Alzheimer’s | Lamberts Homecare Advocate Blog

Posts Tagged ‘alzheimer’s’

November 3rd, 2011 by Ashley Plauche

Testimony on the Invaluable Cost of Homecare

We have a special treat for you today! Esteemed poet, teacher, and friend, Henry Walker, wrote this tribute to homecare especially for Homecare Advocate. His compelling story about his mother’s homecare experience is touching and reminds us about the quality of life that’s possible through homecare services. Enjoy!

* * * * *

Home is where the heart, and the care can be

Who are the real lovers of God? Perhaps it is any who know that the Divine has no hands but theirs, no feet but theirs, no other eyes through which to look out and see what needs to be done.

In heart after heart, in family after family, someone needs care and someone else steps forward to help. Such a gift of one’s self is sacred, and government can be a big help in allowing each gift to be given. Such a gift is morally right and enriching. And, when the bottom line is figured, the safety net closer to home is cheaper than the gift of hospital and nursing home.

My mother spent her life caring for others: her spouse, her children, her family, her students–anyone who needed help, a meal, a bed, a shoulder, an ear. As long as she could, she took care of herself. Like her mother, she worked all the time, for home is hard to make and bills don’t pay themselves.

As Alzheimer’s slipped into her, she forgot to take her pills and to pay her bills. For the first time, her body had trouble processing sugar and nightmares were in the room with her. One last time she walked and then she didn’t. It’s wonderful how long we can each take care of ourselves in the bathroom, and what a logistical and emotional nightmare when we can’t. What were we to do?

Mother was well-prepared with handicap-accessible quarters and a nearby room for a caregiver. She even had insurance to pay for a nursing home. When she was still “with it,” she compared nearby nursing homes and liked the one that had five meals a day. She wanted, and we wanted for her, to stay at home as long as possible.

We were incredibly lucky in finding a caregiver who already loved Mother and who found a way to stay with her, and then to find others in her family who would share the work and challenge. We were incredibly lucky to have two of her nieces, with substantial financial resources, feel the “calling” to pay for the caregivers. Mother had stored up the capital with them in how she had lived her life with them.

What jumps out of all this to me is that our country often does its best for our aged and for those infirm when we can find the way for them to stay at home and get the care there. Our experience with home health care nurses was wonderful. The Hospice nurses were wonderful. The caregivers we had were wonderful. And the cost to us all was far less at home than at a hospital or a nursing home. May we find the way to have home health care even more supported and possible. People deserve the best, whether in hospital, nursing home, or at home. Let’s make it so.

* * * * *

We’ll be featuring different homecare stories and perspectives all month, and we encourage you to send in your own story! Please e-mail it to advocate(at)lambertshc.com, and we may just pick yours for next week’s Faces of Homecare Feature.

Happy Homecare & Family Caregivers Month!

::AWP::

Share - No Comments - Tags: alzheimer's, cost benefit of homecare, henry walker, homecare, quality of life

August 1st, 2011 by Ashley Plauche

The Language of Love

What happens when words are no longer words? When language bears no meaning, and everything is lost in translation? Henry Walker wrote a collection of poems spanning 12 years as he deals with his mother’s dementia and sees the toil that Alzheimer’s takes on even the most beautiful of spirits.

He shares the struggles, confusion, and glimmers of hope as he learns how to speak a silent language with the mother he loves so dearly. The Duke Family Support Program shared his work in their 2009 Fall newsletter, and Henry offers it as a free download here.

Jean: “Let me tell you, we love you all, and we’re gonna keep on loving you as long as we can. . .
What’s good about you all is you catch on,
you catch on, you catch on,
and you know it’s not going to be perfect.”

A Little Help

by Henry Walker, November 17, 2001

if we’re lucky

we share our journey through this life

with guides who help us find our way

with partners who help us carry our burdens

with those we can help up with a hand

with those who will help us up,

parents,

friends,

spouse,

and,

if we can keep going long enough,

caregivers

through whom love can well up

so that their

hearts

and hands

and the fullness of their selves

hold us in their care

so that through the last days of our journey

we’re not alone and lost,

those who care for Mother these last days

are humble servants of the divine,

though Mother can feel lost she’s not alone

and those caregivers endure the storms of her frustration

so that the glowing sun of her self

can still break through,

through her bright eyes and laughing heart,

flowing from the love

with which she still embraces the world.

Down to the Core

by Henry Walker, March 17, 2000

I go into her room

and gaze at her sleeping peacefully,

a moment of doubt–whether to wake her?

a moment of worry of how much of her will wake up

and how I will react, and then I move on

and sing a verse of “Down in the Valley”

and then another and she softly wakes into a cough,

I speak to her, her eyes open, and she says

“Well, hello, Henry.”

