In this episode, I chronicle a yearlong search for a suitable skilled nursing facility.
This is part five of my continuing series recounting my efforts to maintain my benefits and live in a safe, comfortable environment.

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to Episode 119 of Contemplating Life.

In this latest installment of my ongoing series about my struggles to maintain my benefits and continue living in my own home, I chronicle a yearlong search for a suitable skilled nursing facility.

When we left off in episode 117, I had just visited a facility called Wellbrooke of Avon that I thought would be a wonderful place. However, I was at the end of a lengthy waiting list.

In the days that followed, I began sorting through belongings and throwing things away. Most people move from home to home three or four times throughout their lifetime. It gives them an opportunity to get rid of a lot of stuff they don’t need. I’ve lived in this house since I was three years old, so I’ve collected a lot of stuff. Even though I have cleaned house and gotten rid of things many times over the years, I still had much to go through.

I brought out my entire DVD collection and sorted through which ones I wanted to keep and which to give away. My niece Alaina took most of them because many were Pixar and other CGI-animated kids’ shows. I gave a few to my friend Rich.

Among them were several concert DVDs featuring 70s groups such as Yes and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. I spent a couple of afternoons watching them, perhaps for the last time, or deciding whether I wanted to keep them.

One big question would be the disposition of my TV and Blu-ray player. Normally, that’s not a big decision. However, my Samsung 46-inch TV and Blu-ray player are 3D capable. I have a collection of about 30 3D Blu-ray discs. They don’t make 3D-capable TVs anymore. I would really like my TV to find a home with someone who would appreciate it as much as I do. I found a Facebook forum for 3D enthusiasts. The buy and sell 3D titles. I asked about the resale value of my TV and Blu-ray player. The results were not encouraging. Everyone who wants 3D, already has it.

For many months, I had been going through old VHS videotapes of home movies and digitizing them. When that wrapped up, I converted some old audio cassette tapes. I had to buy a new cassette player. My old boombox quit working about halfway through the process.

I found some real treasures that I thought I had lost.

In the early 1980s, when Father Paul tried to persuade me to return to the church, he gave me a tape of a lecture by Reverend Terry Fullam. I was initially unimpressed. Later, after a bit of a conversion experience at the Easter Vigil, I returned to listen to the tape in its entirety and was deeply moved. I thought I had lost the tape, or perhaps given it back to Father Paul. I was very happy to rediscover it, listen to it again, and capture it digitally.

I was amazed at how influential that tape was. I didn’t realize how much of that lecture eventually made its way into my RCIA lessons.

I also found audiocassettes of Jim Welter’s series “The Ascending View,” which was the basis for many of my Scripture lessons. I’ve talked about him before in episode 13. By the way, someday we will return to recreating those old lessons. We wrapped up with the Old Testament, but we still have to cover the New Testament and a couple of other lessons I used to teach.

While we were on the topic of digitizing things, in recent weeks, I’ve been going through old file folders and scanning documents. I covered a lot of precious memorabilia that perhaps I’ll talk about some other time.

From July 30 through August 2, my friend Bill Binko was in town from Florida and visited with me. He helped me sort through boxes of electronics I had accumulated over the years. These are microcontrollers from Arduino and Adafruit that form the basis of many of my assistive technology gadgets. Bill had purchased many of them for me for our work with his charity, ATMakers. We had a few friendly arguments about what to keep and what to give back to him. Even if I were able to get a private room in a facility, I would have little opportunity to do much new development.

I also gave him my broken Prusa 3D printer and several spools of filament. I kept just a few spools for use with my current Creality printer. Bill would donate them to a high school robotics team. After leaving here, he was headed to Mishawaka, Indiana, to visit the Hunt family. Their 12-year-old daughter, Ella, has been the recipient of some of our most creative designs. Bill works with the robotics club up there, and they could make use of some of my stuff. The printer just needs some minor repairs.

Bill and I began working on some new gadgetry for me to eventually use in a nursing facility. I have been wanting to upgrade the system I use in my bedroom for a long time. This new system could replace my current system until I find a facility.

My current system consists of three boxes. One sits on my dresser at my bedside. Connected to it is a set of three buttons mounted in my famous “sling ring” configuration that I use in my right hand. As I push the buttons, it sends a radio signal to a box on top of my TV. The set-top box has an LCD text display that can show two rows of text of 16 characters each. It is a very old piece of technology. It was the first Arduino-based system I ever created in late 2012. I use the buttons to browse menus on the screen. When I click, it sends infrared signals to control my TV and cable box. It can also send infrared signals back to the bedside box, which is connected to my laptop computer. It interprets these signals as mouse movement or some limited keyboard presses. Mostly it’s just arrow keys.

The bedside box also has Bluetooth capability that connects to my iPad, which is also mounted conveniently atop my TV. I can switch from Infrared remote mode to Bluetooth mode and control everything on my iPad without touching the screen.

The radio also connects to a box in my sister’s bedroom and to one in the living room, both of which have a loud buzzer. I can click on the menu to call my sister if she doesn’t see my text messages.

