In October 2022, Charles and I lost guardianship and POA over Jean. In January 2021, in the midst of the COVID outbreak, Jean fell and broke her hip and had COVID. Upon release from the hospital she was sent to a skilled nursing facility in Garner. NC. The average cost of a skilled nursing facility in shared Medicaid room is about $8,000.00 per month. Within a few days of her being admitted, we were contacted by a company that was paid by the facility to assist people in signing up for Medicaid, which she was now eligible for.
Like everyone, this was such an unknown time in our lives. We had lost about 80% of our business and I was just finishing up three years of chemotherapy and radiation for a rare type of Lymphoma. We were struggling financially and emotionally.
Charles and I were Jean’s Guardian, POA and were Trustees of her Trust. We are her only family, and had made decisions on her behalf for over 10 years. We always acted with Jean’s best interest and our family in mind. Not knowing the certainty of what our future would bring, we didn’t know if Jean would have to someday return home or not.
Since the home and HOA were in Jean’s name we juggled between making those payments and payments to the facility, putting us behind in payments to the facility for over $20,000.00. We attempted to work out a promissory note, but we also defaulted on that. The facility did not take a civil suit against us for the money owed, they went straight for our guardianship and POA.
In September of 2022, the facility filed a petition for adjudication of incompetence and application for appointment of guardian or limited guardian. Stating we were not paying the facility, we were keeping the money for ourselves and exploiting Jean. They also reported us to Adult Protective Services.
Some may say, you should have paid the facility period and now you pay the price. Which is what we did, we went to court and we lost guardianship of Jean, which meant that a new guardian was assigned for her financial and we were staying on as her health care guardians. What we were told by the Attorney Guardian Ad Litem and the Presiding Clerk on the day of the hearing was that guardian was not interested in the Trust that they just wanted to make sure that the facility would be receiving the monthly funds. We were also told not to touch any funds in Jean's account and that the new guardian was a really good firm to work with, that we would be hearing from them in a few weeks. We never heard from them until February of 2023 when we were served with a Motion To Amend The Trust.
Honestly, the hardest thing for us to deal with is through all of this, Charles and I have not been treated as Jean’s family but as criminals. The Elder Law in North Carolina is black or white they have no consideration for the family or what the family has done for the elder person over the years.
I will hopefully have another post next week. We are less than 30 days to having to leave the home. Since we have no viable rental history or equity and with our multiple cat household we have not been able to rent a home to move to, and since this is no longer a trust issue we need a new attorney and we have reached out to over 1/2 dozen attorney’s who are either too busy or not able to take our case to hopefully get us a continuance. We have also reached out to the attorney for the facility who we have been trying to reach a settlement with since October 2023 who is stalling us. We have sent a letter to the Trust Successor and asked them to consider an alternative rental option for us to stay in the home. It’s 50-50 they will either say yes or no, so please pray for us.
After months of not seeing Jean because of COVID. This was our first opportunity to visit her at the new facility it was early summer 2021. Her clothes were dirty, her hair was pulled back and in such knots that I had to take scissors and cut them out. You can see the bruises on her arm. But Charles and I are the ones accused of exploiting Jean. This is what you get for $8,000.00 per month. It’s a crime for anyone to live like this.
Charles & Susan
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