Time Flies When Life Happens
When Gwen reached out to my CarePatrol office, she needed help with her parents. She was an accomplished attorney, mother of 3, soccer coach, wife, and all around strong and established woman. She told me that managing criminal trials, screaming soccer parents, and a police officer husband had nothing on dealing with her dad’s dementia. Her aging parents were a challenge she was not prepared for. She was melting under the pressure of taking care her mom and dad.
Dad had Alzheimer’s. Mom was his caregiver, until she fell trying to get him out of the bathtub. Now she had two parents that could not bathe, toilet, grocery shop, prepare meals, do laundry, manage the house or get to doctor appointments. The physical burden exhausted her. But the emotional toll she endured watching her formerly strong, professionally accomplished dad, and well educated super mom, now reduced to childlike care needs was too much to handle.
Gwen and I became a team. She was mom and dad’s voice when they could not express their needs. I was their advocate to navigate the often complex world of finding long term care. Our goal was to keep them together, while providing for all their care needs. Acting as the “quarterback” or “general contractor”, I managed the long term care journey. Together we found a community that could balance mom’s need for physical help with her mobility issues and her desire for independent socialization, with dad’s increasing care demands due do his cognitive deficit.
When my CarePatrol office and I work with a family, we don’t just give them a list of senior living options to choose from. We get to know them. We love on them. We cry with them. They often joke that I become a “rent a son” or part of the family. Several months after Gwen’s parents were settling into their assisted living community, we got together for a coffee. We reminisced over what we experienced together over these past months, and how I got to know her family so well during the process. We experienced a family wedding and its accompanying celebration. A death in the family and its accompanying rituals. A major surgery and it’s accompanying worries. A joyous birthday marking 90 years, and a life well lived. And just like that, mom and dad moved out of their home of 50 years into a community that will allow them to age in place and Finish Strong.
Aging and finding appropriate care in today’s healthcare environment can be overwhelming. There is no one size fits all solution for senior care. Your family may benefit from Eric’s senior living expertise and access to assisted living, memory care and in-home care options. If you need FREE help finding care for a senior, you can reach Eric Klein, CSA, BCPA, CPRS at CarePatrol • 847.653.1213 • eklein@carepatrol.com