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Could We Get a Little Help Here, Please??
Posted by: DeLila Bergan on November 21, 2007
COULD WE GET A LITTLE HELP HERE, PLEASE??
I am very fortunate. My mom, who is 85, still lives in her own apartment in a senior independent living building, where she does quite well. I am writing this in the hospital lobby as she undergoes an outpatient surgical procedure this morning that is intended to head off a developing medical problem. She should be home and up and around by dinner time. For her age, her health is excellent, but things crop up from time to time. I tease her about having "maintenance" appointments, such as eye checks and cataract surgery, hearing tests and new hearing aids, keeping tabs on her overall health and the conditions we know about. None of this is life-threatening and we know how lucky we are. The "maintenance" does keep my mom running from one appointment to the next, however, and, as the designated scheduler, driver and medical interpreter, it keeps me on the run as well.
My husband has an exam with his eye specialist scheduled for this afternoon and may need some laser surgery today. Normally, I go with him and serve as his designated driver as well. Today he is on his own for the appointment itself but, if my mom is stable by the end of the day, I'll go into town to drive him home afterward since his eyes will be dilated, which makes driving ill advised.
Even our dogs had vet appointments yesterday, so I took them to the doctor as well. They were model patients.
As I scheduled pre-op exams, tests and labs for my mom, drove her here and there, and contemplated the medical needs of my spouse and pets these last few days, I had to wonder, once again, how we would ever get all of this done if I did not have a job that allows me a flexible schedule. Who would do the scheduling, the follow-up, the driving and the nursing? None of what I've been doing is difficult. I want to do these things for my family, but they all take time.
My situation as a care giver is very easy. Many care givers provide care for an ill loved one (or for more than one) 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They also care for spouses and children at the same time. They bravely try to maintain careers or go to school through it all.
For most older adults and care givers, life continues to be full of "firsts" -- the first time you need a nurse in the home, the first time you need a Will or Power of Attorney, or the first time you need to "downsize" and find a smaller home and clear out all the stuff you've been accumulating for years. There may be a first time you really start to worry that your spouse's forgetfulness may be serious. When confronted with a new challenge for the first time, it helps to learn about the new issue and to have some help finding the direction in which you need to go.
For all of us who are care givers, we need more hours in the day. And, if we can't have that, we need resources to make it easier to understand, find and provide what our loved ones need. We need help to do the things we can't do ourselves. Sometimes we just need a break.
Our goal at E-Senior Services is to help you. We want to provide assistance to older adults who need services or products for themselves or spouses, to those family members who lovingly provide care and assistance to parents or grandparents, aunts and uncles, and to those professionals who provide their own specific services to seniors, but who want to help their patients and clients find resources outside the professionals' own areas of expertise.
Our web site is designed to offer information on a wide variety of topics, for example, on different types of long term care (including in-home care services and long-term care residences), legal issues, financial concerns, moving and transition issues, and government services. Once a visitor to our site identifies a service or product he or she needs, we provide listings for Dallas - Fort Worth professionals and companies who provide related services or products.
We want you to have one place where you can go to learn about issues important to you and to find what you need. Now that we have the foundation of our web site up and running, we will continue to add topics and services over the next few months. We are actively working to identify professionals and businesses providing services for older adults and are adding them to our site weekly. Be patient with us; we're just getting started. Our site will continue to grow and develop.
We could use your help in making this site truly useful to you and other families. If you can't find what you are looking for on the site, go to "Contact Us" and let us know. We'll try to add it. If you can recommend a professional or business for older adults, please give us the business or contact name, number or address and we will ask if they want to be added to the site. Please help us build this site into a wonderful resource for the Dallas - Fort Worth community. Thanks for visiting us and come back often!
By Dee Bergan, President, E-Senior Services
