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Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Family Loses Home, Mom of Two Suffers 'Skin Melting Off' After Favorite Summer Pastime Goes Horribly Wrong
A mom ended up in the ICU after a summertime fire pit quickly raged out of control, burning down their family's home and leaving her body covered with third-degree burns. 'I was ripping all my clothes off,' she said. 'My husband kept turning me over, trying to put the flames out.' Andrew put Emma into the shower to help extinguish the fire. 'I looked down and saw skin all over the bath. I was in a state of shock,' the mom of two said. The situation quickly grew dire as the home filled with smoke — and Andrew helped her flee their now-burning home. 'I thought I was standing at the end of the drive shouting for help, but afterwards people told me nothing was coming out,' she said. 'They said my skin was melting off and the reality hit me: My life was never going to be the same again.' Emma was admitted to the intensive care unit with third-degree burns over nearly 30% of her body, with the worst burns being on her back and legs. Third-degree burns are the most serious type, the Mayo Clinic explains, impacting 'all of the layers of skin and sometimes the fat and muscle tissue under the skin.' 'We didn't know if Emma was going to make it,' Andrew told the outlet, as she underwent ten skin grafts and stayed in the hospital for a month. When she was well enough to be discharged, she no longer had a home to go to. 'We lost everything,' Emma said. 'I have good days and bad days where I worry about further surgeries. I never thought anything like this would happen to me. It happened in the [snap] of a finger and I could have died.' 'It made me aware of who and what's important in my life. [I'm] not taking anything for granted.' Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
7 lessons I learned about end-of-life planning when my mother died, as a financial advisor
Melissa Shaw became her mother's primary caregiver after a sudden terminal cancer diagnosis. Shaw, a financial advisor, learned crucial lessons about end-of-life planning and caregiving. Her biggest lessons include the importance of Medigap, healthcare proxies, and life insurance. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Melissa Shaw, a 46-year-old financial advisor in Palo Alto, California. It has been edited for length and clarity. I've been a financial advisor since 2011 and have worked at Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America, or TIAA, as a wealth management advisor for over seven years. I help clients with estate and incapacity planning, but I encountered completely different issues when my own mother became terminally ill and I became her primary caregiver in October 2024. Her diagnosis was sudden. Doctors found stage four cancer that had metastasized to her back, causing a fracture. Within weeks, my family moved her from Las Vegas to Northern California to be closer to me. She died by the end of December — it was a two-month ordeal. Becoming her caregiver was emotionally intense Initially, she seemed fine, but she declined rapidly. It was shocking and unexpected. I visited the hospital daily and took on the bulk of decision-making responsibilities. Thankfully, TIAA offers generous caregiver benefits and flexibility, and I had savings to help cover unexpected costs. I've learned many valuable lessons through this experience about end-of-life planning. 1. Medicare supplemental plans are essential Since enrolling in Medicare at the age of 65, my mom opted for a Medigap (Medicare Supplement Insurance) plan instead of a Medicare Advantage plan, and that decision proved vital. Her Medigap plan covered 20% of medical costs that original Medicare didn't, including any doctor or procedure approved by Medicare, without referrals or prior authorizations. Every doctor she saw was relieved she had it. If you or a loved one is approaching 65 — especially with ongoing health issues — I strongly recommend researching Medigap options during the Medigap Open Enrollment Period, when insurers can't deny coverage or charge more due to pre-existing conditions. 2. Assign a designated healthcare decision-maker ASAP My mom didn't assign a designated decision-maker, and I couldn't make health decisions for her. When her health rapidly declined in the last three weeks of her life, she became barely cognizant and luckily was able to manage a scribbled signature for a necessary procedure. I started to prepare a POA and healthcare proxy, but by the time it was ready, she was no longer mentally competent enough to sign it. She signed an advanced directive form with the hospital when she started the cancer treatment, which allowed me to make some decisions on her behalf. I learned how imperative it is to name a health proxy at any age. 3. Banking may not be easily accessible After she died, we were unable to access her bank account funds for 45 days due to a waiting period intended to protect creditors. Luckily, she had a term life insurance policy that paid out quickly to help cover immediate expenses. Additionally, she didn't name a beneficiary for the bank accounts, which is a common mistake. Many assume that checking accounts don't need beneficiaries, but even modest balances may end up in probate, which can be a significant hassle. Also, the bank was unable to share her transaction history, so I had no way of knowing which bills had already been paid. 4. Sign up for life insurance We received her life insurance proceeds quickly; all that was required was a death certificate. Clients may want to consider insurance as a liquidity measure at death to cover immediate expenses, such as funeral costs and bills. 5. Prepare for end-of-life costs I was surprised by how expensive it is to bury someone. We were quoted up to $25,000 for burial plots in California. Even cremation, which we chose, came to around $23,000 after including the niche (a final resting spot to house cremated remains) and the funeral. Prepaying or researching in advance can prevent financial issues. 6. Prepare for the difficulties of caretaking I spent many nights in the hospital with my mom. Her condition changed from day to day; it was an emotional roller coaster. Balancing work, caregiving, and my own emotional health was difficult. I'm married, and my kids were 5 and 7 years old. I wasn't seeing them regularly during the two months she was sick. Luckily, TIAA offered eight weeks of caregiver leave. Many caregivers only have access to unpaid leave through the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), so it's important to plan for potential income loss. If you can take paid leave, do it, because it's tough to balance the emotional toll it takes. 7. Wills aren't everything Wills are essential for securing guardianship and expressing personal wishes, but they don't guarantee that all your assets will be transferred correctly. Retirement accounts, such as IRAs or 403(b)s, are typically passed by beneficiary designations, rather than through wills or trusts. Many other assets are passed via trusts. You should work with both a financial advisor and an estate attorney to discuss your needs. I did the best I could, but if I could do things differently, I would've taken an official leave from work to focus solely on caring for my mother. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
