Posted in Rantings & Cranky on December 31st, 2009
Tags: caregiver help, homeless, isolation, poverty

 

Disabled, stroke, heart disease, kidney disease, dementia, anxiety - The perfect storm

  Caregiver help required to prevent poverty, isolation and from becoming homeless.

When family caregiving feels like you are lost at sea and there is no one there to help.

 Life becomes very vulnerable for Family Caregivers who face poverty, isolation and even homelessness.

Ever since Barry had his stroke in April 2000, I felt as if my life was drifting aimlessly in the middle of the ocean, knowing the boat we were on would eventually sink. For more than ten years we survived the on going medical storms and even had to fight off the many pirates taking advantage of our vulnerable demise.

 Now that Barry’s life is coming to an end, losing his life to kidney disease, I find myself looking towards the horizon searching for signs of hope, knowing when Barry’s life slips away I must sink or swim. When Barry dies, his disability pension dies with him, leaving me unemployed and homeless.

It is very cruel that as a Family Caregiver, I have given over ten years of my life caring for a loved one only to lose out on wages, employment advancement, retirement pension contributions, time off for medical care, vacation time and paid holidays, and to deal with lost friendships and lonely isolation, and ill health due to overwhelming stress, and even the financial loss of having to declare medical bankruptcy. After my husband’s death, I must reestablish employment that is able to pay the rent or I shall be homeless and living on the streets.

 If I was not a Family Caregiver to Barry all these years, he would have been forced to live in extended care nursing homes until his death. I could have focused on my income earnings, retirement pension earnings and my well being and enjoyed my life, while the tax payer’s money paid for my husband’s care. I could have had a life of my own, the medical monster still would have been fed and profits made, and for Barry, well….. he would just be one of the many small sacrifices to the Gods.

I have lost much in my life as a Family Caregiver to my husband, who desperately needed help to live a life so fragile and vulnerable. To place Barry into an extended care nursing home would have been a medical prison for him. Without any thanks from society or the government for saving taxpayers money by offering my life to care for my husband at home, which costs less than institutional care, I am now one step away from living on the streets – my reward for being a Family Caregiver.

If it was not for the many millions of Family Caregivers in our society, the medical system would collapse. So why are we being treated with such disrespect? It is time for all Family Caregivers to unit together so that we may protect our interests and not find ourselves desperately sinking from the hardships of caring for our loved ones.  Please join us at www.familycaregiverheroes.com (open fall 2010) and let the world know Family Caregivers are heroes.

SUMMARY:

CAREGIVER HELP - Is always required as the responsibility for care giving can be overwhelming, emotionally, physically and financially.

HOMELESS – Family Caregivers who do not have their own source of income face homelessness after their loved one passes away.  Family Caregivers help save the tax pay money by caring for their loved one, so why is society treating caregivers this way.

ISOLATION – Is a symptom to overwhelming exhaustion, stress and responsibility and the psychological trauma associated to family caregiving.

PROVERTY- Many Family Caregivers must spend their life savings on the care of their loved one.  Eventually they are faced with poverty and are unable to provide for their own medical and elder care.

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http://www.familycaregiverhugs.com/blog/caregiver-christmas-the-silent-gift-of-precious-time/