Gary Barg, Editor-in-Chief
I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma last week for the first annual Tulsa Fearless Caregiver Conference. I always say and fervently believe that the greatest unsung celebrities are our family caregivers and there were a whole dang room filled with them. Yet, I need to amend that by saying we also had a great group of healthcare leaders doing incredible work for family caregivers in the state and soon, the nation.
The leaders in attendance included Lance Robertson who will be heading to Washington D.C. as he was just nominated as the next Assistant Secretary of Aging for our great nation. Also, our Fearless Caregiver Community Advocate Award recipient, State Representative Regina Goodwin, working tirelessly to support Oklahoma family caregivers despite overwhelming resource challenges. And, The CEO of Morton Health and past mayor of Tulsa, the honorable Susan Savage. As well as leaders from the Alzheimer’s Association and the INCOG Area Agency on Aging. Not to mention, my four distinguished panelists, Margret Love, Alzheimer’s Association, Dr. Chandini Sharma, Geriatric Center of Tulsa, Morton Health’s Martha Rains who spearheaded the event and Nancy Foster of Captel who drove 300 miles to join us for the day. And amidst all these notables was l’il ole’ me.
One thing I say at the onset of any event, is that I want to thank a small handful of attendees for writing my next few columns of this newsletter through the advice they would share with their fellow caregivers during the day. For me, their solutions, wisdom and pieces of the caregiving puzzle that we all struggle through, are the secret sauce to being what I like to call a Caregiving Johnny Appleseed. Finding the wisdom presented in these rooms and spreading them to caregivers in other cities, states and even in other years.
A few examples: A caregiver stood up when we were talking about our Caregiver.com Reverse Gift List. She shared that when she seeks help by asking people to perform specific, easy and manageable tasks, they are always thrilled to be of services. And in fact, many times the lives their actions positively impact include their own. Her retired great uncle (my ears perked up, as I have just joined the ranks of great unclehood) would sit and talk with her grandfather about old times, long gone friends and loved ones and of course, fishing. These times together would be as much a comfort to her great uncle as they were to her granddad who was living with mid-stage Alzheimer’s Disease. And in fact, she found that her granddad was much calmer during the evenings of the days her uncle would visit.
Another note of wisdom. A caregiver who had worked at adult protective services, spoke about the challenges her clients would have in getting some of their family members to help care for their mutual loved one. She would tell these caregivers when they called her office to use her as the big bad government bureaucrat who was angling to step in and take over, if the family did not work together better. She said that gambit seemed to work every time.
Two great pieces of advice, that I know even the notables in the room, would admit were pretty darned noteworthy.
Share your notable pieces of the caregiving puzzle below.