Editor in Chief
This Special Edition is my own Untold Story. It's also an invitation for you to share your story too.
My sole focus in creating this forum is to help change the caregiving experience from one of isolation and a feeling of being alone to one of open communication with a community of other caregivers just like you. Caregiving can be a delibitating nightmare or we can change it into what can become a family legacy.
I'm sharing what I learned from caregiving my father and how it changed my life. But the issues following this Special Edition will be about you. We will talk about everything; life, death and everything in between. We will find out what the experts say and what other caregivers are experiencing and learning.
We will help to demystify the industries that serve the caregiver and simplify the process so that life can become more normal and you know what to expect and how to be ready for it.
This magazine is your voice...and I am listening.
Founder
Lee Lambert
EDITOR
There is no greater Agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.
Maya Angelou
My father has what, Alzheimer’s disease?
Well, so what if he can’t remember where he put his keys. Little did I know what it really meant?
One morning, there was a knock at the door at 7:00 a.m. There was my neighbor, Marty, with my father. He had wandered out of the house and down the street to have breakfast. He didn't even know Marty.
I realized in one moment, after my father had been living with me for 9 years, that circumstances had become unmanageable overnight.
I still didn’t know what that really meant. I began trying different solutions, like locking the door to his room at night. Wow!!! That didn’t work. I think he might have had a mini stroke trying to get out.
I was awakened one night around 2:00 a.m. I came down to find daddy on the floor with poop as far as the eye could see. I was in shock. Antonio, who took care of the house, loved daddy as if he was his own father. I immediately called him for help. He lifted my father, who was 6’-3”, and walked him into the bathroom. My father who was a very private man, could not have been handled with more love and dignity than he was by Antonio, that night.
I don’t know how long my father had been on the floor waiting for help. I don’t know what I would have done if Antonio hadn't been there.
But I soon found out. My father had become incontinent. As long as there was a nurse there, or Antonio, I was okay. But one day, I was the only one at home. Maybe you think it’s no big deal to change your own father’s diaper. I had no choice. It was the hardest thing I had ever done.
I knew then that it was over. I had to move him to a facility where he would be safe and well cared for. I grieved over this decision, as if I were sending him to jail. I felt guilty and desperate. I loved him so much and had vowed at an early age that I would always take care of him. It was the most painful decision I ever made.
This was not the end. It was just the beginning……..
I was my father’s caregiver for 15 years. He had Alzheimer’s disease. There are currently over 65 million caregivers in the U.S., expected to grow to over 120 million by 2030.
Caring for a loved one can devastate a family financially, physically and emotionally. Most people are in denial until they get the surprise phone call and then find themselves planning long term care in the emergency room.
Will you be ready when the phone rings?