The Team
People need to know that it would have been impossible for me to take care of my Mother alone. Frankly, I didn’t have the knowledge to do it when this began and I was only able to do with the help of some really great women.
These women had individual strengths that made the overall system work.
LeeAnn had the morning [6-10AM] and she took care of the personal grooming things that were important to my Mother and were part of her routine.
Lynne was the evenings and centered on maintaining strength. She was also my principal instructor in the skills of care-giving because things like changing a bed with someone in it require knowledge. Lynne also did the cleaning, as she had done for my Mother for years, and organizing everything that was needed to take care of Mom.
When I got in trouble outside of normal hours there were two great on-call nurses who rode to the rescue: Susan on weekends, and Linda during the week. They saved me multiple times.
For a dose of sunshine there was Wendy. Wendy just radiated good feelings whenever she was around. Her ‘job’ was giving Mother a bath and changing the bed, but if Mom was refusing to do something, I knew that Wendy could make it happen.
There were others, but these are main group that kept me functioning for the long haul, and made it possible for my Mother to stay in her house among familiar things.
May 8, 2014 2 Comments
