Video Transcript: Taking Care of the Caregiver
Hello again, good to see you back. As we're ministering to seniors, one of the, the important elements of what we can do and how we can be of great service is to be aware of the needs of those who are caregivers. For example, the recently there was an individual I knew, from a group that I was a part of whose husband had Parkinson's disease, and he was he was a real handful to take care of. And she gradually gradually got worn down from taking care of him. And so she was a senior herself, but she was the caregiver to her husband, we want to look at some of those stressors today. I think as we minister to seniors, we need to be aware of the very basic fact that the ones who are providing care to a senior need to be cared for themselves. That is such a basic basic understanding of how it is as people grow old together, they need to find ways of caring for each other. And sometimes that caring gets to be a real burden. November is designated as the national caregivers month in USA. And I'm not sure anybody knows anything about that, other than those for whom it is important to know. But I think it's worth being aware of national family caregivers month is a is a recognition that those who care for others in their family are going to need assistance, they're going to need help, they need to have a support system around them in order that they themselves can be a support to the one who needs it. It's a it's a complicated and delicately interwoven situation. And sometimes it is difficult to know just what we need to do. For example, in one of my congregations, there was this quite elderly woman who had had great difficulty walking but she could with her cane, and, and she also could tell other people what to do her mouth worked very well. So did her voice her brain was was also in quite good condition. But she was a crotchety person. And she took it out on her also elderly daughter, her daughter was probably around 60 to 65 and was being just worn down. And so she was aging before our eyes as we watched her and as we tried to help her. But her mother was such a burden on her that she needed to find a way to express the frustration and the heaviness and the burden that she had. She needed care. And in that congregation, we tried to give it to her as a group. For another for example, there's a friend of mine who lives a great distance away from his mother in law, and he took time off from work to accompany his wife to visit her mother for a month. The visit did not go well. The elderly woman had several physical ailments that were just sapping her strength. She was very cantankerous and demanded a great deal more attention than even the two of my friends could provide. It was it was a situation that after that month, they were hesitant to go visit her again, because it had been so difficult had been so heavy on them to try to care for her when she really needed to have almost nursing home care if she'd been in assisted living, it would have been a significant amount of assisting from the caregivers there. But she was living alone. And she demanded that her daughter do all sorts of things for her, even though her daughter lives, many hours Air flight away. And when I was thinking about this course, I couldn't help thinking back to
the time they came to see us. And they had left her mother a week prior and the wife was just so stressed out, because of what all it happened because of her visit with her mother. When we begin to help seniors in our ministry that we need to be aware of the difficulties that are experienced by the caregiver. These difficulties are often unseen by others, as the elderly mother or father will only be severely crabby when no one else is around. And so one of the things that we need to be able to do is to approach the caregiver and just gently ask them, how's it going? Because one of the things they don't want to do is badmouth their parent. And that's what they're going to feel like they're doing, they're gonna feel like they are, are disrespecting dishonoring, doing things that tear down their loved one in the eyes of those to whom they are speaking. And that is not what our purpose is. Our purpose instead is to try to understand the caregivers situation, and to find ways of helping them to find ways of encouraging them, to find ways of being there for them. Those are the sorts of things that need to happen, and that we can make happen for them. When we begin this ministry, and as we continue this ministry, and as we realize how much inter family tension there can be, as we give ministry to senior citizens. Now one exception to the hidden stressor, was one of my parishioners who had a stroke. And each day that he was living in a nursing home where each day his daughter came to visit. And he would simply curse at her. I was there a few of the times when she happened to show up when I was there at the same time. And the man had been very nice to me. And he had been very caring and and had been genial, congenial with me. And his daughter showed up and he just cursed at her. And she looked at me and says, Pastor, what can I do? He does this every time. I come to see him, and she said, I see him every day. And this is what he does every day. And you know, it's very difficult to try to answer that question, What should she do? Because the problem is because of a stroke. It was a, it was a medical problem. And it's not something that you can just fix, you can't take a med for it, you can't do do anything. It's just one of those things in aging, that when a person has a stroke, they can change. And the personality can change drastically. And this particular individual had been a really strong spiritual leader in our church. But, you know, 15 years later, when he was sitting in the nursing home with his after he had his stroke some year before. The cursing that he would do was just just astounding. But his daughter and I both knew that when she came to visit, that was what was going to happen, but I could then take the initiative to be supportive to her and try to help her understand that this was not what her dad had really been like all his life, because that's what she began to feel like it was was everything else, just a mask And was this his real self? And the answer is no, it is not There's others. I've known it for my example, my mom and her mother. Her mom was living in a nursing home in a small town. My mom happened to live about five or six blocks from her. And in the summertime, springtime fall, it would be nice to walk in the
winter, she'd have to take her car because it wasn't safe to walk on all the ice around and so on. But she needed to go to visit her mom every day. And that was what her mother said that my grandmother and her grant heard mom demanded that she be there demanded that she show up. And if she wouldn't, she would be roundly criticized. Now, what was very interesting about this is that there were several other children living in that area. And they would come to visit their mom once or twice, or once, every week or two. And whenever they would come, they would hear about the time my mom hadn't shown up, never told them about she came every day, except for a couple once in a while. And my mom was so hurt by that. She would, she would say, Well, what can I do I go to see her every day. But she doesn't even seem to appreciate it. And if I'm there, she doesn't seem to take acknowledgment of the fact that I'm there to love her and care. And that was very difficult for my mom, my mother in law with her mother had a similar situation where her mother needed a medication put into her eyes every day, that she was living in an assisted living situation. And the the people there. Well, they would have needed to be paid to do the eyedrops in this woman's eyes. But instead, she wanted my mother in law to come her daughter to come and put the medication in her eyes. Every day in the evening, about seven o'clock, my mother in law would go over there put the drops in her eyes stay for a while, chit chat. And meanwhile, there were other daughters and sons living in that very same town, who, when my mother in law wanted to, for example, take a trip to come to visit us wherever we might be. They refuse to, to have anything to do with putting drops in her eyes. And it was only when it was almost forced upon them that they finally begrudgingly said okay, I'll go there. But meanwhile, they expected my mother in law to be there everyday putting those drops in her eyes. And that raises tensions in the family. It creates resentment, because the caregiver never has a break. Nor does the caregiver find that people are giving them support. And so the personal reactions, that my mom, my mother in law felt the sibling difficulty could all have been alleviated If only someone had given them the right and the opportunity to not have to be there every day. Now to be supportive to the senior caregiver, we really need to know the signs of distress in the caregiver. And first of all depression, you will see the individual looking rather depressed the they'll they'll be walking with their head hanging down, they'll be showing various signs of not being happy at all. There'll be withdrawal sometimes you won't see them for a while. They just want to avoid everything because they they don't want to face another person. They've had enough stress in their life with the one with to whom they're providing care. You might see them with anxiety where they're they're just so jumpy, and every little sound startles them, maybe you see them flying off the handle in anger. Perhaps you'll notice they have difficulty concentrating where if you're telling this individual this caregiver about a story, and then pretty soon you can tell that they have no idea at all what you were talking about.