How I'm Learning to Outlive My Mother
Whenever I miss my mom, I reach for my favorite photo of me and her. We're sitting on the steps in front of my childhood home in Massachusetts, cuddled up next to each other. I'm three years old and proudly wearing blue clip-on earrings to match my white puff-sleeve dress. My mother is flashing a smile that takes up so much space, it's sometimes all I can see. Happy photos like this one, which is protected in a heart-shaped frame, decorate the shelves in my home office. The sadder ones — taken after my mother was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer — hide inside my desk drawers. They're out of sight, but the truth is, they're always on display in my mind. They sit alongside the many journals in which my mother kept track of my childhood accomplishments and made predictions about my future. 'Mallary's going to go places with her writing,' she wrote in one of them, believing I would one day become an author. 'I'm so proud of her.' My mom passed away from cancer when I was 11, before she could see me graduate middle school, let alone go off to college, pursue a writing career, get married, and have kids. She was just 40 years old when she died — the same age I am now. As I begin to outlive my mother, I've been pondering questions that lack easy answers: How do I venture into this next phase of life that she never got to experience? What are the lessons she taught me (and didn't get to teach) that I want to pass on to my own children? And how can I continue to keep my mom's memory alive? On my 40th birthday, I told my 7-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter why this particular birthday was so significant. They've heard me share stories about my mother for years, but this was the first time they learned how old she'd been when she passed away. 'Just because your mom died when you were 40 doesn't mean you're going to, right, Mommy?' my daughter asked, making my heart sink. 'Oh no honey, I'm not going to die at 40,' I reassured her. 'My mother was sick, but I'm not. I hope to be around for a loooong time.' My words were tightly woven together by years of convincing myself that I won't die young. And yet I know the unpredictability of life could unravel these words at any point, rendering them a lie in my children's minds. I hope my words remain true, but the reality of mortality seems to loom larger now that I'm 40. In some ways it's a relief to have outlived my mother, because it feels like a sign that my fate will not follow hers. But I also find myself wondering: How much longer do I really have? Grief expert Hope Edelman once told me that when you begin to outlive your deceased parent, you are 'crossing the silent threshold.' When experiencing this rite of passage, she said, it's normal to grow fearful about dying and/or to experience mourning anew. Edelman recommends honoring the silent threshold by naming it and recognizing what surfaces. If growing up meant living without my mother, then I wanted to stay in the past forever. I've been recognizing it by going through the photos in my desk drawers and exposing the hard truths behind them. There's one in particular that I keep returning to — a picture of me looking happy as can be just five days after my mother's death. I was at my first-ever middle school dance, smiling and looking perfectly poised, like a ballerina about to do a pirouette. I thought I was supposed to be 'strong' and 'resilient,' so I tried pretending to be okay. But behind that happy facade was a little girl who felt like her whole world had fallen apart. If growing up meant living without my mother, then I wanted to stay in the past forever. I remember doing the math as I got ready for the dance, counting out exactly how many hours and minutes had passed since my mother died; they say time heals, but I learned at a young age that time also hurts. Every birthday, holiday, and missed milestone became a painful reminder of the permanence of my mother's absence. When you lose a parent at a young age, you're always playing a game of catch-up that reminds you of not just who you've lost but what you've lost — all those life lessons that you hope your mom would have shared to help you navigate the world. Having lost my mother just before my teenage years, I found it especially difficult to navigate puberty without her. I wanted her to teach me everything I thought a teenage girl was supposed to learn: how to use an eyelash curler, shop for bras, insert a tampon, and shave my legs. I feel a pang whenever I look at one close-up photo of me as a 14-year-old, with eyelashes that were clumped together by far too much Maybelline mascara. I had taught myself how to apply it, hoping that it would help me look more like my mom, who had always worn it until she got too sick and weak to put it on. But it wasn't until age 38 that I learned how to properly use an eyelash curler. I had always applied my mascara and then curled my lashes, until one day a friend told me I was supposed to do it the other way around. How did I not know that? I thought to myself, feeling the load of loss grow heavier. Soon enough, when my lip-gloss-loving daughter expresses interest in makeup, I will show her how the curler works. Until then, I'm trying to teach my kids the bigger life lessons that my mom shared with me when I was young: how to persevere in the face of uncertainty, work hard for what you want, and show familial love. Lately I've felt a greater sense of urgency around sharing these lessons, especially when I think about what else is hiding in my desk drawers: genetic test results showing that, as my mother's daughter, I'm at a higher risk of developing breast cancer compared to other women my age. As I enter midlife, it saddens me to know that my mom never got to witness all the places I've gone with my writing — and that she won't get to celebrate alongside me when my debut memoir is published this summer. But I find comfort in knowing that she was there from the very start, believing in me and giving me reason to feel hopeful about the future. Mallary Tenore Tarpley is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of the memoir SLIP. The post How I'm Learning to Outlive My Mother appeared first on Katie Couric Media. Solve the daily Crossword
