Traditional braces, 2+ years, plus retainers, $2600. That was 5 years ago in an average COL area. This includes aftercare, which is still ongoing to this day. In fact, we have a new retainer coming as the old one wore out and that is covered. It seems it varies widely. We only had the option of two providers (both two hours away....sigh) and they both quoted the same.

As someone who does not have cable or any kind of streaming service, I always find myself baffled when it comes to events like the Olympics. I am in the US. After several wrongs turns, I was able to catch the gymnastics olympic trials using YouTubeTV to access a local (if you can call two hours away "local") NBC channel. That was fine, except I want to see ALL of the gymnastics and do not want to switch between sports, which is what that channel is scheduled to show during the actual Olympics. I see PeacockTV is covering all gymnastics "live." This is my question. If I sign up for this service, can I see the streams on demand, after the fact? Or do I have to be up at 4am to watch the live streams? Or if anyone has suggestions on any other way to catch as much gymnastics as possible without cable, I'd love to hear them.

Ugh. We have been trying to opt out. The website is terrible. Our only is turning 18 next month so we are not eligible and will have to give it all back at tax time.

I guess I am failing to see what goes on in a bathroom that has anything to do with gender outside of the individual locking toilet and shower stalls. Looking at dd's university, the dorms are old. There are a handful of suites with bathrooms that are shared by four students (these are typically reserved for upperclassmen anyway) but otherwise, without major renovation, communal bathrooms it is. If that is the default, I cannot imagine how one would police different rules for different bathrooms. And once there are "rules" someone has to enforce them....putting trans people in the awkward position of trying to determine how to offend the least number of people with their bathroom choice. Can a trans man use the men's room? Or should they use the women's room? Do they have to hike to another building that has a coed bathroom? Should we have bathrooms just for trans people? Coed bathrooms eliminates this. Even if you perhaps have the choice of living in a room with the bathroom arrangement of your choice, what happens when you are in a different part of the building? Do you go to a different floor so you can pee in the "right" bathroom. When I was a student in the early 90s, we frequently used the opposite bathroom to avoid hiking to a different part of the building when meeting with a study group or visiting a friend. It was not uncommon at all to see men in our women's only bathrooms. Having them constructed to specifically accommodate this seems like the easiest way for everyone to get what they need. My ideal would be a bank of full individual bathrooms for each house so no one was in a communal situation ever. And maybe that will happen someday. But meanwhile, universities are grappling with a rapidly changing culture around gender while still having to deal with existing buildings.

Dd's dorm has coed bathrooms. It did not occur to me to think this was an issue and dd is not bothered. They still have individual stalls for toilets and showers. I wonder what people think colleges should do? We all know there are many more trans students attending college now. Coed bathrooms eliminates the bathroom wars, which I think is a good thing. I would much rather see that than jacked up housing costs so that everyone can have their own individual bathroom.

On the flip side, I was absolutely shocked to be present for one of these with a person who was still living on their own and DRIVING who 100% failed the test. I knew there were issues but those issues were very well masked. Had someone asked me before the test if they would have passed, I would have confidently said yes. They are not flawless but they do cut through the muscle memory masking that dementia patients often are very good at.

This has not been my experience. At least in my state, medicaid will not pay for AL, period. And I don't know what kind of AL you are referring to, but even with LTC insurance, all we can afford is a small, single room in a dated, but thankfully licensed, AL facility. Apartment-style AL facilities were no less than $10K per month when I was searching two years ago. I cannot see medicaid covering that even if they did cover AL in general.

Dd applied for a new passport in late April. It took 4 weeks. I was shocked as I expected it to take months. We did not expedite. It seems to vary widely. Not that that is helpful......

The person I care for did a really good job of planning. Having long term care insurance, and a good policy at that, has been extremely helpful. And their POA, medical directive, and will was in place. All good. But things still did go off the rails and I am not sure how it could have been prevented. Their dementia was the slow moving kind and they were able to completely hide it for a long time. Meanwhile, they were making very poor financial decisions, due largely to the dementia. Like $500K total in mistakes over a long period of time. Some of it was being scammed. Some was true mistakes (bounced checks, late fees, lost checks/money, tax mistakes). And some was just plain poor decisions like ill-considered home renovations. Even with a good POA in place, we could not take over finances or even know what was going on until they welcomed our help (or was deemed incompetent). There can be a lot of shame and/or denial for some people with health issues, especially dementia. Part of that shame/denial results in hiding planning/financial issues until it is too late to correct them. I don't know how to avoid that for myself or others. I can do all of the right planning but it can all be undone by unchecked dementia, I have learned. Unless one is willing to have their children or other caregivers up in their business well before issues begin AND can maintain a good relationship when the time comes for someone else to take the reins, I just don't know how people can protect themselves.

