Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2006. This was classic Mattie! Always found the humor in all activities! As you can see, Mattie grabbed a pair of Peter's jeans, and decided he wanted to put them on. Naturally they were way too big for him. But that did not stop him. I thought the whole scene was hysterical, so I snapped a photo! Meanwhile, do you notice the shirt Mattie was wearing? Mattie was in LOVE with Lightning McQueen, a movie character. I can't tell you how many times we saw that movie, or how many little cars we had from that movie. In fact, I still have several cars on display in Mattie's bedroom.
Quote of the day: Heroes didn't leap tall buildings or stop bullets with an outstretched hand; they didn't wear boots and capes. They bled, and they bruised, and their superpowers were as simple as listening, or loving. Heroes were ordinary people who knew that even if their own lives were impossibly knotted, they could untangle someone else's. And maybe that one act could lead someone to rescue you right back. ~ Jodi Picoult
As my faithful blog readers know, for the last month, Peter and I have been the caregiver to our neighbor. Our neighbor is an older adult, who had an accident and spent close to two weeks in the hospital getting surgery and rehabilitation before coming home. How someone determined she was fit to come home and live independently is a WHOLE other conversation. I would have liked to meet the case worker who visited her two days after returning home, because in all good consciousness, I have no idea how this woman assessed the situation as being stable. Nothing about the situation has been stable. Starting with the fact that Peter and I had to rearrange furniture and rugs in the apartment immediately because they were a fall hazard.
That is just the physical space issue! But then digging deeper, one has to ask.... how will you get food, prepare food, clean dishes, do housework, laundry, get mail from your mail box, pay bills, SHALL I GO ON???? These activities of daily living in my opinion weren't fully assessed, discussed, or planned! I understand my neighbor told her doctor and this case worker that she had support in place, but honestly it doesn't take much to scratch the surface and find out that the social network in question is not going to rise up to meet these demands. This is not a commentary on her network, as caregiving is HARD work. It is hard even when you know and love the person, but when you don't know the person, the likelihood that you are going to want to take on the expense and daily effort are much smaller. Which is exactly what I saw in your friendship network.
Unfortunately in my case, there was a lot wrapped up into caring for my neighbor. It wasn't just me being a 'good' neighbor, I got entangled with my own fears for the future. After all, I looked at this woman has having no family or children to care for her, and it did not take long for me to connect the dots and see myself in her. I COULD BE HER!!! Well NOT totally, but you get the picture.
Needless to say, when we left town over Christmas break, I set up a Sign Up Genius to make sure whatever friends she had would stop by to visit and potentially help. I created a check list of what needed to be done, arranged for her laundry to be done, and left her refrigerator stocked for the two weeks we would be gone. I will spare you on the expenses we incurred for six weeks (food, laundry, medications, medical supplies, etc). I think what caused both of us to pause and reevaluate what we were doing was time. Each day we spent two hours or more on caregiving tasks. So on average 15-20 hours a week. This was on top of Peter's job, my Foundation work, and walking Sunny. Honestly with caregiving, we never ate before 9:30pm, and were exhausted when we got into bed, just to wake up and start all over again the next day. I am no stranger to caregiving, but we also knew this plan wasn't sustainable or fair to us.
So today, I confronted the issue. Before I could stop our caregiver role, I had to explain why we made this decision to our neighbor and I felt compelled to provide her resources in the community. As I do worry what will happen to her. I made several phone calls today on her behalf and started with our local meals on wheels program. Ironically the program I called won't service my neighbor because of delivery boundaries. We talked about the other food programs in my neighborhood, but as I told her NONE of them will deliver food. They will only provide it to you at their facility. Which won't work in this case. The place where I received the most help and resources was Iona Senior Services. I had the opportunity to talk to a social worker about the case and to hear about all the services Iona could provide our neighbor. In addition, the social worker referred me to other places as well to get more information. The social worker couldn't get over that Peter and I were doing all of this for over a month, and that we weren't related or close friends with our neighbor. She said our neighbor was blessed to have us. I have always had great respect for family caregivers. Both personally and professionally. I am sharing these three resources below, in case anyone else in the DC area needs access to such knowledge.
Iona Senior Services
Directly helps 3,000 older adults and their family caregivers with the challenges and opportunities of aging.
4125 Albemarle Street NW, Washington, DC
(202) 895-9448
- Can speak with Information and Referrals department and be assigned a social worker
- They will provide case management and in-home delivered meals
FoggyBottom West End Village
Foggy Bottom West End Village is a nonprofit membership organization that provides services for its members to help them comfortably age in their community by supplying social events, health support, and many other offerings.
2430 K Street NW, Washington, DC
(202) 333-1327
- Grocery shopping
- Take older adult to medical appointments
- Home care assistance
Homecare Partners
HCP is an accredited and licensed, nonprofit home health agency. We help seniors and adults with disabilities and their family caregivers with direct home care aide assistance and caregiver education and support.
1234 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Ste. C-1002
Washington, DC
(202) 638-2382
- In home assistance with light housekeeping and laundry
- Sliding Scale Basis based on income
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