Wouldn’t that be lovely!  Someone you could call to help out on a moments notice.  You could call them to ask “Can you run over and drop off books for my mother”?  or “Can you run to the drug store for candy this afternoon”?  Just helping out with the little things is HUGE.

Well I have that.  I own my own home care company, Practical Care Continuum,  and I have a wonderful nanny for my kids that helps out with my mother too.  I could never be a caregiver without them and still work.  No wonder daughters are leaving the workforce to care for their parent(s).  How in the world can anyone keep down a full time job and cater to their parent(s).  I would go insane trying to keep up with her needs.

The big issues are not the problem because I can get home care help for those issues but the little things such as making sure her medications are set out properly and ordered in a timely manner consume a lot of my time.  The woman is on 12 medications umpteen times a day.  If I have a problem keeping up imagine my 82 year old frail mother keeping up with them.  Not to mention the 4 different doctors she has.  I don’t even have one (pretty typical for a caregiver to have no physician.  It’s not in our plan to get sick)

I think family members take on too much when caring for their parents and don’t think about the little things a home care company can do for them.  I have an advantage in that I own the company but even if I didn’t I would still hire one to handle the little things because my family time is precious to me.  My kids are growing up way to fast.  My 11 year old is graduating to middle school in two months and will no longer want to hang out with mom.  I want to grab all the time I can with him and running errands for my mother (much as I love her) is not my idea of family time.  So I give myself a break and ask (pay) for help.

Corny as it sounds I don’t want to be remembered for all the hard work I did when I go I want to be remembered for all the love and shared time I had with my family.

Bottom Line:  I am so lucky to have the help I do and if you don’t get your own you are missing out on life so get your own Concierge Service any way you can!