12 ways that family members, friends and strangers can make a caregiver's life easier
Volunteer for a task so the caregiver can maintain a full-time job
When I found out a relative would only need seven days to complete his stay at a short-term facility, there was a family discussion about who would take care of him after the week was up. Originally, I considered quitting my job to be a full-time caregiver. While one relative was on board with this idea, another quickly talked me out of it — knowing I may need this job in the future. So, for a couple of months, I was a caregiver for four days and three other people took turns the other three days.
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The bathing, the feeding, the cooking, the medication and the check-ups were the easy part. What was beyond frustrating was all the constant calls from other family members and his friends, the chaplain stopping by to stop me from working so he could talk about random topics, people stopping by claiming to be checking on my relative but talking my ear off — all while I still had the same number of work meetings, writing and editing deadlines, and research to do. I couldn’t wrap my mind around how people could be part-time caregivers and still keep their jobs.
There was no way I was willing to not be a caregiver for this relative, but being subtle about my career was not working. While some family members were respectful that I was a 50% caregiver and a 50% full-time worker, others were completely oblivious.
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The final straw for me was a relative who stopped by claiming to want to check in on the ill relative, taking her shoes off, grabbing the remote to watch television and leaning back on the couch — a few feet away from me sitting at a desk with a laptop, a computer monitor, style guides and a couple of folders sprawled out, and frantically trying to turn in an assignment on time before my next meeting. Meanwhile, the ill relative was in the bedroom, nowhere near the TV-watching relative.
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Originally, she claimed she was leaving when her “train” was set to arrive. But el trains (or “L” trains — Chicago’s nickname for elevated trains that may include several stops underground and at ground level) don’t operate like the strict travel schedules of Metra trains. We both knew all she had to do was wait 15 minutes for another “L” to arrive or depart, just like buses do. The loud television was distracting me so much that by the time she went to the bathroom, I turned the television off and hid the remote.
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Shortly after, she left, I let phone calls go to my family member’s answering machine and I finally got some work done. This was the second time I’d volunteered to be a caregiver, and it was somehow harder than the first time with another family member. While both people were social butterflies who had plenty of people who loved being around them and checking in on them, one thing I noticed was the differences in their social circle.
Because one family member who fell ill was still at “working” age, her social circle was too. Everyone who wanted to stop by to check on her had 9-5 jobs and could only do so long after I wasn’t working anymore. With the other family member, who was already a retiree, his social circle had far more free time on their hands.
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And that’s when caregiving became tricky although it doesn’t have to. Family members, friends, work colleagues, church members and strangers alike can make a caregiver’s life much easier by considering these 12 things.