Caregiver Vacation
June 21st, 2009 | 
Author: It’s summer–vacation season. You have your reservations at the beach, you are scheduled to hit the road in a couple of hours, and are zipping the last compartment on your luggage when you get the call. It’s your father. There’s nothing wrong, he says, but your trained ear detects that all is not right either. It’s a three hour drive to where he lives in the opposite direction from your vacation destination. Your brow starts to furrow. What can you do? What should you do? Mentally you scan for options, then you tear downstairs to bow before the internet idol for answers.
That’s how lots of people have found SCC. If there is one thing that adult children of older adults can count on, it is that the need to intervene on behalf of your parents will come. Just when it will come is the unpredictable part. Even though I am a well seasoned, well educated, fairly insightful, not to mention professional, geriatric care manager, I too have been blindsided by events like the scenario above. Fortunately, I do know what resources or support services I have to rely on should I get the call from my own mother.
Most of the folks that visit the SCC website are caregivers. Most do not do caregiving for a living. More often than not they are family members who live a good distance from the older adult for whom they are seeking help. I hope that when a stressed family member lands on the SCC site, they breathe an instant sigh of relief. Blog page readers can be part of a much needed support system. By commenting and adding your thoughts, success stories, and challenges, the caregiving “safety net” spreads and becomes stronger.
Take a moment to consider and share what situations you either have had to deal with in the past or ones that you hold in the back of your mind that could be front and center at any moment. Maybe doing so will help all of us be able to head off to our much needed vacations with a little less stress and enjoy them a lot more!
Wishing you a wonderful vacation season,
Connie
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Well, since I run a home care agency I can’t help but reply on this one. This is a perfect situation in which to have professional services set up to assist your parent while you are gone. Not only do they get some help on an as-needed basis (or regular basis) but you get some eyes and ears into what might be happening. Most agencies, including ours, provide respite care and offer to include family members in communications concerning their family member as long as the client has given permission for this. Many families go ahead and get services set up ahead of time, even if they are not using them on a regular basis, to provide for a situation just such as this!
And a second thought from a personal basis. Sometimes we will have to drop everything and go help a parent when we sense something is wrong. Apart from a family dynamic where a relative seems to ‘always’ have something wrong just when you’re about to go on vacation, I just feel strongly that agencies and other professional caregivers are an extension of family but not a complete substitute. I’m an only child whose parents are out of town and I can appreciate the difficulties of keeping up with all the people I care for. This past winter my parents were trapped in their home during the ice storm that moved across KY. They had no heat (it was about 10 degress)and my folks could not walk on the ice to get their firewood from the back yard. They had phone for a while and then that went dead. I could not reach my other family members who live nearby because they were in the same boat. I called emergency services to get someone to check on them and checked road conditions. Roads were OK so I got ready to drive up. Luckily, they turned on their cell phone (rare) and called to let me know that my uncle had helped them clear the driveway and they were leaving for TN to come stay with us. Whew! I am very lucky that I have relatives who will check on them and report to me when I need it. Then I can get up there if I need to.
I guess the bottom line here is that an important strategy for YOUR peace of mind is to have family, friend, or professional pre-arranged so that, when you think something is off, you can get someone to your parents’ house quickly and allow you to respond appropriately. Hopefully then you get the vacation and the parent-check!