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Caregiver Awareness Month
November 10, 2009 |
“I met my wife at a lake in northern Michigan in 1949. We were both in high school
and it was, well, we just hit it off.” Seventy-eight year-old Bob Lee fondly remembers
the day he first met Pat. The couple has now been married 55 years. They never had
any children and eventually retired to Florida.
But life as they know it has changed. Pat now suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and
Bob was forced into the caregiver role; not just caring for his wife, but everything
else too. “How do I keep house? How do I cook? Never used the washing machine before,
I have never used the washing machine!”
Unsure of how to tackle everything, Bob saw an ad for the “CARE Program” in his
church newsletter. “I saw a few other articles before but this one really interested
me because they laid out the whole program,” he says.
The program consists of everything from dealing with a loved one’s physical needs,
to how to care for the home, the finances, counseling, even how to care for his
own emotional needs. “The resources that are available is what I took away. We had
a lot of material, a lot of subjects presented to us. Very thorough. Very nice people,”
says Bob.
The program is open to all ages. “Whenever they say, come to caregiver classes.
‘Well, I don’t have anyone old’, its not restricted to older persons, if you are
rendering care, you could be rendering care to handicapped 10 year old, so you are
a caregiver,” explains gerontology nurse, Monica Dunkley.
Lee Memorial Health System wants to honor caregivers. They are hosting a “Stop and
Smell the Roses” event at Royal Palm Yacht Club on Friday, November 13th. For more
information, you can call 239-334-5751.
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