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Archive for August, 2009:
How I Almost Burned Myself Out Over an Elder Care Workshop
Becoming A Caregiver
Thirteen months ago I became Gladys’ caregiver. We moved her from my daughter, Nichole’s home in Philadelphia to my home in Atlanta. During the 2-1/2 years that my daughter took care of Gladys, I traveled to Philly about once a quarter to give Nikki a four day break. Even with that experience, I was not mentally prepared to take care of Gladys.
The house was ready. We moved our offices from the first level of our town home to the third level. We installed a handicap accessible bathroom. And we made the first level Gladys’ living quarters that would also accommodate a walker and wheelchair. That was the easy part. The hard part was all of the things I didn’t know and seemed to have difficulty finding answers.
When I started blogging and reading other caregivers blogs, I found out that I was not alone. There were lots of people out there who had suddenly become caregivers for parents or some other family member. Those people also had lots of questions about elder care, Medicare and Medicaid. So, earlier this year, I decided to host a workshop.
Planning, Blogging, Tweeting and A Start-up
I have been planning meetings, conferences and workshops for over 30 years so I knew that I was able to plan a caregivers’ workshop. In my mind, the most difficult task would be finding qualified speakers. How naive! What I didn’t take into consideration was several other things that turned out to be very stressful:
- I was in the midst of setting up an on-line store for caregivers
- I have three blogs that I try to keep up
- I have two Twitter accounts that need regular updating
The bottom line is that I didn’t have time to do all of these things in addition to taking care of Gladys and working part-time 3 days a week.
More Hindrances = More Stress
- Gladys recently began having night time incontinence issues that keep me up at night
- Right after I started planning the workshop, tenants moved out of my rental property
- Marketing an event without a name recognition or an established brand is difficult
- The person who was helping me market the event lost her job and couldn’t focus on the event
- Two of my speakers pulled out three weeks before the workshop
- Only two people were registered two weeks before the workshop
Options
Obviously, not taking care of Gladys was not an option. However, I did hire someone to come over once a week to give her bathroom and bedroom a good cleaning. Seems like a small thing, but it’s a big help. Repairs had to be made on the rental property as well as advertising the house, showing the house and screening applicants. I need the income from the property so not taking care of those things was not an option.
Blogging had to be put on hold. If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you know that for the past 3-4 months, blog posts have been erratic at best. I hope I haven’t lost readers but I had to make some difficult choices. My other two blogs, Your Ministry Helper and Nothing In Particular suffered as well. I was really concerned about them because they are both less than a year old and don’t have much traffic.
Twitter also took a back seat. I tried to log in once or twice a day and make a few tweets about elder care or the workshop but did not put a lot of effort into it. This was risky as well because my twitter account has only been active since April.
As I look over this post, I think I must have been crazy to undertake new ventures, but I did.
What happened with the workshop and why was I determined to have it? As Paul Harvey would say, you’ll get the rest of the story in the next post.
See you in a few days!
Help the Alzheimer’s Association to Win $5000 – Vote by Midnight Aug 23
If you vote for the Alzheimer’s Association by midnight tonight (August 23), they have a chance to win $5000. Any one of you who has a loved one with Alzheimer’s or dementia, knows what that means in research dollars.
Cast your vote for the Alzheimer’s Association at http://www.fmbanknow.com/charity/. Their link is at the bottom of the page.
Vote for your favorite charity by Midnight, August 23, 2009!
As a part of our Grand Opening Celebration in Columbia County, F&M Bank would like to offer area residents and business owners the opportunity to participate by voting for their favorite charity. The charity receiving the MOST VOTES will be given an opportunity to have a representative enter our inflatable “Money Vault” for 15 seconds. During that time, the charity selected by our website visitors will have an opportunity to gather as much money as possible for their organization.
The charity event will take place at 10:30 a.m., Tuesday, August 25th at our new Columbia County location – 3861 Evans to Locks Road in Martinez – at the Fury’s Ferry Road intersection.
NFCA Says Contact Senators/Congressmen About Health Care Reform
This note is from Suzanne Mintz of the National Family Caregivers Association. Please forward as you see fit.
Dear NFCA members and friends:
I know you’ve heard it before but NOW truly is the time to speak up for the health care reform we all need! It is time to contact your senators and representatives. They do want to hear from you. Contact information is included at the end of this email.
Tell them you are a family caregiver, who you care for, what their diagnosis is, and how long you’ve been a family caregiver. Add a sentence or two about your specific situation.
Here’s NFCA’s message about reform. You can use it as is or modify to fit your style.
Family caregivers provide 80% of the care for our nation’s chronically ill and disabled population. We know from personal experience how poorly our loved ones are cared for in our present system which is focused on acute care and paying for procedures and not holistic care that is carefully coordinated between personnel and across settings.
System delivery reform by which doctors and other healthcare providers will be paid to provide good chronic illness care will make a huge difference in the health and wellbeing of our loved ones. It will also improve our health and wellbeing.
We urge you to pass legislation that authorizes multiple pilot projects across the country focused on providing comprehensive chronic illness care. We urge you to pass legislation that is focused on the whole person, not on procedures. There are so many examples around the country that show this approach saves money. Such programs are examples for the fundamental changes CBO has called for.
Use this link to find the local office of your senators and representative.
You can go to www.senate.gov and www.house.gov to find emails and phone numbers.
You can learn more about the details of pending health care legislation and specifically what it means to family caregivers on NFCA’s web site. Please let us know if you sent a message or visited your elected officials. Your feedback is important. So please send us a note at info@thefamilycaregiver.org and in the subject line write: Speaking Up. Thank you!Take care,
Suzanne MintzPresident & CEO
PLEASE FORWARD THIS E-LETTER ALONG TO YOUR FAMILIES AND FRIENDS and ENCOURAGE ALL THE FAMILY CAREGIVERS YOU KNOW TO JOIN THE NFCA COMMUNITY OF CAREGIVERS. THERE IS NO COST! Just click here: http://www.thefamilycaregiver.org/
