Stories from Caregivers: Julie from MASSACHUSETTS
MA
Julie
FROM MASSACHUSETTS
I moved back to Boston from California to take care of my father who was living in an independent living apartment complex. Within the first year he declined physically and mentally. He moved in with me and I quit my job to take care of him for a year. He had a colon cancer operation leaving him with a catheter and significant decline in physical ability. His memory began to wane as well. We used our community support organization that provides some support and he had visiting nurses and physical therapists for a few weeks after each hospital stay. When he was healthy in the fall and spring of that year I took him everywhere by car, public transit and on walks to revisit all of his favorite places. We went to the symphony and the art museum as well - as long as I could get him in and out of the car in a wheel chair or with his walker we went! But finally his care became too hard for me to do on my own and I needed to go back to work. So after yet another hospital stay for heart issues, he was placed in a nursing home near my place, where he has ended up staying to this day. Dad spent down his money pretty much by the time he entered this nursing home. He supported both of us for a year and had tons of other expenses and paid a lot to attend an adult day program. So after Medicare ran out to pay for nursing home rehab we got Dad on Medicaid which took a layer to help us gather papers for proof of his spend down and current no asset status. Now Medicare and Medicaid pay for the nursing home. I spend 3-4 times a week helping Dad in the nursing home, advocating for him, bringing him to the dentist, bringing him good food and toiletry supplies and good clothes and bedding. Every day I keep a close eye on his care. I am his entertainment committee and bring him a quality of life the nursing home can't. We do lots of projects together, go on long walks in his wheelchair and city drives in the car. He can't transfer in and out of a car without a sprite lift so he can't go into the community and needs to stay in the car. But seeing the city, eating interesting food, doing activities are all things I provide for him. The nursing home provides very little stimulation and uses very little imagination to create memory and joy for their residents. They are extremely understaffed and the families don't have a rapport with the doctors who are there infrequently. Over all it's been a long road (four years) since I arrived from California to Boston to take care of my father. I pretty much put my personal life and needs on hold. But I would t trade my choice to be there for my father for anything. He is my hero and my greatest advocate my entire life. So yes this is my way of giving back to him the fifty years he gave to me. I love him dearly with all my heart. He was and is a great man at age eighty nine.