We talk for awhile

but since so many words have lost their moorings to her thoughts

it’s hard to tell what we’re talking about,

after a few minutes I start to leave

so I say something and hit my leg– shouting out “By Crackey!”

a big grin fills her face and she hits her own leg, laughing “By Crackey!”,

a back and forth joke we did together months ago.

Singing and joking still work

music and humor mooring the words into meaning, fulfilling them,

using more of the soul to feel their meaning

than the airy world of language usually uses,

as we build fairy castles within our reason–

and when it flies away from us, burned like Icarus,

maybe we drop down to what we still have left,

so much burned away , but it’s still the core of Mother there,

burning with love, smiling with music and good humor,

what a tribute to her life

for her to drop down to such a wonderful foundation

she’s built with the spirit of her life.

Mother In Spring

by Henry Walker, April 7, 2001

The winding path I follow pulls me round again into Mother’s room,

first I’m out in the yard and spy her, sitting up, through the window,

we wave, I blow her a kiss

and she returns one,

I visit with her for a little while and she’s in a fuss

about that man who wouldn’t listen, who disturbed her,

getting from bed to chair

more effort than she wants to deal with

her fussing more than I want to deal with

so I excuse myself for a dip in the creek,

half an hour later I return to visit with her,

after she waves me in from outside

we exchange exclamations of how pretty it all is,

then I venture a comment about the corncob squirrel feeder

and her eyes narrow in confusion at what connection to meaning

my words might have,

I rephrase, go just for talking about squirrels, a favorite of hers,

and she responds with words that I think are about squirrels,

it’s like the ideas are still there, the images,

but the words her mind calls up fly off on tangents to the random

so we lose words as tools that each of us can use

to pry apart the walls between us

and let us in to understand the other,

for now we still have the tools of a twinkle in the eye, of a hug and a kiss,

for five minutes I stand by Mother while her eyes are outside

and her mind is full of story

which she tells me

which she tells me,

just like that,

full of repetition,

of repetition,

of kids she tries to help, of limits to her help

to her help

to her help,

words of love, of God, of dying but not knowing the hour,

and the story is real and powerful and clear to her while I only get glimpses,

I don’t say anything till she’s finished, because if I were to,

I would interrupt,

now at this stage in her life, it is not our place to interrupt, to disagree,

she has enough frustrations keeping the train on the track

and moving along to where she wants to go without us derailing,

she finishes and is quiet for awhile,

we look together at her favorite picture, twin babies,

and she tells me of their life

there, on the desk,

for 12 or 13 years she thinks, details don’t matter,

she’s hard at work building meaning with her life,

it’s like the stories of Faerie

and she’s stepping away into a different realm

and just because we can’t see it

doesn’t mean it isn’t real

to her,

I think a song for her would be great

a song with a lot of repetition,

so Joan and I sing of “coming ‘round the mountain,”

she enjoys it.

Like in a Dream

by Henry Walker, December 30, 2000

she talks to the pictures on the desk,

they live just like we do,

so I guess we’re real in some two-dimensional way

like a movie or dream,

her words tumble out

like she’s just woken up

and the dream’s still real,

so much now she doesn’t understand

so much now she can’t control,

and when she’s at her best now

she lets go and quits straining

to put back together what can’t be

so she’ll laugh and shrug away the problem

and she can let herself be happy in the moment

with teaching the pictures

talking at visitors

enjoying a meal, birds, snow,

she hates to be cleaned

and she can work to hold on to the fussing

till soon she forgets

and she’s back in the present,

the moment.

Alzheimer’s if often said to be a family disease since it touches us all. Though over 5.4 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, many family members feel alone and isolated in their struggle. Homecare Advocate gives a special thanks to Henry for sharing his work and intimate family situation with others so that they would not be isolated in their struggles with this mind-robbing disease. For more information on this disease, warning signs, and ways you can help, visit the Alzheimer’s Association.

::AWP::

Share - 4 Comments - Tags: alzheimer's, celebrating life, homecare

Categories

Posts Tagged ‘alzheimer’s’

Testimony on the Invaluable Cost of Homecare

The Language of Love

A Little Help

by Henry Walker, November 17, 2001

Down to the Core

by Henry Walker, March 17, 2000

Mother In Spring

by Henry Walker, April 7, 2001

Like in a Dream

by Henry Walker, December 30, 2000

Popular Posts

Archives

About Us

Tags

Categories

Posts Tagged ‘alzheimer’s’

Testimony on the Invaluable Cost of Homecare

The Language of Love

A Little Help

by Henry Walker, November 17, 2001

Down to the Core

by Henry Walker, March 17, 2000

Mother In Spring

by Henry Walker, April 7, 2001

Like in a Dream

by Henry Walker, December 30, 2000

Subscribe

Popular Posts

Archives

About Us

Tags