Prayers, Well Wishes, Positive Thoughts, Good Vibes

Whatever you’ve got, we’ll take them.

We are in the final countdown. On Sunday, my brother will be moving in to an assisted living facility and will have what he’s needed for a long time – more supervision and less access to manipulative people who cause trouble and take advantage of him. It seems neverending lately.

Currently, he lives in a government subsidy-type apartment complex. This ensures that most of the other residents are also people a little down on their luck, or similar to my brother with issues, both mental and physical. There’s a teenage girl down the hall with a boyfriend who is straight-up trouble. They have leeched on to my brother because of his inability to say no. They have gotten numerous free dinners from my brother, rides all over the place in his car, and really, god only knows what else. The boyfriend apparently has been living in my brother’s apartment (news to us), and he sleeps in my brother’s bed while my brother sleeps on his couch.

Lovely.

This means that my brother’s already poor health is worse, because 1) he’s not getting much sleep, and 2) he’s sleeping on an itty bitty couch. As my dad said yesterday, “Sarah, he’s REALLY ill. I don’t know how long he’s going to live.” Because of all my brother’s health issues, medical research says his life expectancy is probably half that of a healthy person who is “normal”. He is FAR from normal. His recent behavior leads us to think his IQ (already low) is declining. He moves like an old man – slow, rigid. He just does not look well. And then there’s all this drama. My dad and his wife feel that he just is scared to tell these people “no” and “can’t”. I don’t know what to believe, but know that the drama is pretty close to pushing my mom over the edge, as she’s been falling asleep nightly saying the rosary.

Sunday is the day. Sunday is the day that he moves in to the new place. Tonight after work, my mom needs to go to a bank to close an account likely opened for the purpose of these people writing fraudulent checks in my brother’s name. They are teenagers. How the hell do they even THINK of this stuff? It’s really sickening.

We are all just crossing our fingers and waiting for Sunday and hoping it comes without too much more drama.