Information Please!

The week before Sharon came to us was a whirlwind. From California, my husband and Sharon spent the only two days they had trying to get to the Doctor offices in the area to try and acquire medical information. A tough task when Sharon's only guardian to date has just passed and there isn't a death certificate just yet.

From my end, in Illinois, I started making telephone calls to try and start piecing together benefits. Where do we start?! I knew that I would need information from the Department of Human Services. My husband was able to secure an appointment from the office in California at the Social Security office in our area. That part was helpful.

Who else would we need to call? How much doctor information would they be able to continue securing (not much it turns out)? How much did my mother-in-law keep track of?

We had known for three years that this event would occur at some point in the near future. For three years we had been asking for information about Doctors that Sharon had visited in all of the locations that they had lived (or at least the last three in the last six years). Would they find any of that in the paperwork left behind?

Sharon also had a job through a program for developmentally disabled people. How did we terminate that relationship and how do we get that to count when she moves here? So many questions to ask, but not certain we know exactly what TO ask.

Then there is the house. My husband and I have both grown up in somewhat large families and definitely have been used to sharing bedrooms. But what happens when you put a five year old in the same room with a 44 year old? How do we get all of the crap that belongs to that five year old to fit in only half the room? Creatively. That's all I can say. And can I mention that loft beds are just plain awesome? Fortuitously, we had just purchased a second hand loft bed the weekend before my husband was called to California. Boy did that help with crap stashing! :)

Soon we would find out the answers to some of the above questions and many more questions begin to form. The work truly begins.