[speaker001:] Okay. Well why don't you start cause it said I was suppose to ask you what do you,
[speaker002:] Do you have any elderly relatives currently in an, uh, nursing home now?
[speaker001:] Yes, I do.
[speaker002:] Do you? I have a grandmother. She's a hundred and two.
[speaker001:] Oh my gosh.
[speaker002:] She'll be a hundred and three in August.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] And we decide not to put her in a nursing home. She lives with my mother and my father who also live here in town and then my sister takes care of her.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] She, even though she is a hundred and two, she still has all of her faculties.
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] She still has her snap. She takes care of her own business. This is the first year that she has gotten weak and actually has to have a little walker, but with somebody that needs around the clock care, I have seen my family age.
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] I have seen them in the, she's been there ten years now. And I have seen them age twenty
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] in the time and, and with the expense and everything, I th-, I still think it is worth it if you, if you had a good nursing home and they needed some quality care, I would
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] put someone in a nursing home.
[speaker001:] My mother-in-law finally. They had to make a family decision. There's seven children in my husband's family and fortunately four of them live in the same home town and she has Alzheimer's. It was getting where she was getting th-, dangerous. I mean
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] letting strangers in and things like this, but they were very fortunate. It's a small town and she happens to room with one of the doctor's mothers {C and
[speaker002:] Oh, well that's good.
[speaker001:] then } she's got a lot of family there and that go and see her all of the time but she really doesn't. Nobody thought she would adjust, but she has adjusted beautifully.
[speaker002:] Oh, that is great.
[speaker001:] But then I am also facing my father who is very sick and my mother and father reside in Colorado. She's been taking care of him. I don't know how much longer this can last and at that point because he requires round the clock. He can't do anything without her. He doesn't know when to take his medicine and it's really sad and I have thought if something would happen to my mother for, uh, my brothers are not interested in helping me so I would have to move him down here. That way, I want to see the nursing home. If I have to put him into one. You know, where I can go see it. I, I'd be very uncomfortable with him being in Colorado. And,
[speaker002:] Oh, why yeah. I am sure you have got some really good nursing homes around Dallas.
[speaker001:] Yes. And some of them are limited care too where people can do, uh, like they have apartment styles, but that wouldn't work for him. I think he is beyond that. Where if you need help you can get it, but basically people kind of have a small apartment and doctors are available if they need them.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh. I, I
[speaker001:] And allows,
[speaker002:] know a lady that lives in a place similar
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] to that in Austin.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Well, the only problem with these are that they are very expensive. Of course, I guess all nursing homes there is but,
[speaker002:] And the bad thing about it, before you can get any kind of government help, you just practically have, well you have to be a pauper.
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] It, it takes every penny. They want you to spend every dime you have
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] before the government will pay for your your care.
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] And that's the sad part about it.
[speaker001:] Yeah. I, uh, yeah, and I think a lot of people who do it now. In Colorado it's interesting. I talked to my mother. They allow you sixty five thousand dollars and your car and your home. And my mother could make it on that. What she probably would do is disburse the money to me and then I would send it back to her so that's what would happen.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh. I think that's what most people do. You just have to give it, everything away.
[speaker001:] Yeah. It's unfortunate.
[speaker002:] I, I work at a brokerage firm and I have seen so many people that just have to gift, you know, their belongings
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] as much as they can each year in anticipation of having to move to a nursing home.
[speaker001:] Yeah. It's frightening. And I guess, uh, I don't know how old you are. I'm forty-six. You know, we're the generation moving into this and I don't know how our kids are going to take care of us.
[speaker002:] I can't imagine.
[speaker001:] You know.
[speaker002:] I'm twenty-nine.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] And everybody in my family has always had, we don't have any children. Everybody that has, has them later in life.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] So, my, my mother and my father are in their late sixties. So, I mean, they're not [LAUGHTER]
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] that far away.
[speaker001:] I also see on my generation a squeeze between looking to having to help my parents and still having to help my son because things are so rough out there job wise and he's still living at home and I don't know how he is ever going to get on his own the way things are.
[speaker002:] Oh, I know.
[speaker001:] And so, it's kind of, you feel squeezed in the middle of having both generations, but it, something will have to change as more and more of us get older. Uh, luckily, if we could be like your grandmother, I, uh you know, I would love to live to a hundred and two if I were okay. But
[speaker002:] It, but yeah.
[speaker001:] you see these people in their seventies
[speaker002:] Most people aren't.
[speaker001:] yeah, most aren't. That's the problem.
[speaker002:] And that's the bad thing. I would hate to have lived so long. She lived by herself. My grandfather passed away before I was born so she lived by herself up until she was ninety, ninety-one.
[speaker001:] That's incredible.
[speaker002:] And just did everything,