The Beginning

I have been a caregiver for my grandparents for about 3 years now. Just before being their caregiver, I worked in childcare. I have a B.A. in Child Development and Family Studies, with an emphasis in Family Life Education. I worked in Childcare for about 4 years and then I made the very hard decision to leave the childcare. I worked with children as young as 5 months, all the way up to 5 years. After I left, I took some time for me. Throughout this time, my grandpa, who was about 89, had Alzheimer's that had been progressing, and my grandma, who was 86, was having to take care of him on her own. So I started spending a couple of days a week with them. I would help them with grocery shopping, cleaning the house, and taking them to doctor's appointments. About a year and a half ago, my grandpa had a few falls, and the final fall, ended up putting him in a home care facility. That decision was very hard on my grandma. It was hard for her to have to leave him there. We went to visit him just about everyday. It was hard because in the beginning, he would think that he could leave with us when we left. We had to tell him that he had to stay, and he didn't understand why. So we started telling him that we had to go to the store, and we would be back later. That seemed to appease him, but we had to go through it most every time we went to see him. We were very fortunate to have the facility so close to us. It was only about 5-10 minutes away, depending on lights and traffic. In March of 2012, the Home Care called us, and said that his blood sugar had dropped down to 23, and that they had called an ambulance to take him to the hospital. My grandma, my parents, and I met them at the hospital. He was on Metformin, which is a drug for diabetics. My family and I never thought that he needed it, because his blood sugar levels were always normal. Anyway, the E.R. doctor took him off that medication, and also took him off his Warfarin. Warfarin is a blood thinner, that keeps him from getting blood clots. The doctor couldn't understand why he was on this medication. He said that someone my grandpa's age, and in his condition, could easily fall, and if they got cut or something, they could bleed out. So he came off those 2 medications. He was moved to a regular hospital bed, and another doctor came in. He told us that he only gave my grandpa a couple of months to live. They had us sign him up for Hospice. Hospice came to the Home Care Facility, and brought a new bed, and an oxygen machine for him in case he needed it. He really went downhill after that last fall, and sadly passed away at the age of 92 on May 31, 2012.

 
The top picture is My grandpa at Manor Care. It is a Rehabilitation Center to help people recover after surgeries and various other issues.

The picture on the bottom is my grandpa at Aloha Home Care. My brother Jason is sitting next to him.


 I wanted to give a little background of my grandpa, so that you can understand a little bit of the stress and emotional roller coaster, my grandma had been on in that year. Actually, we were all on the roller coaster, each one of us handled it in a different way, but we were all on it.