Yes. It was a shock that Pepper's mom went so quickly! but that does not mean it will happen that way for your mom.

Hospice can come to where she is living now too and explain to her what will happen

Also you might want to consider a little skullduggery to get her to agree to Hospice

Just don't TELL her it is hospice! Just tell her you want her to meet with some people who can help the family out when she gets home.

She might eventually figure it out but at least that would get the foot in the door.

Good luck! The stubbornness is SO frustrating!!!!

Penny, I believe from past experience with my father and MIL on hospice care that to qualify for medicare hospice coverage there are certain criteria that must be met prior to approval. She'll need to be evaluated by either the hospice medical director or a hospice doctor. These are the only folks that are approved by medicare to make the determination that your mother's physical state is such that she will likely pass away within 6 months. If she goes beyond that 6 months, she's evaluated again every month after to determine eligibility. Of course there are many hospice programs out there that you and your family can choose to care for your mother but I think that's out of pocket expenses should she not qualify for the medicare hospice program.

I hope your mother recovers soon so that she can come home.

I wonder if it varies by state. Three months after my dad got here with us he came down with pneumonia and qualified for hospice medicare.

He got better and we were offered a secondary program that would give us many of the same services and still not cost anything.

They took away his air bed and stopped the visits but we could still use the counseling and evaluation services.

At least get them in to talk to your mom. They have a lot of techniques to get her past the eye rolling stage.

LOL... the "eye rolling stage." Good one...

Mother has already qualified for hospice based on the CHF she has. Her doc and I talked about this last Friday and he said he would have no problem signing off on that. So that's not the problem. Really, no problem... just a matter of when and how. I think the idea of having hospice people come chat w/us & her is a good one. I spoke w/the hospice people over the weekend and the woman was GREAT to talk with. She offered the same thing - that when Mother gets moved she can come over to rehab and talk with us. So I expect that's what we'll do.
And in fact today Mother seemed just a tad better... a little more cheerful and alert so maybe the new place will help her get some strength enough to come on home.
Thanks for your comments and concern.

That's GREAT Penny!! Hospice is the BOMB! No matter what turn the future takes they will be there for the whole family.

A friend of mine tells me that there is a Jewish saying:

People make plans, God laughs.

Not that God laughs about our parents dying, just that God and God alone knows the future. We people can plan the best we can, but there is always an element of the unknown and unpredictable in it for us.

In my mom's case, the hospital doctor tried to get us to go straight to a hospice program, but dad really wanted to believe that mom would eat more, get her strength back, and they could continue to make day trips (ie car rides to nowhere in particular and back). I think that deep down we both knew that was not going to happen, but it was important for him to try.

Make the best plans you can with your mother's overall wishes in mind. At some point you will need to change your outlook, and once you do there are things that will need to be done that will simply take some time. For us, time just ran out.