by Kim Keller
Whether you live next door or many miles away, it’s difficult to effectively help your parents in times of need. Managing your own life while also trying to handle what your parents may require can be complicated and stressful, and if you live far away, it adds another dimension of difficulty. Even though my sister Karen and I took turns traveling to our parents’ home in Florida to help out, both of us still felt the pull of competing responsibilities. When we were with our parents, we felt the tug of priorities at home in New York, and vice versa. But you can’t be in two places at once. Our cell phones helped us feel more connected, but managing our dad’s illness and our own lives continued to be a delicate balancing act. There were a few things we did to help make it work: we tried to stay organized; we shared responsibilities whenever we could; and we worked hard to keep the lines of communication open with everyone involved.
For me, organization was the easiest of the three responsibilities. We were committed to our BIG to-do list, which included everything we needed to follow-up on; we kept lists of all critical information we might need in the future, like contact information for Dad’s doctors; and we kept lots of notes, too, for things like doctor’s visits or medical billing issues. Perhaps the biggest challenge was anticipating needs, like planning for in-home care before you really need it or learning the limits of Medicare before you suddenly find out you’ve reached one. It’s difficult to plan ahead when you’re not sure what’s going to happen next.
Keeping the lines of communication open required diligence and a determination to speak up even with those people we felt we might be bothering, like our dad’s doctors. It got much easier, though, when we were able to establish relationships with these previously unfamiliar and sometimes intimidating people. Building a relationship helps to erase the feeling that you’re annoying someone. Indeed, building a relationship goes a long way toward making everyone feel more at ease and more secure.
The hardest of the three responsibilities was asking people for help, whether it was friends or family. We knew we needed the help, and people kept asking how they could assist us, but in the beginning it was hard to shake the sense that we were either imposing or that we needed to handle everything ourselves (we’re control freaks at heart, I guess). This taught us a couple of important life lessons – first, it makes people happy to help you out in a time of need, and second, you don’t have to do everything yourself! Once we accepted those two things, it got a little easier.
We got to try out some of our In Care of Dad ideas and suggestions when our mom had a sudden stroke. I say “sudden” because she was living an otherwise healthy independent life, and it took us all by surprise. The stroke impacted her ability to read, write, and retrieve words when she speaks, a syndrome referred to as expressive aphasia. Her recovery has been remarkable to witness, and we have found that our core ideas of staying organized, sharing responsibilities and keeping communication flowing continue to be effective.
The information below is a step-by-step plan for helping you think things through and get organized.
- Assess The Situation
- Figure Out What’s Required
- Gather Available Resources
- Make Lots Of Lists
- Stay Connected With Everyone Involved
Tags: helping parents when far away, how to manage caring for parents, ideas for the sandwich generation, steps for helping a sick parent, steps for helping aging parent
