Here's why...
Even though we all have parents, 70-80% of whom will need some kind of long-term care, we somehow think that “it” won’t happen to us. In fact, most people end up planning long-term care in the emergency room. Why? Remember that denial is the #1 reason why people do not plan.
My #1 Reason for Creating this System
My approach is a team approach. I realized that the first time a professional sees a caregiver is when they experience a crisis. I further discovered that professionals operate in silos with no line of communication between each other. This creates a real challenge for the caregiver who is trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together.
... is to combat the #1 obstacle to achieving success; a lack of planning in advance. Along with my desire to change the caregiver experience, my goal is to change the old paradigm of waiting for a crisis to act, to planning-in-advance and being ready for anything.
“Doctors diagnose, nurses heal, and caregivers make sense of it all.”
- Brett H. Lewis
KIDS ARE CAREGIVERS TOO...
I almost forgot to mention that my caregiving experience started young, when my mother had Cancer. I was 15. She was bedridden for 5 ½ years before she ultimately died. This would be my first experience with caregiving, but not my last. Not being close with my mother made taking care of her very complicated. Every day it was straight home after school. It’s hard to have friends when you can never go out to play. However, there was one time when my best friend came over to spend the night. It was a big chance to take for me. How would she react? Would she be uncomfortable? Would she want to go home?
We lost touch after high school, but I found her again almost 50 years later. She shared with me when we reconnected, that her visit that night to our house, and seeing my mother in a hospital bed at home being taken care of by family, was the reason she had become a nurse. Wow! My mouth fell open. I could not believe it!
It made me realize how what a powerful impact our actions can have on the people around us.
For the adults, it’s important that we all remember this, especially during difficult times. Our children are watching. How we each handle hardship will shape their lives, good or bad.
So, I created the Grab & GO App for One Touch Care Management.
Better outcomes and more efficiency is assured when using the course modules to create a plan, which can then be managed and implemented by family working together with their team of professionals and all sharing the same system,
Together we can change the caregiving experience.
An educated caregiver, who is prepared, is the best partner to the care continuum who serve them. I would say that the caregiver is the fourth leg of the stool making it more stable than ever before.
Caregivers are bridging the gaps.
But I also learned that kids are often silent victims unless they are acknowledged as part of the process. Including them in the process, even when tragic or sad, gives them an opportunity to learn and grow too. Children have no voice and no language for what is happening, especially if it is a parent versus a grandparent.
No one knows what to say to them, so a void is created. Friends are uncomfortable, so the gap between a normal life for a child growing up with someone who is dying, grows over time, setting in stone some potentially lifelong emotional deficits. What will they fill it with……..drugs, rage or love? Kids need tools too. You are not protecting them by not letting them participate.
The challenges of disease are daunting for the patient. But the challenges for young caregivers throughout the years have a lasting impact. However, they can also learn important life lessons in the process.
The following poem is about my childhood experience with caregiving.
Oh Cancer, Oh Cancer…………..teach me to die
Or teach me to live and touch the sky
Melt away all hurt and sorrow
It is life not death that transforms tomorrow
Disease is like the fire that burns
Distills, purifies, and makes us learn
That our time here on earth
Is how we celebrate our birth
We can run and we can hide
But only truth will be our guide
Is it how we live or how we die
Or how we love or how we lie
In the end we can only say
That there is just one thing, ok?
It’s love, the only truth in life
The only truth in death or strife
So, one day we all will say
Goodbye until another day
And a promise will be left behind
Of whom we loved and what was kind
Wealth falls short in what we treasure
When we talk about forever
To tell the tale that no one knows
Is what erases all the woes
To trace the sky with stars unknown
And find that we are finally home
Pure love at last is all that’s cast
Among the stars….is that Mars?
No! It’s God…………at last, at last……………
Lee Lambert
Together we can change the caregiving experience.