Grandma teaches me how to provide unconditional love every day and I look forward to caring for her all the time. Grandma is 95, has diabetes, and moves around in a wheelchair. Because of the pinched nerve in her spine, she wears a diaper and experiences incontinence from time to time. I’ve been her caregiver for the last 8 years and I share the caregiving duties with my family. On my caregiving days, I help her with both basic and instrumental activities of daily living, such as bathing, cooking, dressing, transferring, toileting, medication, and transportation.

Caregiving has taught me about patience, compassion, communication, and humanity. As a new caregiver, I didn’t have a handbook or guidelines on how to take care of my grandma. I learned almost everything by trial and error. I find caregiving for seniors to be extremely important so I created a new party that focuses on preparing family members for the caregiving role. I’ve named this party the Senior Shower and it is all about C.A.R.E. (Celebration, Appreciation, Recognition, and Education). At this party, family and friends get together to share their stories about caregiving for their elders, discuss community resources, and bring useful gifts for the new caregiver. This event will provide families with a support group at the beginning of the caregiving journey. I founded the Senior Shower Project so I can promote this caregiver party nationwide.

Caregiving changed my life. I found my passion. I’m now a caregiver cheerleader!

Less than one month ago I found out my mother has a malignant brain tumor. Within less than one week of finding out, I was on my way, from the sunny south to the great white north to become her full time caregiver. I had never taken care of anyone in such a capacity before so from the beginning it has been a learning experience.
I became familiar with the words Glio blastoma Multiforme four months earlier when I discovered from a trip to the ER that I have a brain tumor. Until I saw a neurologist and learned that mine is a benign meningioma, I studied everything I could get my hands on to explain what tumors were. I never imagined that my recently acquired knowledge would actually prepare me for what was to befall my mom.
After the initial shock set in I realized I needed to get to her side as soon as possible. Living more than 500 miles away, I missed her two brain surgeries to remove the tumor. By the time the staples were out, I was her full time caregiver. I have done things I am used to doing, cleaning, preparing meals, but I have also been learning to broaden my skill set to include things I have never done before. Being a personal assistant and secretary are two skills that have stretched the limits of my naturally creative and non-organized mind.
Caring for mom these few weeks has already taught me about the fleeting nature of life and how precious it is. I have deeply learned the value of this one moment, to show our love and gratitude to those around us because one day all that arises too shall fall away.

My widowed and lonely Mother-in-Law came to live with us in 2006. We felt it God’s will and invited her, she graciously accepted with tears. She was in good health at that time. However her health has declined over the years and she now has Alzheimer’s. She is incontinent, combative, angry with profanity resisting our help which makes things harder. The Lord spoke to me profoundly one evening. I had given her a shower which requires me to get in there with her, wash her whole body and shampoo her hair while she is inches from my face fussing, cussing, trying to get out repeatedly. I managed again to get through it, got her dressed and began to dry her hair. I felt many emotions; anger, stress, resentment and exhaustion. I heard a small voice inside saying, “if this was YOUR Mother would you be feeling this way”? I began to fight back the tears. Again I heard, “if this were YOU in her condition, how would you want to be treated”? Again, the third time I heard “if you’ve done it unto the least of these, you’ve done it unto me”. It was like the Lord was saying to me, everything you do for her – I consider it done unto me. I was completely, totally humbled. The next thought was, when you do something for a person that they CANNOT do for themselves – that is when you are acting most like God. I took a deep breath and thanked Him for showing me these things. The difficult times are still here but this experience has certainly helped me be a better daughter-in-law and caregiver. Hope this helps someone.

In 1993 my mother had a bicycle accident and became very ill and disabled. Both our lives changed and my mother depends on me alot. Being and only child, I have to prepare all the meals, help my mother with bathing, grooming, medications, laundry, run all errands, take her to doctor appointments and handle all business matters in addition to working and going to school. My mother has been hospitalized several times and I took off work without pay to support her. I continued to pray, have faith and ask God for guidance.
I believe that God should be first in our lives and that he has chosen me to help my mother. Her illness has brought us closer together. My mother and I now pray together and express our concerns to one another. We have Bible discussions and eat meals together. My mother is a beautiful woman of God and although she is wheel chair bound and suffers from chronic nerve pain she encourages me to pray, rest and not stress out.
Caregiving is a challenging but rewarding job. I believe when you help someone who needs help, it is like therapy for you, and it allows you to appreciate your blessings and develop compassion for others. I have no regrets for helping my mother and I appreciate her very much. The Bible says; Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise ) Ephesians 6:2 (KJV). Caring for my mother is an important responsibility, but I have to maintain a healthy and happy lifestyle. It took me a long time to realize that, I have to take care of myself first, in order to take care of my mother. This philosophy is true not only for me but for millions of caregivers throughout the world.

