We had a frequent guest, Jean, who had grown up in Chicago. She told us how when she and her children were looking into nursing homes, she used lessons learned from her very first apartment search. Her first apartment was right near the El tracks, and she said that every time a train went by, the water in the shower would stop. Of course, she didn’t know that before she moved in.
Betrayal is dependent on your expectation. If you don’t have high hopes for someone, you won’t feel betrayed. If you go into business with a man named “Jimmy Con-Artist,” you might not be surprised if you get swindled. But when you actually do have expectations of or trust in someone, like a professional caregiver, if they engage in cruel and harmful betrayal like financial abuse, it cuts deep.
“There are only four kinds of people in this world: those who have been caregivers, those who currently are caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers.” This earnest prediction by former First Lady Rosalynn Carter could feel constricting—or we could learn to take it in stride. We are all aging simultaneously, of course: Each day, we grow one day older together. But a disproportionate segment of our population is aging toward retirement and toward expanded needs for home care and other specialty resources. We know this to be true, and we can adapt and prepare ourselves as we are called to shift our roles, responsibilities, and generosity.
If you’re a caregiver of an aging adult who suffers from dementia, take a brief moment out of your current activities and mental flow to read the following statements. Read them one at a time, and be open to and aware of your reactions or responses—mental, physical, and emotional.
Where do we go when our mind betrays us and when the person that we have been our whole lives gets lost in the recesses of our brain? It’s a question with deep and often terrible philosophical, moral, and emotional implications, and the lack of an answer is one of the crueler parts of dementia and Alzheimer’s for a sufferer’s loved ones. But there is also a more tangible, though no-less-difficult, question: Where should they go?
Claire’s 84-year-old mother, Eve, suffered several small strokes and a few falls in the two years after her husband passed away. While Eve was still living independently in the family home, Claire was constantly checking up on her and was continually plagued with worry that something would happen to her mother while she was home alone. She’d bought her a lifeline, a shower rail, and an adjustable bed to make living at home safer for her, but after Eve’s third fall landed her in the hospital with a broken hip, Claire knew something had to change.
When Rose Mary’s father could no longer take care of himself following a major heart attack, she was faced with a very tough decision. She could either help him move home or to an assisted living community, an idea that he firmly resisted, or become his full-time caregiver so that he could stay in the house he’d called home for more than 60 years.
Holly says she feels like a completely different person than she used to be, and she doesn’t even know who this new person is. Just a year ago, she was a full-time elementary school teacher while working toward her master’s in school administration. She rode her mountain bike on the weekends through the Big Basin Boulder Creek Loop and other South Bay Area trails with her riding group.
When it’s just me and Dad, our time is pleasant, even in the midst of his mobility challenges and his chronic pain and hearing difficulties. We make the most of the obstacles: We try to find the positive spin on everything. We try to fit in some art and music every day to express our emotions, and we have an agreement between us that we’ll seek help when our communication breaks down.
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