Sometimes you see changes in eating habits as the caregiver begins to overload with, with carbs or something like that eating lots of ice cream, lots of donuts, or something like that. Maybe they'll tell you about, they just can't sleep at night. Or they're exhausted, maybe you see that they've taken up drinking or, you know, startingly, they're breaking out the cigarettes regularly. It could even be that you'll notice that they're having health problems themselves. As they give care. We need to, to be aware of the help and the care that they need, as well. So keep this in mind. When you're ministering to seniors, you're also caring about the caregivers, who are taking care of their spouse or their their elderly parents. And it's very, very difficult for them. The calling that God gives us, the calling that he wants us to take is to help caregivers to have hope in their struggle. Because one of the things, they just can't see an end, they just cannot see where this is going, they cannot see that there's going to come an end, they just can't imagine that it would get done. And while the caregiver may insist all is well, when we see them struggling, we need to gently help. Just gentle some gentle Suggestions are always appropriate. Always ask permission, can I give you a hand? Can I take care of your mom or your dad, or your husband or your wife for a couple hours one day? Can I do that for you. giving orders on the other hand to the caregiver will not be helpful because they they get so many orders from the person they're caring for already. So you could give some suggestions for the exhausted or overwhelmed caregivers. You know, you could consider taking some time off from work. That may be just what they need. Maybe they're trying to work to support the household. And meanwhile, they're also giving care to this person and it just wearing them out to do both. Another thing that we can, we can assure them of is that self care, taking care of me is necessary and it is not an immoral choice. Because that's what you're going to hear from them. You're going to hear them say but God says I need to honor my father, my mother, or they're going to say, but I made a vow that I would never do this. That I would never leave them in sickness and in health. I'm here for them. Self Care is necessary. And it is not immoral. To take care of yourself. Another suggestion that just could be handed out? Are you getting some exercise? Can I can I go for a walk with you this afternoon? Is probably all it would take to get them out. Get some fresh air, get their mind settled and calmed again. Because when you're taking care of someone, for example, with Parkinson's, it is extremely challenging and difficult. We might say Did you ever consider getting some assistance from an agency? Since my wife worked in one of those agencies, I know how wonderful it can be. It wasn't it wasn't any sort of medical care. She doesn't have a medical license so she would just go in to be a friend to be a helper or to be someone who helped with, with personal care who, who observed whether the person was taking their meds or not. But none of it was medical care that she was giving. And so I know what a wonderful thing it can be to get some assistance from an agency, because I know how wonderful
a caregiver my wife is. The other thing that you can do is, is say, talk to me. Why don't we just get together and talk for a while? Or have you talked to someone else about how things are going for you? You might suggest could we get more organized, there's something that we, as a congregation we as Christians can do to help you that will be more organized in order to give you some assistance. Maybe we can identify limitations and set boundaries with them. Maybe we can even help them to discover community resources. All across the United States there are places called Area Agency on Aging. And that is the place where you can find information about all different sorts of help, that there are for the aging, and how that help can be accessed. Another thing we could suggest just to get some respite. And what that means is take a break. Take a little two day trip and have someone else care for your, your loved one. And just relax, you don't have to go very far. Just go someplace where you can see God's great creation and God's great outdoors where you can unwind a little bit. And you'll be so refreshed. To be able to come back to help once again. There's so many more things that could be said in terms of suggestions. But when when you're doing ministry to seniors, we'll see how people are struggling and then we can reach out and try to help. And you know, when we care for others, we give them a great blessing. Do we have to? No, that we do this within our own abilities, we are not obligated to extend ourselves beyond our own abilities, even though the loved one might demand it, even though we may feel that God demands it. God is not asking us to extend ourselves beyond our own abilities. We can do what we can. And then that's all. And it's not a bad thing to say that. Because already as we're caring for we're giving such a great blessing. Whatever the caregivers, abilities are, are to be celebrated. But then we can't say to them, well, you also got to do this, this, this. It doesn't work that way. We give people love and when we care for the caregivers, we too are showing them that we love them well, as I said before, there's so much more that could and really needs to be said on this topic. But this is all for now. We'll see you next time.