Trading Places: Personal stories from viewers

Submitted by Anonymous This is my 90 year old mother, Christmas, 2006. Ruth Gent. She was at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed. She's a tough old bird :-)

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I’m 60 years old. My husband David, is 63. We care take my 90 year old mother, Ruth. We’ve been care taking since 1989 when I was 43 years old. It happened when we moved to Cottonwood, Arizona. We’d just bought a house and my 93 year old Grandmother, Inez Cramer, broke her hip in San Diego, California. She had to have care and could no longer take care of herself. We said: “Bring her here to us. We’ll care for her.” At the same time, my mother, Ruth, who was 77, moved into our home, too. So, we had a 93 year old and a 77 year old to care take simultaneously. My grandmother died here, with us, at 99 years old in 1996. My husband David and I continue to care take my mother Ruth. Thank goodness, both were mobile, but my mother has dementia and it gets harder and harder every year to care for her. What a care taker needs most is TIME TO REST and TIME AWAY to get away from the unrelenting stress and demands. Your life is never your own. I’m not complaining. However, where do you go to get a break? To get a rest. No one realizes the STRESS of care taking until you’ve been doing it. And it’s horrible. It brings our health down. When do we get help with all of this? Why can’t states see this? If our health goes, what then? I believe the states and the federal government need to have built in programs of people who can come out and give us a BREAK. A preventative health maintenance break. We can’t go anywhere. We have to stay home. How would you like to have no vacation for years on end? And if we do try to go somewhere, it literally takes an ‘army’ of people from nearby neighbors to friends and a brother who is 2 1/2 hours away, to come and do what we do for years on end. Please ADDRESS this--help for the caretakers. Some relief. Perhaps some agencies or branches of federal government or state government that can spell people like us. Thank you for caring enough to listen. --Anonymous , Cottonwood, AZ (submitted on Feb. 24, 2007)

Submitted by Joan Montesa Myself, Joan Montesa, and Mom, Adeline Capello, on Mother's Day, May 14, 2006 in Peru, Illinois

I have an 81 year old Mother I moved onto my property 6 years ago and an 9 year old son, I really don't know who is babysitting who...My Mother often calls me asking when her daughters will be getting home from school, I am the youngest, at 48 I have two older sisters, that have very little to do with her needs, but I designed it so I wouldn't have to travel to take care of her, she is better off in her cottage next to my house. She had two knee replacements last year and is really doing better although she does wear dipers and just drops things on the ground, I do all her cleaning, shopping, dispense her pills every morning when I take her breakfast, (she overdosed a couple of years ago and since I keep her meds,) socializing plus i have a full time job and raising a child of my own, but I planned on taking care of her because that is what I believe we should do. My mother was always very sharp very strong opinions but not social does not belong to groups etc., so I'm it! I worry about her safety but I want her to live her life indepedently as possible, she no longer drives. I have hired help but she doesn't trust very many people and it's easier for me, I don't have much money and her social security averages about 800.00 a month but we make it work, and you know this like everything else in life, nothing last forever when she's gone she's gone and I will know I did my best as she did for me, and with some luck my son will do the same or at least learn from it all... Something about me , I live in a small town Mariposa California, (close to Yosemite) I work as a Supervising Building Inspector about 45 minutes away from home, I have a 9 year old son, I live with his Father we are not married. I bought my property/ house on my own I guess I learned by my Mother as I didn't want to put my son's Dad on the property. Mother taught me to be very storng, street wise, we were very poor growing up my Father left my Mother for her friend when I was 13 we had nothing, I owe my Mother for my life ( I came close to bad things, drugs, when I was young and she somehow taught me different ways to live) therefore although it's tough it's okay. I have pictures but at this moment do not have time to load them, I need to get home it's 5:00 and my other life begins, thank you for letting me share. sorry for the grammer my Mother would be ashamed but I'm in a hurry! --Lydia Clary, Mariposa, CA (submitted on Feb. 24, 2007)

Submitted by Michael Boran My parents, Charlotte and Roland (Pop) Boran, at Thanksgiving 2002, still doing very well. (the last name Boran is pronounced like the last name Moran, but with a B--accent on the RAN)

Until they were in their late eighties, my parents were virtually maintenance-free. But in the summer of 2003, about six months after Pop’s 90th birthday, the wheels started coming off. Charlotte, my mother, had to undergo angioplasty, and Pop’s legs were giving out. I moved into their little house and began shuttling them back and forth to doctors’ offices and occasional trips to the emergency room. By the first week in September, it was determined that Pop’s condition might be improved by a surgical procedure. While he was in the hospital, struggling to recover from the operation, Charlotte suffered what was tentatively diagnosed as a “mini-stroke.” She was rendered immobile and was unable to speak coherently for several days. So there they were at opposite ends of the hospital, and there I was checking on one and then the other, conferring with doctors and nurses and sneaking off to a nearby bar for a therapeutic martini every once in a while. Hurricane Isabel was making her way up the coast, and the hospital decided to release all but the most serious cases in anticipation of an onslaught storm-related injuries. Pop was taken home by ambulance while I managed to get Charlotte home by car just as the storm was approaching. Both of them were bedridden, immobile, and unable even to get to the bathroom; so I acquired a supply of adult diapers. The hurricane raged through their little beach town, wiping out several buildings. My folks’ house survived the storm unscathed, but electric power was lost for over a week. Plunged into darkness, without water, and with the hurricane screaming outside, my mother called out to me in the middle of the night. I had located a kerosene lantern, lit it, and went to her bedside. She needed a diaper change. As I rolled her from side to side, removing the soiled diaper and replacing it by lamplight, my eighty-eight year old mother smiled up at me and said, “Payback is hell, ain’t it?” --Michael Boran, Woolwine (Patrick County), VA (submitted on Feb. 23, 2007)

My mother is 89 this year, she still lives in her own home which she maintains, cooks her own meals and takes care of paying her own bills. She has made me her caregiver and I am the oldest of 4 children. I and a brother and sister live within a mile or two of her. Between my brother and I we see to it that she gets to all her appointments and do her grocery shopping, we also have a alert button that she wears around her neck at all times in case she falls or needs emergency help at any time, this gives us all peace of mind. We have one other sister who lives in Sheridan, Wy., so whenever they come to visit, they stay with her and that gives us a relief. She is still a pretty active person, Sundays she likes to fix family dinners and have children, grandchildren, friends over. She makes food dishes for church functions and is always sending cards to people with birthdays, anniversaries, ones who has lost loved ones, and people in th hospital or shutins. In fact they even call her when a prayer is needed for someone, they tell her they knew she has connections with the man upstairs. She is really loved by all her grandchildren, they visit her, take her mail and paper to her if they are in the area and do things sometimes for her like running the sweeper or whatever she might ask them to do. It is so wonderful to be able to keep her in the place she loves and know that there is always someone to help out. My daughter is a nurse and she is always checking on grandma, sometimes she'll even take her to her doctor's appointment for me , so that we know exactly what is going on with her. I just wanted to let you know about my mom, who is a special lady to many. --Darlene Lannholm, Galesburg, IL (submitted on Feb. 23, 2007)

What do you suggest a person should do when their child and grandchildren refuse to realize their mother and grandmother is actually a Senior? Granted, physically I show very subtle signs of being in that ballpark, hoever the numbers speak for themselves. My daughter simply will not converse with me regarding my "growing older" issues or what I might need relative to my health issues, of which I have a few. What's up with that? She's in her early 40s and I am 63. --charlene cartert-lacefield, gary, IN (submitted on Feb. 23, 2007)

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