WAIOC # 789370
Many people are surprised to see a young professional passionate about long-term care planning until they hear my story. My journey started at an early age when my mother became chronically ill. As far back as I can remember, her failing health impacted the lives of my family and forced me and my two brothers to grow up quickly and take on more responsibility than most kids our age. With each passing year, my mother’s condition deteriorated until she was no longer able to work, manage the home, or participate in our lives socially or emotionally.

By the time I was 16, I was juggling taking care of my mother, completing my high school education, and working as many hours as I could to help financially support our family. When I graduated high school, my mother’s health was so compromised that she required care beyond what we could provide for her at home. Due to our financial situation, my mother was put on Medicaid and moved to a nursing home in Everett. Our family lived in Bothell, so this put an extra strain on everyone as the daily commute took away time we could have had with her. My mother spent four years as a ward of the state on the Medicaid program. These years were difficult for her and extremely hard on our family. Under the care of the nursing home, my mother was consistently neglected, and what care she did receive was unacceptable. She was left waiting for hours at a time for something as simple as getting her to and from the bathroom. The quality of care became so bad that I eventually brought in the State’s long-term care ombudsman to revise and help improve my mother’s treatment and care at the facility. The nursing home eventually changed their Medicaid procedures, forcing my mother to be moved to another nursing home in Tacoma. She passed away one week after being moved.

Watching my mother suffer through a long-term care situation was incredibly difficult. It was a struggle financially, but it also affected my family in ways I never anticipated. My father suffered physically and ended up having a series of heart attacks. My brothers and I took years to reconcile the emotional and physical strain it put on us. I learned the hard way that an unplanned long-term care situation has the power to tear a family apart. Medicaid did not provide an acceptable level of care for my mother and made us all realize we had no control over my mother’s care or quality of life. This experience gave me the passion and determination to help as many people as possible understand the importance of planning and protecting their family members.