{"id":543,"date":"2014-10-28T03:14:29","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T03:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/blog\/?p=13"},"modified":"2026-02-02T15:02:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T15:02:47","slug":"the-conversations-we-wish-wed-had","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/2014\/10\/28\/the-conversations-we-wish-wed-had\/","title":{"rendered":"The Conversations We Wish We’d Had"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a year ago last summer, my husband, his siblings, and I sat around our kitchen table having the conversation we\u2019d long avoided\u2014how to care for Dad. Like most people who end up sitting at this table, we had a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. We Googled things like home care and visiting nurses, debated how to take his driver\u2019s license away, and fretted about how we\u2019d bring it up to him. Little did we know, our conversation that night was futile, because Dad had already passed away\u2014alone in his home, as we feared he might.<\/p>\n

Dad (or Dad-in-law to me) lived alone in Florida, not far from his daughter. As anyone who\u2019s watched a parent age knows, \u201cnot far\u201d becomes \u201ctoo far\u201d when the wheels start coming off. The ambulance had visited his house one too many times, we had a feeling his diet consisted mostly of frozen meatballs and grocery store pastries, and we were uneasy about the plethora of medications we saw floating around his bedroom.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re the adult child of an aging parent, it\u2019s very easy to rationalize the situation and make it better: He still sent Christmas and birthday cards. He paid all his bills on time. His house was organized. In so many ways, Dad was the same person he\u2019d always been, so we avoided having those tough conversations\u2014and ultimately, we\u2019ll always regret that.<\/p>\n

A big part of the problem was that, even though he was in Florida\u2014the senior capital of the world\u2014we didn\u2019t know where to start. There were almost too many resources to choose from. Home care providers, independent senior communities, assisted living, visiting nurses, Meals on Wheels, adult day care… We didn\u2019t know what to choose or why.<\/p>\n

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My husband’s dad with our oldest son.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now that we\u2019ve started a business hoping to make better the very issue we faced two years ago, we\u2019ve learned so much more about what\u2019s out there. And we\u2019ve learned the importance of conversations.<\/p>\n

If we had it to do over, we would talk with everyone\u2014physicians, nurses, elder care lawyers, senior resource centers, home care providers. A conversation doesn\u2019t mean commitment, and asking for advice doesn\u2019t mean you have to take it, but if you don\u2019t ask questions, you\u2019ll never get the answers you need.<\/p>\n

We are lucky to live in an area with a wealth of resources\u2014once you start asking, you\u2019ll be amazed what\u2019s available. If you\u2019re the primary caregiver for your parent, there are people\u2014great people\u2014who can help care for your dad just to give you a break once in a while. There are people who will take him to Red Sox games or get your mom to church on Sunday. There are people who will pop in and help your mom get ready in the morning, feed her breakfast, then come back at night to tuck her in. There are rides and meals and caregivers … All you have to do is ask.<\/p>\n

The biggest conversation we wish we\u2019d had would have been with our dad. Like most of us would, he clung fiercely to his independence. But now we know that if we\u2019d had that conversation\u2014convinced him to take advantage of the many resources available to him\u2014he would have lived a happier end of life with services that ultimately helped him preserve his independence by keeping him home and healthy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Originally published in the Swampscott Reporter<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About a year ago last summer, my husband, his siblings, and I sat around our kitchen table having the conversation we\u2019d long avoided\u2014how to care for Dad. Like most people who end up sitting at this table, we had a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. We…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}