The month of November has always been special to me. It is my birthday month, and it was my mother’s birthday month. My husband and I got married in November. And of course, Thanksgiving wraps up the month with grand celebration.
But a few weeks ago, I learned that November is also National Family Caregivers month – something very appropriate for the stage of life in which I find myself.
More than 12 million Americans provide unpaid care for individuals with some form of dementia, contributing over 19 billion hours of care valued at around $413 billion annually. Seventy percent of caregivers admit to neglecting their own health needs due to caregiving responsibilities.
My father is 92½ years old. He lived independently and drove until age 90. Knowing my family, that is nothing short of amazing! His grandfather died of a heart attack at age 41. His father died from a “widowmaker” heart attack at age 62. My father’s cardiovascular disease began when he was 62 and he has since survived FOUR heart attacks. The Lord has been gracious to grant him a long life.
By the grace of God, I persuaded him to move into a senior living residence just 10 minutes from my family in 2023. While he wasn’t terribly excited about his new residence, nor giving up driving, he couldn’t argue that being closer made it much easier to visit with my family.
He suffered a stroke later that year. Hospital tests confirmed that he was having consistent, small strokes that were indicative of vascular dementia. His cognition would continue to worsen.
Dementia is a collective term for conditions characterized by impaired memory, reasoning, and other cognitive skills that affect daily life. As dementia progresses, individuals become increasingly dependent on others for their care, making the role of the caregiver both crucial and demanding.
Caring for a parent with dementia often falls to adult children. The responsibilities can evolve from occasional assistance with errands to arranging around-the-clock supervision and support.
I am an only child. Yep, one of those. Most caregiver responsibilities fall to me, and it is one of the hardest and most uncelebrated jobs I have ever had. During the last decade, I have learned to adapt to changes in behavior, memory loss, and physical decline, first with my mother’s Alzheimer’s, and now with my father’s diminished ability to accomplish everyday tasks. While I am grateful he has additional caregivers during the day and night, I am still responsible for making sure the crucial things are getting done. I do his shopping, laundry, change his sheets, put out snacks around his residence, encourage hydration when I am with him, manage his finances, pay his bills, schedule his doctor’s appointments … sometimes it feels like trying to complete an endless to-do list.
Caregiving provides great insight into one’s character flaws. As selfish as I thought I was, I have learned I am even more so. I’m a natural nurturer, but not when someone is stubborn and uncooperative. Because fathers are often seen as indestructible, I feel intense emotional stress watching his decline; maybe more than I did watching my mother’s descent into Alzheimer’s. His declining cognitive abilities bring feelings of grief, frustration, sadness, and even unreasonable guilt because I am helpless to fix it.
Perhaps you’re in the same caregiving situation. What are some things that you as a caregiver can do to help your loved one, as well as preserve your sanity?
If you can afford it, hire additional caregivers. Other caregivers can assist with physical demands such as mobility, bathing, dressing, and other activities of daily living. One of my dad’s caregivers is a wonderful man at our church who sees his care as a ministry. He takes my dad to get a haircut and shave every week, and my dad tells me about their time “hanging out.”
If finances are an issue, check to see if your loved one qualifies for hospice. Hospice isn’t just for end-of-life services these days. Hospice provides weekly help for many different conditions. Hospice is also covered by Medicare. Hospice nurses helped my mother for two years with a variety of services including personal medical care, physical therapy, dressing, and bathing. A chaplain would come to see her regularly to pray with her and remind her of God’s promises to Christians in Scripture.
My dad’s senior living residence is comprised of men who have fought in wars, women who have raised families, people who have had successful careers, and those who lived active lives before the devastation of dementia began to take over. These people deserve to be remembered in their sunset years.
But their caregivers also deserve to be honored. We are traveling the hardest path with them, in their most vulnerable chapter. It is a painful privilege to walk our loved ones in to eternity.