I have been a Caregiver for as long as I can remember. Seniors have so much travel/history/life experience stories to offer! I first started out volunteering in Hospitals as a Yellow Striper, then a Candy Striper, then in financially hard times I applied to an Agency and got paid for same. My experience working for a Mental Inst. and Nursing Homes also helped. Where there is someone in need of anything – there I am: helping to make them feel better; to put a smile on their face; to help them overcome the feeling of being forgotten; giving them hope for another day; feeding them sustenance… My visits so often were the only contact to the outside world one senior had. For a foreigner, I would be a lifeline to his country because I spoke the same language he did – Spanish. For a mentally challenged client we bonded fast because I treated her with respect and did not ridicule her. For a house bound Alzheimer, I gave a new lease on life by helping him do things he thought never to do again – Take walks outside using only my support, no cane or walker. Or helping a complete stranger get back up who has fallen on the sidewalk. My Family is tight knit and along with my brothers, we took turns caring for our aging Father during his “end of life” days. I am also occasionally there for my Mother, but not as much as I or she would like, because my time is limited working seven days a week. It’s exhausting work, both physically and mentally, but somehow I manage to find the strength to persevere. Giving w/o expectations brings me awesome joy .

About a year ago I moved in with my elderly aunt. I was grateful for her allowing me to live with her. I soon began to notice different health problems and if I wasn’t living with her I don’t think she would ever have told the family how she was really feeling. About two months ago she had a stroke which put her in the hospital and then the rehab for almost a month. They explained to the family that she couldn’t be left by herself at all, and there was certain other things she had to do. I was the one that was living with her so I became her caregiver. I had done work like this before with my brother that was terminal from lung cancer, my mother that had been through several strokes before her death, and then with an elderly neighbor. It is truly an experience, it is sometimes overwhelming but all and all it is something that has to be done. I know my aunt will not get back to the way she was and I know that she wants to but it is very hard trying on a daily basis to get her to understand everything she is going through. I am just glad I am with her to explain somethings to her and to care for her because everybody doesn’t feel the same way.

When faced with 3-6 months to live you can focus on the impending loss or rejoice in the memories. My husband of 31 months was given the news of cancer after being told for years that he just had asthma. During the day we kept our routine as close to normal as possible. Care was rendered with as much love, respect and dignity as the situation allowed. As night approached my husband was unable to sleep due to the fear of not waking up. We would spoon as close as his pain would allow and talk in detail about different memories. It gave me as a caregiver a rest and helped him peacefully drift off to sleep. We became so close in those last months remembering the joys and triumphs of our years together. I believe that during this time we became closer emotionally then we had been our entire marriage.

My husband and I became my Uncle’s caregivers when he had had 2 strokes and since he followed us out here to Arizona from Ca. We felt it was our responsibility to help take care of him. We continued caring for him even when he needed placement in a private care home. He always wanted to donate his organs/body to research when such time came. He was knocking on the door of death and I contacted Science Care and they were willing to accept his poor, feeble body. I just want to say thank you to Science Care for helping the caregivers during a difficult time. Thank you again.

I hate being a caregiver. I hate that the people I love are forced to endure the vagaries of old age in such a fashion that they need a caregiver. I feel trapped, overburdened, and alone most of the time.
Yet, I remember the times when my aunts, now 103 and 100, would take their hard earned money to make sure that I had the “right” clothes for school, or money in my shoe for a cab to get home since neither they, or my Mom, ever learned to drive. I remember how Aunt Mavis would sit a 9 year-old me on a stool and explain how best to make fried pies. I remember Aunt Eva teaching me how to make neat, invisible stitches on silk, and making me rip them out if they failed to meet her standards.
I learned that my grandmother took care of her father in his last years. In turn, my Aunt Eva retired at 62 to care for my grandmother. Now at age 60, I’ve retired to care for my mother’s older sisters. Why?
Because I cannot bear the thought of someone else leaving them sitting in urine, or causing a multitude of bruises and scars while trying to get them safely into wheelchairs. Because at home they can sleep as long as they want, eat what they want, and sneak treats to the dogs whenever they can. And I carry on, trying to provide them with the best quality of life possible.
I do begrudge the fact that our family has longevity without fertility — leaving me the lone caregiver. Still I’m thankful for the memories of the 60 good years we’ve shared. And I know it’s what my Mom would expect me to do; it’s family tradition.

Whether or not I realized it, I guess I was always a caregiver to some extent. Even so, I was not prepared for what has turned out to be agonizing months of caring for my now 81 year old husband who somehow drifted into full-fledged dementia (Alzheimer’s) after a creative and productive life as an artist/writer/teacher/researcher and more.

With a history of psychiatric problems, he had never fully recovered from his last major bout of depression 10 years ago which gradually, bit by bit, morphed into dementia. It breaks my heart now to see this once active, accomplished man confined to his own dark and silent world, unable to care for himself, to read, to walk normally, to hear, to listen, think or reason, or to experience pleasure. The only thing he seems fully aware of is his own miserable transformation.

With the death of our younger son two years ago, my one remaining son provides essential help when he can; otherwise I’ve been getting some temporary help from the Visiting Nurse Service and am now trying to arrange for longer term in-home services.

As much as I want to protect and help my husband, tending to his needs with a sense of love and loyalty, I value life too much to devote the rest of mine exclusively to his care, and am now urgently seeking some relief.