YES! The person I care for refuses to move to my location and has taken the position that it is our duty to relocate to be close to them. We are business owners so moving is not a realistic option for us. And even if it were, we have other elders in our lives that we will eventually be caring for that do not live in that location. Trying to take care of things from an entire day's drive away is really really hard and greatly limits care options. I think we could have used home health care for a year or two more had we not been dealing with the distance. As in, we could fill in for times when home health was not available or disrupted. As it is, every medical appointment has me scrambling to find transportation and calling in to know what was discussed. It is a mess. But I know it could be so much worse so I count myself lucky.

It is a rare unicorn but there were some good policies out there. My person had one and it was very expensive. But the company has been very easy to work with and has already paid out far more than was paid in. There were some hoops to get it started but has been automatic and smooth sailing ever since. It does not cover everything and it will likely run out well before my person passes, but without it, I have no idea what we would have done. I can tell you that the wait for benefit approval was probably the most stressful time of my life. There is literally no one in my family that could provide the level of care needed not to mention my person does NOT want to live with any of us.

Unfortunately, no. That was the goal when seeking a facility but we ran into three big issues. The first is that the graduated facilities were significantly more expensive with self-pay-first requirements that we would not be able to meet. Most were close to double what we are currently paying. The second is that all of the ones we toured were much less independent at the AL level. They felt more nursing home-like from the get go, which our person balked at. For instance, all showering was scheduled and supervised regardless of whether the resident needed it or not. This is not something my person needed and they were very (understandably) upset that they would be restricted to two supervised showers a week. This is also probably why they were so much more expensive. And third, the waiting lists were long. My person needed to move ASAP. The assistance they needed was not going to be manageable with home health care....specifically wandering and fire-setting risk. So we took the gamble figuring it was better to solve the problem right in front of us rather than fret too much about years down the road. Not that it has stopped me from fretting.

I am in the thick of this as I care for someone who has dementia and is currently living in AL. It is not a scam. They needed a level of care that was more then could be handled by home visits but not yet to the level of needing a nursing home. Examples of this type of care include medication administration, bathing/dressing help, meals, cleaning/laundry, and generally having eyes on someone. AL is not covered by medicare or medicaid. In our case, we are self-funding the AL. Time will tell what happens when the money runs out. It could mean my person may end up in a nursing home when they might have still been ok in AL. The thing that keeps me up at night is the shortage of medicaid beds in the local nursing facilities. So, while medicaid does cover nursing homes, there is no guarantee that a spot can be found.

Dd had to take the ALEKS test for math placement as a DE student. She scored a 67 and was placed in pre-calc. It was just fine. She got an A and went on to earn As in calc I and II.

Almost no one is masking in my area. We have no mandate now and aside from a handful of establishments that continue to require their employees to mask, I see them nowhere. We have less than 30% vaccination rate. Even when we had mandates, only about half complied. And there was a lot of bullying people who were wearing masks. My family is fully vaccinated and at first we continued to mask but after sighs, eye rolls, and dirty looks, we stopped. If these people don't care to protect themselves/others, then fine. I am done trying to be a "good example." The few vulnerable people I know are still trapped in their houses for the foreseeable future.

Well, as others have said, she still has the right to vote. She does not as she does not have the capacity to get to a polling place or high enough functioning to obtain and mail an absentee ballot. Nor does she have any idea what is happening politically. We need an ID so she can fly accompanied. But the same barriers apply. If her disability was purely physical and she DID want to vote, we would be in the same boat.

Yes, but for some reason only the middle initial is listed. Which may very well be what is on the BC. That is what we tried on the latest try. We have not heard back yet on that one.

