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With continued funding for nursing uncertain, I spent more time last week looking at care facilities. To my knowledge, there are six places in Iowa that will take someone with my needs. The closest one said no, citing I'm too much work, and another one is currently full. One I contacted is basically a hospital and doesn't take long-term cases, as I would be. That leaves the field cut by half already. Another one in northeast Iowa currently has an opening, but they have a high turn over rate in clients, so they don't know what availability they will have in late August. The last one on my call list was in southeast Iowa in another small town, Fort Madison.

I love Fort Madison as it's a great place to watch a plethora of trains as well as barge traffic on the Mississippi. We went to watch trains in Fort Madison in April and saw quite a few. The care facility I contacted is interested in me and has openings, so my parents, caregiver, and I checked them out Friday.

The director was a good salesman, telling us everything we wanted to hear. The rooms are good size, about twice the size of the place in Des Moines I looked at, and have windows that look out onto the rest of the building, unfortunately not train tracks. However, it's a typical nursing home in that all the people I saw were well advanced in years. Another thing the director talked about was funding, through Medicaid.

We asked about keeping some sort of insurance for better funding, but he only talked about government funding. In thinking about equipment, he was talking about getting a ventilator for backup when I said I already have two. He was then surprised to learn that we own these vents and can continue to use them. A big difference with private insurance and Medicaid/Medicare funding is equipment purchase.

Insurance buys an item completely, even before it's in possession of the patient. That's how they paid $45,000 for a wheelchair in 2009 that I have yet to see. Government funding rents an item, indefinitely. A $15,000 ventilator can be rented for $500-$1,000 per month for several years, well beyond the time it takes for the item to be covered. Therefore, if a person moves, they don't get to take equipment with them.

What will come of living situation, I don't know, but at least a possibility exists of staying in the state.