And Then It Dawned On Me

So the assessment nurse came by on Friday.  It's always an arduous task because this visit determines how many hours of PCA I get billed for for taking care of Grandmother, and thus how much money I make.

The assessment itself is also a pain in the ass because Mother usually tries to monopolize the interview between her, me, Grandmother and the assessment nurse.  I'm the one that takes care of her most of the time; besides the big things like finances and quasi-power of attorney issues, she doesn't really know.  I can answer most of these questions, but most of the time she does.

But she wasn't there this time.  Instead, Grandmother made an executive decision to bring her interpreter, the one that represents her on doctor's visits, over to the house on Friday.  I didn't know that the only person who needed to be at an assessment was the client.  She doesn't speak English well, so I thought that I needed to be there as PCA/translator, and Mother needed to represent her big interests as the responsible party.  But no; the interpreter chick filled in for Mother, and it was us four on Friday.

I'm still cheezed over this.  Grandmother didn't "make" this decision; the interpreter convinced ... well, no, told her, yeah ... she told her that she should come.  Maybe she even told Grandmother she would come.  I don't exactly know if there's anything in it for her.  She probably got paid to be there as a translator, but is there a kickback somewhere?

Right now, the reason I think the interpreter shoehorned her way into this assessment is that she's bossy.  I saw a whiff of that when I accompanied Grandmother on a doctor's visit last week.  I saw the overly demonstrative way she told her off when she asked questions.  Worse, she, um, embellished a few things between the diabetes counselor and Grandmother, both ways.  That's not a risk I need to see, especially if my wincing -- I have a poker face for shit -- catches the nurse's eye.

And I did a lot of that during the assessment.  I cannot make too many accusations because my Chinese ain't that great, and they spoke Vietnamese to each other, a language I can't speak at all.  But there were many times where I thought to myself, "Wait, she (she being Grandmother or the nurse) didn't say that."

But what rang out clear as a bell was the way translator chick dominated the interview, Grandmother, and me.  She spoke 70-5% of the time.  She kept saying that Grandmother needed more PCA service; she said it so many times that a five-year-old could tell she really was saying, "Get more money for the boy -- and for me!!!"  And something I saw at the doctor's last week: she had this particularly obnoxious, almost comically absurd tic where, if she wants to spit words out with emphasis, she closes her eyes while she talks.  I see a lot of old Asian women do that whenever a conversation gets heated, including, sometimes, Mother.  It's as if they're afraid that what they're saying will upset the person they're speaking to, and they don't want to see their reaction.  On several occasions, I noticed that these Asian women close their eyes while telling lies.  I hope the nurse doesn't think she's lying, even if she was embellishing.

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Oh, I just looked at the title of this blog post.  In the middle of the interview, the interpreter told the nurse that Grandmother wanted Glucerna.  For this, the nurse said, she needed to fill out a form called an Elderly Waiver.

Elderly Waiver, Elderly Waiver ... those two words sound familiar.  That's when I remembered that I we had this conversation during last year's assessment, I believe.  Grandmother wanted more of these diabetes drinks, but didn't want to pay for them, and so the nurse said the only way to get them is through filling out these EW forms.  But when I told Mother about it, she said no, and Grandmother was OK with it.  I don't remember the details about why the plan was nixed -- maybe it had something to do with more bureaucracy, or Grandmother said she could get Glucerna from a friend.  But I remember clearly that we, not just Grandmother, but all of us didn't want to go through with it after finding out all the details.

This was going to be another thing that the interpreter was ramming down my and Grandmother's throats.  But somehow these Elderly Waiver forms jogged my memory, and then it dawned on me: The translator has just fucked up my financial situation for good.

When Tim Pawlenty starved the state of money, he made me lose money as a PCA.  Fortunately, because of his extremist politics -- and the fact that I still can't find a job in this god-forsaken world -- I qualified for state aid and unemployment.  However, my hours as a PCA barely made me eligible, and if the translator chick's constant load bleating goads is heard by the nurse, she'll bump me up, and I'll lose both.  There's a chance that we made such a convincing case that her PCA hours will skyrocket to something even close to full-time, but if not, I will, lose more money in the long run than I'll make in the short run.

And that's when my mind harkened back to last year.  I was mad at Mother for her attitude at that assessment, but after what happened, I was OK with it.  I actually miss that now.  So that's why I'm so upset now: My fate has been sealed by an annoying woman I barely know who's taking over care of Grandmother from me and can't even fucking open her eyes when she talks.