Getting an aging parent to a doctor’s appointment is easy… until it isn’t.

In this episode of The Wicked Daughter, Mom is settling into rehab and starting to make real progress. She’s getting stronger, going to PT and OT, getting dressed, getting out of bed—and suddenly, we have a new problem:

How the hell do we get her to a doctor’s appointment?

In the hospital, the doctors came to Mom. Now that she’s in rehabilitation, Mom has follow-up appointments with specialists, and that means figuring out wheelchair transportation, scheduling, paperwork, medications, meals, therapy—and how to get an 88-year-old recovering from a serious injury safely from Point A to Point B.

I quickly learned that medical transportation for seniors and wheelchair users is its own entire world.

Rehab arranged transportation, which sounded wonderfully simple… until I found out that insurance doesn't cover it.

And apparently, getting an aging parent five miles down the road in a wheelchair-accessible van is considered a luxury experience.

Let's just say it was expensive enough to make me suddenly very interested in learning how to fold a wheelchair myself.

And then I saw the van.

It had a ramp. Mom stayed in her wheelchair. No transferring her into a car. No lifting. No wrestling a wheelchair into a trunk.

Okay.

I understood the cost a little better.

Not happily.

But I understood.

This episode is about one of those caregiving realities nobody really prepares you for: transportation becomes a major part of caregiving when an aging parent can no longer easily get in and out of a regular car.

And while I was figuring out how to get Mom to appointments, I was also starting to realize that transportation wasn't just about one doctor's visit.

I was going to have to think about how Mom would eventually get around once she came home.

Would she be walking? Would she still need a wheelchair? Could she transfer into a car? Would we need a different vehicle?

Apparently, I wasn't shopping for a car.

I was trying to predict the future.

And I didn't have a crystal ball.

Just a rental car, a wheelchair, and a growing sense that I had somehow been promoted to Director of Mom's Transportation Department.

If you're caring for an aging parent, helping a parent recover after hospitalization or injury, navigating rehabilitation, arranging wheelchair transportation, or suddenly finding yourself responsible for things you never thought you'd have to think about—welcome.

You're not doing this wrong.

You're just discovering that caregiving comes with approximately 47 jobs nobody put in the job description.

In this episode:

• Getting an aging parent from rehab to medical appointments
• Wheelchair transportation and medical transportation costs
• Coordinating rehab, doctors, medications, meals, PT and OT
• The challenges of getting an elderly parent into a car
• Planning for transportation when your parent's mobility is uncertain
• The difference between hospital care and rehabilitation
• Celebrating the small wins that actually matter

Because sometimes caregiving isn't about solving the entire future.

Sometimes it's just figuring out how to get Mom to the podiatrist.

And back.

Around here... we're calling that a win.

Send us your comments!

Before you head back to medication schedules, insurance paperwork, and explaining to your parent for the fifteenth time why they can't climb on a chair to change a lightbulb...

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