So I got a call from my dad today telling me that someone called social services worried that he wasn't taking good care of himself. He wanted to know if I had called them.
I hadn't.
Some days his memory is fine, others it isn't. Today it wasn't. Which meant the phone number and name of the social worker who came to visit, did not work. So I had to call the hotline and I got the email address of the director in charge of senior social services in his county. I sent off an inquiry message asking for services that could help him and what the determination of the visit resulted in.
Because my father is in Indiana, and I'm in California, the only thing I can do to help him is make phone calls. I have power of attorney for his finances but that's a hard thing to manage and enforce when he wants to be in control of everything and he hasn't been found incompetent.
I can only do what I can, but that doesn't make things easier for him or for me. I'm trying my best to remain objective but it's not easy.
I think next year if he can't get into the assisted living facility that he's on a waiting list for, eventually social services is going to step in and put him somewhere.
And the thing is, he's known for a few years that his memory was getting worse and did nothing to plan for it. He says today that at 80 he's done. He doesn't care if he lives anymore. He says he's no suicidal but feels "if it's over, it's over" as he puts it. He's just waiting to die.
And now I have to wait for a social service person to contact me.
Fun times.