The radios used in the system are from the X-Bee Series 1, which is no longer available. I decided to switch to a different radio system, the RFM69, which should be just as capable and is easier to interface with other parts of the system. You can just plug in one of those circuit boards piggybacked on other components. The new system would also have a larger and much more capable LCD display.

One critical component would be a relay switch. The cable running from this relay could connect to the nursing facility’s nurse call system.

I had 3D-printed boxes ready, and Bill assembled everything. We ran some simple tests to make sure the hardware was working and the radios were communicating. However, adapting my own programs into this new system would take quite a while.

On August 3, the day after Bill left, I had a series of technology failures. I broke a wire in my pushbuttons, and I had to have Rich come out to solder them. He also soldered antenna wire that I forgot to have Bill install on the radios.

Then my hospital bed in my bedroom quit working. I could no longer raise or lower the head of the bed. I double-checked that the power record was connected, but it wasn’t that. I went through a lot of turmoil trying to order a new bed. I even considered paying for it myself when I couldn’t get Medicaid arrangements to work. They said it could take two weeks. I also considered purchasing one off of Facebook Marketplace. Eventually, we discovered that the cable to the bed controls had come unplugged. It wasn’t the power record. It was a different cable. It took me repeated attempts to cancel the order.

If that wasn’t enough, my Internet started acting flaky, and I had to purchase a new router. That took a day and a half to get set up. Many of my homemade gadgets require a specific IP address. This was a different brand of router than I was used to, so it took me a while to figure out how to get everything set up and working.

Amidst all of these preparations to move, I did find time to have some fun. Carol and I went to the Old National Center to see a comedy show by Josh Johnson. I’ve been following him on YouTube for months and was a big fan. Unfortunately, the show felt a little flat to me. Furthermore, about a week later, he released a YouTube video from another venue where he did the same routines. Much of his humor is topical, so he’s constantly writing material and releasing it on YouTube. Why did I go to the trouble of paying for tickets to see routines I could see on YouTube for free two weeks later?

Carol and I also took her grandson (my great-nephew), Leighton, to see the Fantastic Four movie. That was fun.

Leighton is 15 years old and aspires to be an aeronautical engineer. I asked him if he had ever built an airplane before. He said no. So I decided we should rectify that. I ordered a radio-controlled model airplane. Unlike the kinds of model planes my dad flew off after he retired, these were not made of balsa wood and mono coat coverings. These are made out of 1/4″ foam board. The parts are die-cut. You punch them out, fold the seams, and assemble them with a hot glue gun. Throughout the summer, we worked on the project.

On Saturday, August 23, we packed up everything and went to Saint Gabriel’s football and soccer field for a test flight. We only had two attempts. Both times, the plane veered sharply to the right and crashed. The second crash caused more damage than we could repair in the field.

I’m sad to report that we’ve not gotten around to repairing the aircraft to try again. Still, we had fun, and I had some good bonding time with my great-nephew.

Let’s get back to the quest for the perfect nursing home.

In late July, Carol and I visited a facility on the northeast side called Clearvista. We got lost trying to find the place. You have to go down the driveway that looks like it’s a dead end. We finally figured it out.

They did not have private rooms available. However, their shared occupancy rooms did not have two beds in one room. It was a two-room suite with a common entrance and a shared bathroom. There was a solid wall separating the rooms, although there was no door to be closed between them. The room was smaller than the private room, but would still be plenty sufficient to set up a computer desk and some bookcases full of my junk. I could bring my 3D TV.

They had a waitlist, as did many of the places we contacted. There was a red flag, however. As we were taking a tour, we saw a resident in his wheelchair near the nurses’ station. He seemed a bit agitated. The nurses or CNAs seemed unconcerned. As we came back past him on the way out, he was still sitting there, and now there was a puddle of urine beneath his wheelchair. Apart from their lack of concern over his agitation, why wasn’t he wearing an adult diaper if he was incontinent? We crossed them off our list.

There was another facility nearby from a different chain. They suggested we drop by there and check them out. But it was a very hot day, and I was tired. We decided not to pursue it. I later called that facility, and they didn’t return my calls.

On Wednesday, August 6, we visited a facility at 16th and Arlington Avenue called Arlington Place. Like Clear Vista, their semi-private rooms were separated by a wall. They seemed enthusiastic to have me, and they estimated they might have a room in 2 to 4 weeks. This was good news and bad news. I was happy to find a place, but I wasn’t sure I could be ready that soon. Over the next several weeks, I accelerated my preparations at a frantic pace.

Several people warned me that it was a rough neighborhood. Admittedly, I wouldn’t want a visitor walking through a dark parking lot late at night to visit me. However, I wasn’t concerned about the neighborhood. Occasionally, you can hear shots fired in my neighborhood now. Sometimes, right here on my street. These days, no place is truly safe from gun violence. Depending on where my room was in the facility, I was probably further away from the street and potential danger than I am in my own home.

