Synopses & Reviews
In telling the intimate story of caring for her aged and ailing mother, Jane Gross offers indispensable, and often surprising, advice for the rapidly increasing number of adult children responsible for aging parents.
Gross deftly weaves the specifics of her personal experience—a widowed mother with mounting health problems, the attendant collision of fear and ignorance, the awkward role reversal of parent and child, unresolved family relationships with her mother and brother, the conflict between her day job and caregiving—with a comprehensive resource for effectively managing the lives of one’s own parents while keeping sanity and strength intact.
Packed with information, A Bittersweet Season explains which questions to ask when looking for a nursing home or assisted living facility; how to unravel the mysteries of Medicare and Medicaid; why finding a new general practitioner should always be the first move when relocating an elderly parent; how to weigh quality against quantity of life when considering medical interventions; why you should always keep a phone charger and an extra pair of glasses in your car; and much more. It also provides astute commentary on a national health care system that has stranded two generations to fend for themselves at this most difficult of times.
No less important are the lessons of the human spirit that Gross learned in the last years of her mother’s life, and afterward, when writing for The New York Times and The New Old Age blog that she launched for the newspaper. Calling upon firsthand experience and extensive reporting, Gross recounts a story of grace and compassion in the midst of a crisis that shows us how the end of one life presents a bittersweet opportunity to heal old wounds and find out what we are made of.
Wise, unflinching, and ever helpful, A Bittersweet Season is an essential guide for anyone navigating this unfamiliar, psychologically demanding, powerfully emotional, and often redemptive territory.
Synopsis
A remarkably helpful yet intimate book: in telling the warm-hearted story of caring for her own aged and ailing mother,
New York Times journalist Jane Gross offers indispensable advice on virtually every aspect of elder care.
A parent with mounting health problems, an enormous amount to learn quickly about care for the aged, unresolved family relationships with her mother and brother—Gross deftly weaves the specifics of her own experience with a comprehensive resource for effectively managing the lives of your parents while keeping your sanity intact and your family strong. Packed with information, A Bittersweet Season explains which questions to ask when looking for a nursing home or assisted-living facility; why finding a new general practitioner should always be the fi rst move when relocating an elderly parent; how to deal with Medicaid and Medicare; why you should always keep a phone charger and an extra pair of glasses in your car. She also provides astute commentary on a national health care system that leaves two generations to fend for themselves at this most diffi cult of times.
Wise, unflinching, and ever helpful, A Bittersweet Season is an essential guide for anyone navigating this unfamiliar, psychologically demanding, powerfully emotional, and often redemptive territory.
Synopsis
Just a few of the vitally important lessons in caring for your aging parent—and yourself—from Jane Gross in
A Bittersweet SeasonAs painful as the role reversal between parent and child may be for you, assume it is worse for your mother or father, so take care not to demean or humiliate them.
Avoid hospitals and emergency rooms, as well as multiple relocations from home to assisted living facility to nursing home, since all can cause dramatic declines in physical and cognitive well-being among the aged.
Do not accept the canard that no decent child sends a parent to a nursing home. Good nursing home care, which supports the entire family, can be vastly superior to the pretty trappings but thin staffing of assisted living or the solitude of being at home, even with round-the-clock help.
Important Facts
Every state has its own laws, eligibility standards, and licensing requirements for financial, legal, residential, and other matters that affect the elderly, including qualification for Medicare. Assume anything you understand in the state where your parents once lived no longer applies if they move.
Many doctors will not accept new Medicare patients, nor are they legally required to do so, especially significant if a parent is moving a long distance to be near family in old age.
An adult child with power of attorney can use a parents money for legitimate expenses and thus hasten the spend-down to Medicaid eligibility. In other words, you are doing your parent no favor—assuming he or she is likely to exhaust personal financial resources—by paying rent, stocking the refrigerator, buying clothes, or taking him or her to the hairdresser or barber.
About the Author
Jane Gross was a reporter for Sports Illustrated and Newsday before joining The New York Times in 1978 as a reporter and correspondent. Since 2008 she has written for the Times on a freelance basis. She launched and wrote a blog for the Times called “The New Old Age” to which she still contributes. She has taught in the graduate programs in journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and at Columbia University, and was the recipient of a Knight Fellowship. She lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.