I\u2019ve written a lot about my father-in-law in the past few months but here\u2019s a re-cap if you missed it: Dad lived in Swampscott until the last five years of his life when he relocated to Florida to be near his only grandchild at the time. Rather than live in one of Florida\u2019s famed retirement communities, he moved into a big house just down the street from my sister-in-law\u2019s family, with a pool and plenty of room for us to visit. We shared many great memories there the first few years, especially after our two kids were born.<\/p>\n
Then the wheels started coming off. Dad, who\u2019d had a couple of hip replacements and suffered from debilitating arthritis, began falling. On one fall, he broke his arm, and then he suffered a heart attack. We\u2019d notice on our quarterly visits that his house was messier, his shirts were more stained, his food and medicines were more disorganized and out of date, and his mood was more somber.<\/p>\n
Like so many families, we struggled with the \u201cwhat to dos.\u201d He was still driving (although he probably shouldn\u2019t have been), paid his bills on time, remembered to send cards for the kids\u2019 birthday, and even made the trip to see us once a year. But we couldn\u2019t deny his day-to-day deterioration.<\/p>\n
We probably should have discussed it with him but we didn\u2019t know where to start, and even more, we didn\u2019t know where to end. What did we want out of the discussion? Did we want him to sell his home and move in with one of us? Did we want him to move to a facility? Did we want him to have a live-in caregiver? All of these options seemed so drastic (and we knew he\u2019d never agree to any of them), but we didn\u2019t know what else there was.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t know there were other options\u2014options he might have agreed to and options that might have stopped us from worrying all the time, as so many adult sons and daughters do as their parents age.<\/p>\n
For starters, he could have used a fall detector pendent and a medication reminder tray<\/strong>\u2014two relatively inexpensive devices (around $30\/month) that would have given us peace of mind and might even have saved his life.<\/p>\n He could have used a transportation service<\/strong>. I wish we\u2019d researched senior ride options\u2014both publically offered and private. For what he paid annually in car insurance and maintenance, he could have used an on-demand car service that would have taken him anywhere he needed to go safely and stress-free.<\/p>\n He could have used home care for just a couple of hours a day<\/strong>. Until we got into the business ourselves, we didn\u2019t realize what \u201chome care\u201d even meant. We didn\u2019t know he could have used it for as little as two hours a week\u2014to tidy up his house, prep his meals, drive him to appointments, do his grocery shopping, or just take him out to lunch. He could even have used them just occasionally\u2014for the first few days he came home from the hospital after his heart attack or when he broke his arm and had difficulty showering.<\/p>\n He could have taken advantage of the many resources at local senior centers<\/strong>. I\u2019ve witnessed firsthand how great senior centers can be, and I can only imagine what they\u2019re like in Florida. If I had it to do over again, I would have made sure that we made senior center social events one of our must-dos while visiting\u2014because I think we\u2019d have had as much fun there as he would have.<\/p>\n He could have had a meal delivery service<\/strong>. I did know about Meals on Wheels back then, but I guess it never crossed my mind to use it. I didn\u2019t realize how simple it is to sign up for and how great it would have been as a daily check on Dad.<\/p>\n Our experience with Dad was the impetus behind our starting our own business, trying to help seniors and anyone else who needs extra care stay safe and comfortable in their own homes. We know now that senior care is not always the \u201call or nothing\u201d decision we thought it was. There is a multitude of options available, and while not every option is perfect for everyone, knowing what they all are and how they can work together can help families and seniors set up a plan for aging that keeps the seniors happy, safe, and independent and their families worry-free.<\/p>\n Originally published in The Swampscott Reporter<\/a><\/p>\n Molly Rowe owns FirstLight Home Care with her husband, Steve, and lives in Swampscott with their two sons. FirstLight provides non-medical home care and medical response devices to adults in Swampscott, Marblehead, Lynn, Salem, Peabody, Danvers, Beverly, and Lynnfield. For more information and help caring for your loved ones in the comfort of their own homes, please visit FirstLight\u2019s website at <\/em>www.salem.firstlighthomecare.com<\/em><\/a> or contact Molly at <\/em>781-691-5755\/mrowe@firstlighthomecare.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve written a lot about my father-in-law in the past few months but here\u2019s a re-cap if you missed it: Dad lived in Swampscott until the last five years of his life when he relocated to Florida to be near his only grandchild at the time. Rather than live in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","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=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}