I found an entry in my notes dated September 4 that says “I could move if I had to.” That meant I wasn’t 100% finished in arranging all my affairs. However, if I had to, I could move. I don’t know how often I called Arlington Place to check on the status. I kept getting excuses that it wasn’t quite ready yet. At one point, they indicated they might have to evict a resident. Perhaps their family didn’t pay, or their insurance ran out. I don’t know.

On October 31, Halloween, we visited a facility called Alpha Home at 2600 Cold Spring Rd, not too far from my house. Even though their website showed private rooms, they had absolutely none. I’m not just talking about Medicaid patients. There were no private rooms in the entire facility. We had set up an appointment for a tour, but when we arrived, the only person available to show us around was the woman in charge of housekeeping. Certainly, she knew the facility because her crew was in charge of keeping it clean. However, she knew nothing about the staffing or their capabilities. I needed to speak to an admissions director or administrator, but none were available.

It looked like a nice enough place. Maybe if I needed respite care, we would consider it. But it was not a long-term solution, and overall, the trip seemed like a waste of time.

I mentioned in a previous episode that I started seeing a counselor. I used virtual visits over a WebCam. It was good to talk about my issues with the stranger. Unfortunately, on Friday, August 22, she informed me that she was leaving the practice and that I’d need a new therapist. Now I had to start over, telling my life story to the extent necessary for her to understand what was going on with me. I was quite upset. I really wondered about the effects that would have on her other clients who perhaps were not as stable as I am. For me, it was a frustration. For others, it could be a crisis.

Part of my plan to get a bunch of my stuff was to have a yard sale. We talked about doing it all summer but didn’t get around to it until Friday and Saturday, October 17 and 18. Carol put a lot of effort into hauling all our stuff into the driveway, under an awning she set up. We had posted flyers around the neighborhood on telephone poles and put up a listing on Facebook. It was unseasonably warm that day. Even under the shade of the awning, it was pretty hot.

The entire thing was a giant waste of time. Only three people showed up, and we made only $12. It wasn’t about the money. We just didn’t get rid of anything substantial. I was embarrassed that I had talked Carol into it.

One more quick story, a little bit off topic. However, chronologically, it fits here, so we will tell you about it.

In August 2020, I decided I would take a leap and try my hand at writing fiction. As frequent listeners here know, I’ve had success writing autobiographical nonfiction, as evidenced by my award-winning article “The Reunion.” However, I’ve never seriously tried to write fiction for publication.

I’ve written about a dozen stories and collected about 75 rejection emails from a variety of print and online markets. In 2024, I wrote a story called “The 50% Rule.” It was inspired by the real-life experiences of my friend Bill Binko. His home in Clearwater, Florida, was severely damaged by Hurricane Helene. They wouldn’t let him get a building permit to repair the home because they said the repair cost was more than 50% of the home’s value. He would have to demolish it and rebuild it completely on stilts.

I speculated what would happen if that 50% rule were applied to the extreme. The protagonists in my story were denied treatment because they said it would cost more than 50% of his value as a human being.

In 2024, I submitted it to the publisher “B Cubed Press” for their upcoming anthology, “Alternative Liberties.” It was about living in America under a fascist government. Much to my delight, the publisher, Bob Brown, liked the story, but he thought it was a bit dry. He suggested a way to rewrite it. He gave me the opportunity to resubmit it. I didn’t exactly take his suggestions, but I did beef it up a bit. Ultimately, they ran out of room for my story. Bob suggested that if they ever did volume 2, I should resubmit.

On Friday, September 5, 2025, I resubmitted the story the day after they opened submissions for “Alternative Liberties – Volume 2.” On October 24, they accepted my submission, but I didn’t find out until November 2. I was ecstatic beyond words. I was going to be published alongside some pretty famous people. Submissions remained open through December. Mr. Brown had some personal issues to deal with early this year. But I anticipate the book will be released within a couple of months.

A couple of weeks ago, he contacted me saying he still loved the story, but suggested a way to tweak the ending. We talked it over. He’s going to submit some revised text to me, and then I will incorporate it. I haven’t received a contract to sign. However, they’ve said they’d pay $0.10 per word, which is a professional rate. The story is 2100 words. It would make me eligible for membership in the Science Fiction Writers Association. I don’t know what the dues are, but I’ll join if I’m eligible.

I will do an entire podcast series at some point about my journey as an aspiring fiction author.

Back on topic… Carol decided to travel to Texas for Thanksgiving to be with her oldest daughter, Brittany, and her family. I made arrangements for people to stay with me. It did not go well. Stay tuned for our next episode as I tell that tale.

So, as always… if you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You’ll get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. I’m not in this for money, but every bit helps.

As always, my deepest thanks to my financial supporters and everyone who supports me in any way. That means more to me than words can express.

Even if you can’t provide financial support, please share the links to this podcast on social media so I can grow my audience. All of my back episodes are available, so check those out. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback, please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you found this podcast. I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe, everyone.