings: 1. What to do now, today, this morning. 2. What the heck..?
1. What to do now.
Confining young children to their rooms wearing masks is not practical and probably won't be helpful either. If you're proceeding on the assumption that MIL is Covid +, then your husband needs to set up separate living and sleeping and bathroom areas for her so that she can be quarantined - is it possible to do that in the space you have available?
Masks' main purpose is to prevent the wearer exhaling water vapour carrying live virus and thus spreading it around to other people. Unless you're going the whole hog with hi-spec respirators (expensive and uncomfortable, and I'm not even sure they make them for children) masks won't do much to filter out any incoming microbes and protect the wearer. So don't bother. Open windows if possible (what's the weather like and how high are your heating bills?) to improve ventilation and tell the little ones not to sit on grandma's knee.
If other family members were testing positive, then clearly there is no objection to testing in principle so why on earth did they not test MIL? Too difficult? Is her dementia so far gone that you can't explain to her what you're doing and why you need to? Do you have access to either kind of testing kit?
Is MIL showing any symptoms? Who's monitoring her, and does your husband know what to look for? If he hasn't already he needs to download an app with up to date advice on this.
Day to day care - what are MIL's care needs, and how are they being met?
2. What the heck..?
What has your husband had to say for himself to explain how he thinks it's okay to land you and the children with an exposed 81 year old with dementia in your home?
Have you given your sisters in law a piece of your mind yet?
And how about the brother with whom MIL was resident?
Keep your children away from her. Isolate them as much as possible. My daughter thought she was getting a head cold on Friday but on Monday she started losing her smell. She was able to buy a rapid test and was positive. Her job required a PCR which she got. She quarantined for 10 days.
I think it maybe time to place MIL since no one wants to be responsible for her care. Which is OK. She seems hard to deal with.