Guest Experts
Here's where you'll find articles on a wide range of topics by various experts.
This Week: Caring for the Caregivers
Rick Sommers –Steinhaus, LMSW
Rick Sommers –Steinhaus, LMSW
Rick spent 21 years working in broadcasting before going to grad school to complete a master in Social Work. He was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in April 1994, 6 months after completing 1st and only NYC Marathon. He has served as a motivational speaker for the MS Society and Biogen/Idec Pharmaceuticals (the maker of the MS drug he’s been taking for the past 9 years). A good part of what led him back to school was the sense of greater good he could impart by sharing his story with newly diagnosed MS patients, and their families. Volunteered and fundraised for the following: MS NYC, Gilda’s Club NYC, The Ovarian Nat’l Cancer Alliance, The Leukemia Society of NY, The March of Dimes, and (inhis prior life) performed stand-up at Carolines, NYC. To find out more about Rick, visit his web site at www.RickSommers.com. You can email him at rzsjr@aol.com
More than 50 million people, provide care for a chronically ill, disabled or aged family member or friend during any given year.
I was at a dinner party the other night with a handful of other couples. Certainly well to do, affluent, well read, well traveled well seasoned. The wine flowed, the laughter presented, and before long I was espousing on an area of expertise: taking care of parents.
My parents are both deceased, so my experience is as an innocent bystander, as I never had to make some of the choices or have some of the discussions many of my contemps do. A day doesn’t pass that I don’t think of my mom & dad, yet a day also doesn’t pass without my appreciation of the fact that I never had to institutionalize one of them or “prohibit” them from driving.
Barbara Walters aired a special a couple of weeks ago on how to live to one hundred and fifty years old. That would be roughly 102 more years for me from today. No thank you! Then on Reuters news service this week, the following appeared from the National Institute of Mental Health:
Happiness increases along with age, according to findings from a three-decade-long U.S. survey released on Wednesday.
I guess you haven’t talked to many (any?) of my colleagues, especially those who are caught in the now well-known sandwich generation. These are those middle agers like us who are raising kids and now parenting their parents as well.
So, exactly how did I become an “expert” in this area, especially since my parents have long since departed? Fair question.
Besides my own life experiences in the last decade of care taking for aging relatives who could no longer do for themselves, I worked as a Social Worker at a great program at New York’s Mt. Sinai Hospital called “The Care Giver Resource Program. This is a relatively new creation (last 8 years) borne out of necessity.
Nowadays, a two-income household (where there are two incomes) is the norm, as you well know. Long departed are the days that Beaver and Wally would arrive home with milk and cookies on the table and
a pot roast simmering on the oven. Want to read something sobering???
According to the National Family Caregivers Association, More than 50 million people, provide care for a chronically ill, disabled or aged family member or friend during any given year. Pretty staggering numbers, huh?
Is it any wonder you are fatigued and consumed if you are a caregiver? It’s physically, emotionally and financially draining, yes. But there is help available, and a lot of times it’s low or no cost.
The best place to start is on the internet (where else?) where you can google “caregiver statistics”. You can localize it by typing on your city or state for a list of caregiver support services.
It may not be the only solution, but for you to admit you’re taking on more than you can handle is a good first step. Knowing you are not alone will go a long way as well. The first thing we’re taught at social workers is pretty basic; “before you can take care of anybody else, you have to be able to take care of YOU”.
Good luck!
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