A quart is 2 pints. A pint is sixteen fluid ounces of water and weighs about 16 ounces (avoirdupois weight.) A gallon is 4 quarts (8 pints) and thus weighs about 8 pounds. Five gallons would be about 40 pounds.
In some cases, if your mother is on Medicaid, she can designate you as her personal home care aide and you can get paid a small amount through Medicaid. If your mother has her own resources, you can draw up a contract agreeing to work as her home health aide and she can pay you a salary that you both agree upon.
So, if your mother is in the hospital for a total of less than 60 days in both stays combined, she won't have anything to pay for hospital care (except for the one deductible). Her payments for stays in the rehab facility are a different story. In any one benefit period, Medicare Part A covers up to 100 days in a nursing or rehabilitation facility. For the first 20 days in any one benefit period, Medicare Part A pays the full amount. But for the next 80 days in a benefit period, the patient is responsible for a daily copayment of $128 (in 2008).