tl;dr: My father's medicare ran out, the facility at which he was going to continue rehabilitating was going to discharge him this coming Monday to his home 60 miles away from any sort of help while he still suffers from internal bleeding. That is a death sentence and neither my sister or I can afford to miss work to live in with our dad for even a short stay. As it is, he will be discharged in a week instead, because money runs out again but not because he's actually had surgery to fix his bleeding issues. If you would like to send a signal boost, please do; if you would like to make a contribution send it to me via Paypal at louis (dot) lamp (at) gmail (dot) com. If you can't contribute, please give a signal boost. Also, when you contribute, please choose an inflatable toy in my collection or a song you'd like me to play. WARNING: Inflatable dragons don't always make sounds that are easy to listen to.

Today is a day that I do not want to repeat ever again. I've never thought so hard about just giving up on life since I was a recruiter in the army. The rehabilitation center my dad is in sometimes calls me, and I'm in somewhat regular contact with them. So, I wasn't alarmed to get the call this morning at 7:30am or so until I was told that my dad completed rehabilitation and would be discharged on Monday. Normally, I would be elated at such news, because that means I can spend a couple thousand dollars and help dad get settled back into his apartment (like my sister and I got to do earlier this year).

Unlike last time, my dad was sent to a rehabilitation center following a major stroke he had while in a pre-op ward for heart surgery. To stop internal bleeding/leaking from valves in his heart. He was originally hospitalized in September because blood pooling in his legs caused massive swelling and septic infections in his legs. At this time, his heart is still leaking blood into his body and the blood still has to get removed or sepsis will set in again.

Not to mention, Medicare appears to not cover 100% of the costs. They cover 80%; so 20% of all the medical bills from both of his hospital stays this year (Jan-Mar and Sep-Nov/Dec) means that he has mounting medical bills and no ability to pay them. While his kids (my sister and I) aren't responsible for paying for those, that these bills will go unpaid may impact the willingness of facilities to give him a bed space. I don't know, and most of my thoughts surrounding this scenario are very dark.

What my sister and I did today:
- Got him some supplemental insurance (which doesn't go into effect immediately - going to try to get that changed).
- Got a 4-day extension for his stay (mainly because we blindsided his cardiologist with the news he was being discharged because his 'rehabilitation' was complete. The cardiologist I think set off a small nuclear bomb of anger in the rehab clinic.
- I missed work to be on the phone from 7:30am to 6pm or so, and it's midnight now and I'm still doing tasks related to this situation (like writing this post).

What still needs to be done:
Actually get my dad to do a last will and testament, financial power of attorney, medical power of attorney, letter of instruction, living will, HIPAA form. He (and any parent) can be extremely stubborn but this needs to get done (my sister and I have tried before, this time we will succeed).
Travel to Arizona upon my father's discharge to help him resettle, and handle in person what I could not manage over the phone from a distance. He lives in a place so remote that in WWII we had a concentration camp for the Japanese near there.
Get my father into a nursing home / assisted care facility; hopefully in the Pacific NW or worst case, in Arizona if that's where he'd prefer to be.
Somehow not fall behind my own bills in all of this (between wages not being earned by not being at work and physically being away from home; MOST of my bills are automatic, but not all).

What I need the money for by priority.
1) Cover the trip down there to help him resettle. $2k estimated.
2) Get documents done for my father; these six documents could range from $100-$250 each or be thousands of dollars depending on how able he is to represent himself until they're done. $1500 estimated.
3) Cobble some money together to cover in home care expenses until supplemental insurance takes effect. Estimating $21/hr, 24hrs/day, for ~14 days. Estimate: $7,056. This won't be needed if I can get his insurance to go into effect immediately (which I will try on Monday). Otherwise, he'll go two weeks without anyone who can prevent blood from pooling in his body.
4) Get money together to help a down payment on his care at a nursing home up-front to help him get a bed faster. Once he has a bed and several months of money to pay for it, there will be time to get him transferred to Medicaid. If we don't pay for a bed up front, it could take many months or some years to find him bed space. The average cost of a bed is $248/day in the United States with the average stay of folks my dad's age being 846 days. That adds up to $209,808. I highly doubt I'll be able to get anything close to that; $7,440/mo is what the average cost works out to (30 day months), and several of those might be enough. There are too many unknowns on this item for me to even attempt an estimate. I'm going to say between $21k and $84k (3 months and 12 months) of care. Plus, various forms of insurance (which are no longer available by and large since he's in a medical predicament), and Medicaid can help reduce this cost, it is not the end of the world if I don't have all this cash in hand, but it could help a lot. :(

Out of personal funds, I still need to get my car repaired so that it doesn't die prematurely on me. That and being prepared to make another trip to handle end-of-life things when the time comes. Neither parent has life insurance or any other forms of insurance, so funeral, burial and transportation of belongings fall solely on my sister and I.

I am working on something I can do for those who contribute. When you contribute, name a song that you'd like me to play or an inflatable that you'd like me to play while sitting on. I will resurrect my Livestream channel and play music badly while on inflatables through my laptop if I have to. I reserve the right to ask you to choose a different song or a different toy if a need to do so arises. I won't be able to start doing these until I'm back in Oregon and in some semblance of privacy.

My paypal address is louis (dot) lamp (at) gmail (dot) com. Any size of contribution is welcome; if you cannot contribute, please give me a signal boost. :(