The new Jane Gross book is a can't miss for anyone who has parents, is a parent, or knows a parent. The book covers the caregiving required for her mother in her final years of life. She covers all the family issues, geriatric medicine, hospital discharge planning, entitlement programs, assisted living, nursing homes, long term care insurance, moving a mother between states and between facilities and so much more. And she is in her own face and yours, too. Brutally honest just like in the NY Times blog she started and still contributes to: The New Old Age. Get more bittersweet book details here. 

  

"I can tell you, from experience, that if you take charge too soon, you will patronize and humiliate your parents, but if you step in too late, their manageable problems will have turned unmanageable."

  

"My aim here is to give more precise and vivid meaning to the platitude that old age isn't for sissies."

  

"The reward for living this long (88 years), her mother often said, and studies support it, is that you get to rot to death rather than die."

  

"Sometimes I think about losing her just when I found her, the time we could have enjoyed, the terrible waste. I saw a glimmer of what we could have been if we'd paid attention to each other sooner."

  

  

M&M's Plain Chocolate Candies were first sold in 1941.

  

Medicare & Medicaid signed into federal law on 7/30/65.

  

Having a daughter is the single most important factor to stay out of a nursing home.