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Story Core: Meet Janet and Gil
Like so many other people who take on the role of caretaker for a loved one, Janet had no advance preparation or training. Fortunately, she was referred to LIFE’s Caretaker Support Program. “I didn’t know about senior daycare, I didn’t know about PACE. I didn’t know about any of it. But through talking to Erin (LIFE, LPC and case manager), she guided me in the right direction.”
Janet is a retired chemist, thoughtful and well-educated. “LIFE Senior Services is a huge thing. After I started exploring what I needed to take care of Gil, I knew I needed to talk to somebody, but also knew counselors were expensive.” However, thanks to a grant from the Tulsa Area United Way and the support of generous people in the community, Janet, and others like her, can receive those services at no cost.
“Gil’s a late-life friend. I met him at church and we’ve been together for about 16 years. The first 10 or 12 years were wonderful. We traveled all over and went to England on my 70th birthday. I noticed a couple of years ago, his memory started changing.” At first, Janet was unsure if she was overreacting, but Gil’s memory continued to worsen. “As a retired chemist, of course, I got out my notebook and started to write stuff down.”
Erin suggested taking Gil once or twice a week to LIFE’s Adult Day Health (ADH). Many people wait too long to start a program and their loved one has a difficult time adjusting.
Janet began by taking Gill twice a week. Gil said, “Yeah, it’s a good program. We had three dogs come yesterday. They all came over to see me and I patted them. There’s singing, there’s everything anybody could ever want from nine to three, and lunch. So how can you go wrong? Yeah, and it gives Janet a break from me,” he said with a chuckle.
Qualifying for the LIFE PACE program and transportation affords Gil the opportunity to attend ADH five days a week and gives Janet some flexibility in her schedule. “Gil wants to be in the room with me all the time. If we’re sitting in the den, and I move to go fix supper, he follows me. I’m his security blanket. We definitely benefit with the PACE and ADH programs. I have time to do what I need and Gil gets to go up there. He has a community he wouldn’t have if he were just at home.”
Memory decline isn’t a problem to solve and overcome the way a chemist might solve other challenges. “It changes from day to day,” said Janet. “I hope someday we will have treatments, but brain chemistry is so complicated, and we don’t even have a test for Alzheimer’s. A lot of memory loss is overlaid with simple aging which changes your whole system. So, it could be this or that, or the other 20 things it might be.” Summing up, Janet said, “I guess the main thing I’ve gone through is grief. I’ve probably read 30 books on dementia and Alzheimer’s. The brain knows a lot of stuff, but that doesn’t help the heart.”
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