On the ID thing.... I can 100% attest that it is NOT easy for some citizens to get photos IDs. My elderly mother, who does not have a driver's license, needs a state ID or passport to fly to visit her other daughter and grandbabies . I have been working on this for months. I have spent hours, if not days, trying to do this and am still far from it. She has dementia and long ago lost all of her important documents (birth certificate, marriage license, SS card). So, I have applied, multiple times, to get a copy of her BC, from a different state for months now. I pay $22 every time and lose the money because we are guessing on her father's middle name. They keep the money and deny on each guess. The exact names of each parent (including middle) and the city of birth (another guess) are required. We know what his middle name is, just not how to spell it as there are multiple common ways to do so. I had better luck with the marriage certificate. Also from another state. $30. This is all BEFORE I must travel an entire day to get to her to physically take her to the SOS office to apply for the ID. She has no one else to take her. More money to travel and more money for the ID. Yeah. Totally "simple" and "easy" to get an ID. She has help and we still might not be successful. She voted for years without a photo ID. She was even a poll worker. She is white and "privileged" even. No health care provider has required photo ID. They may have asked but moved on when she said she didn't have one.

Steel wool. I burn stuff in my pans a lot......

Huh. We just renewed dd's and it took 4 weeks. We just got it on Monday. I was expecting it to take much longer so was pretty surprised to see it in the mailbox. We did not pay for rush or anything.

I was so hoping there were friendly toilets that I did not know about!

I am dying to know what this means!

I'm dismayed that dd's college is not requiring vaccines. They actually don't require any which was the justification for not requiring this one. This also means they plan to continue mitigation efforts including masking, limits to classrooms and activities, closed dining halls, etc.... We shall see if that really happens. Meanwhile, dd had a physical this week and her vaccine record was already in her chart, despite not having to provide doctor info in the vaccine paperwork. This is a brand new doctor too. I did not even call to make the appointment until after the vaccine happened. I believe it came through the state vaccine database system.

I care for someone with dementia from afar and have learned that I can never trust whatever arrangement I have made with a doctor's office when it comes to appointment instructions. My situation is a little different because I usually cannot be there and hire a caregiver to handle transportation. The caregiver has always been allowed to go into the facility and office waiting room but not the actual appointment. Since this is a one-time hire, they would not be useful as an advocate anyway. So, I need need NEED for them to call me into the appointment. This is always a note in the chart and for the appointment but it seldom is carried out. My standard practice now is to note when the office opens in the morning. I call right at that point and ask them to pull the chart and verify the instructions for a call are there. Then I inform them that I will call again 15 minutes prior to the appointment so that someone on duty at that time will be informed, which I do. Even then, I only get about 50% success and find myself calling again 15 minutes after the appointment has begun, often missing something. Any question that my person is asked is 100% guaranteed to be answered incorrectly so then we have to go over anything I missed AGAIN. The time they are wasting with me calling up to three times and having to repeat part of the appointment seems worth a little more effort on their end but it must not be since it happens with every single doctor we see. I just don't understand how this happens. They KNOW she has dementia. Why even ask her important health questions? Most of the questions are actually more appropriate for the nursing staff at her care facility, which has permission to share medical information with her providers. This has to be common with dementia patients. Why not just make it standard practice to call in the care facility or POA on file for every appointment. What are they gaining by asking a dementia patient what their sugar levels have been over the past few weeks or if they are sticking to their diet? She has NO (accurate) IDEA (she does have lots of inaccurate ideas....). If they ask again in five minutes, they will get a completely different answer. How is this useful? Then if I don't get there in time, they will give her follow up instructions! She is not going to remember these instructions. So, I have to call AGAIN to get those. Some of her providers don't have electronic chart systems or it takes some time for them to be updated when often an instruction is to get labs or something right away..... Sorry. Rant over. The answer is that your dad is going to have to get pushy and not assume anything.

It hurts to watch. I had one specific outcome that I tracked the entire 13 years. One of the classes I taught involved drafting and scale. Despite my having more teaching experience over the years, my students' ability to understand scale and therefore be able to recognize they had made a mistake declined significantly over the 13 years. Between blind calculator faith and the fact that less and less of them had ever used a real map (hello GPS), more and more of them just could not grasp it as the years went on. I had students turning in drawings of entire subdivisions on a sheet of standard engineering paper with a scale of 1:10. There were all sorts of issues....not understanding how units worked, blindly following numbers punched into a calculator, or simply giving up and writing down something "official looking." I would stand in the middle of the classroom with 10 sheets of paper lined up across the floor and ask the class if a subdivision would really fit in that space. Blank stares. My first year, I had about 75% of the students leaving my class having eventually grasped the concept. By year 13, I was down to about 40%. I have no idea how to fix that once they are in college. So many students asked why they needed to know this. They told me that whatever CAD or solid modeling program they used would do this for them. I kept pleading with them that yes, those programs do it for them but if they cannot assess what is reasonable, they cannot recognize mistakes. You know, like BEFORE that bridge gets built or that airplane part is installed.