Inside Aging Parent Care

The End of Caregiving: Fallout Continues

By Bill October 13th, 2011

Final Crossing

Recently I have been a bit out of sorts. I am tired, irritable, and grumpy. I didn’t know why until I found myself thinking about Frank after an unusually frustrating time in traffic. I am still dealing with feelings about years of caregiving for a man who died despite all our efforts.

My wife Carol’s father Frank died 15 months ago after living in Denver for two years with Carol and me as his caregivers. Prior to the move to Denver we were long distance caregivers with frequent visits to Florida. We had a support system for him in Florida, a nice assisted living facility, a Geriatric Case Manager, and an old friend we hired to take him on errands and outings.

He decided on his own to move to Denver. …

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Loss and Love

By Bill September 1st, 2011

I am writing fairly brief posts because I am a bit busy caregiving. My wife Carol is recovering nicely from surgery and her son Steve will have surgery Friday. I am caregiver for both.

This story ran in Sunday’s Denver Post newspaper. It is a story about the tragedy of Alzheimer’s and the enduring magic of love. Do read it all. I would insert it here, but copyright laws prevent my doing so.

Alzheimer's

The story is one of someone slowly being robbed of her mind, and her husband’s witness to her decline. She always recognized him, and some elements of her personality stayed with her. This is similar to what happened to Frank and Audrey, Carol’s parents. Frank had significant memory loss, but his personality was intact until he died of other …

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Revisiting the Crocodile: A Caregiver Sums Up

By Carol July 12th, 2011

You never know how a death is going to take you until it happens. Even so, I think it is normal to try to prepare by looking ahead–especially during a long good-bye like my father’s.

We can find so much information on grief and mourning that researching the subject almost gets in the way. After my mother’s death I had a particularly hard time getting past what I’d learned I “should” feel to what I actually was feeling. In the early days after Dad died, I felt stunned. Encountering Death and losing Dad left me disoriented and at loose ends.

I needed structure and some way to understand my life now, post caregiving and orphaned. Three weeks after Dad died, I had this helpful dream: I walk down a hill to the edge of …

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Instant and Lifetime Caregivers

By Bill July 7th, 2011

Last week Carol and I were on our way to a talk on caregiving for windows. We have an older house with steel casement windows that need repair, painting, and weatherproofing. Most window experts cringe at the thought of approaching a steel casement window. So we were glad to learn that this expert would attempt to address the issue.

On the way, we were on a one way street with a 30 MPH speed limit. We were going 35, and traffic was roaring past us. As we approached a busy cross street, we heard a loud thunk in front of us. Several bystanders ran to help, as it was apparent there were injuries. We picked our way through the debris (lots of books) and went on.

I was struck that in an instant on …

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Dad’s Independence Day Redux

By Carol July 3rd, 2011

Here it is–another 4th of July and Dad has been gone more than one full year. We had our quiet remembrance of his passing on Friday. I decided to re-post a piece from last year because it still says it best.

Dad didn’t quite make it to the Fourth of July, but “independence” was his rallying cry. Maintaining his independence was his first concern when he moved to Denver two years ago. Assisted living enabled him to secure the level of independence that he craved. He had his own apartment there, and that became home to him. He made the choice to engage hospice care only when he was assured that he could preserve his independence by remaining in his home.

In the final week of his 91years my father was still …

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