Second, she hired a “caregiver companion team,” who would spend time with her mother in the nursing home in two-hour shifts over the week when family wasn’t present. In her mother’s case, 19 two-hour shifts a week were organized with the caregivers for $14 an hour, which was about two-thirds of the rate she would have had to pay a professional caregiving agency. They were responsible for helping Doris eat, brushing her hair and teeth, washing and moisturizing her face and hands, cleaning her eyeglasses, and replacing the hearing aid batteries when she could no longer carry those activities out on her own. Under the guidance of the nursing home physiotherapist, they gave her massages and helped her stretch and do exercises to move her arms and legs.
But beyond that, they simply tried to provide companionship – conversation and hugs – and look after what needed to be done, such as putting on a sweater on cold days or asking the nursing home to help her go to the bathroom. And they kept notes in a logbook, so Ms. Roberts had a better idea of the situation when she came for her weekly stint. “Good people are at the heart of any successful business and I learned through experience to find out what was in the heart of a prospective employee,” says Ms. Roberts.
The third group looking after her mother included the professionals in the health-care team. Thanks to the logbook and all the extra attention given to her mother, Ms. Roberts was better armed to discuss the situation with them and make decisions. She and her brother financed the effort mainly by selling her parents’ home for $160,000 and investing those funds. She notes that for others who need to pay for eldercare, it could also be handled through a reverse mortgage if the parents continue to live in their own home.
Through Doris Inc., Ms. Roberts had taken charge of her mother’s care as well as her own work-life balance. She was no longer out of control, flying solo, and much of the stress was reduced. “It’s taking leadership over your life,” she says.
And even after he mother died, that lesson stayed with her, and she shares it in her new book, Doris Inc. She is now married to the man she was then dating and they live in Bath, Ont., and winter in Sebring, Fla. Ms. Roberts say she tries to take better care of herself and live much more in the present than the past, worrying less about the future.
Caregiving occurs throughout our lives, and she argues that our goal should be to have a happy, healthy, and rewarding life while caregiving – and after.
Harvey Schachter is a Battersea, Ont.-based writer specializing in management issues. He writes Monday Morning Manager and management book reviews for the print edition of Report on Business and an online work-life balance column.
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