Denise shares her thoughts about and insights on the personal caregiving experience.
After my mom died, I struggled to work through my experience navigating the systems during her end of life. I’m a writer, but to make sense of this experience, I took out a Sharpie and a piece of paper to create this: After my dad died, I took out my Sharpie again: I found it […]
In May, I decided to build a calculator to better understand your value. I had released other calculators as part of a care economy series to demonstrate the cost of not supporting family caregivers. The missing calculator, I decided, was the one that takes into account the scope of your work and then crunches the
I paused while reading this profile of a family caregiver in People magazine: “We are not a caregiver and a patient. We are still a team,” she affirms. “It’s only been in the last six months that I’ve accepted the term caregiver. I only wanted to be his wife. I used to physically flinch when
During one update to my dad about home health and palliative care visits for him and my mom, my dad looked at me and said: “Isn’t there someone who should be organizing this for us? Like someone with the insurance?” “Nope,” I said. “That’s why I’m doing it.” Family caregivers do the work of the
After my dad’s bladder cancer diagnosis in March 2004, I regularly attended doctor’s appointments with my parents and provided emotional support to them. My dad received ongoing treatment, which he managed, for his cancer. Because I made attending his appointments a priority, I also advocated on behalf of my dad, especially during one particular appointment
We can bring support to family caregivers when we include an aftercare plan for them in the hospital discharge plan. Expanding the CARE Act can do just that. During an eight-month period in 2015, I managed nine discharges for my parents, which included six hospital discharges, two discharges from short-term rehab and one discharge from
Yesterday, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced they deferred more than $1 billion in federal Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota as the states submit additional documentation supporting certain high-risk Medicaid claims. “In Minnesota, we’re talking about 14 high-risk programs, high-risk service
In 2014, AARP first developed the CARE Act as model legislation, and lobbying for it began that same year, state by state. The lobbying has been effective. The CARE Act is now law in more than 40 states. Before a patient goes home, the law requires a hospital to identify a family caregiver, and that
I read another article yesterday morning about the devastation during caregiving: Caregiving for my mom and my husband didn’t just drain our savings. It ended my career. Does a caregiving experience determine if you become a Have or Have Not? I think we all know that answer. I’ve been working the past few months on
A budget requires certainty. Uncertainty lives within a caregiving experience. How long will this last? How long do we need the money to last? Unexpected situations also come up during a caregiving experience. A sudden decline requiring more supplies that no one predicted, recovery from a hospitalization that requires more help than expected, another diagnosis
