Over the years, I’ve been talk­ing to clients about what they look for in a care­giv­er/nurse. Last week, you read all about the roles and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties that they should gen­er­al­ly em­body in this spe­cialised ca­reer.

First­ly, I must say they are watch­ing to many movies. We live in Trinidad and To­ba­go, a Caribbean Is­land where much of our ideals have been in­flu­enced by Amer­i­ca through mass me­dia.

We of­ten do not go based on what we need, but what we want and, what we want is far fetched from what is re­al­ly need­ed of the care­giv­er. Ex­am­ple: “I want you to cook, clean and care for mom.” But what I re­al­ly need is some­one to feed mom her meals (which I pre­pare), clean mom’s space/room (I clean the rest of the house, or there is some­one who takes care of that) and care for her dur­ing reg­u­lar work hours, 8 am to 5 pm (giv­ing her a bath, mak­ing sure she’s fed, ad­min­is­ter­ing her meds and of­fer­ing her com­pan­ion­ship). See how dif­fer­ent the two can be? If you break down what is re­al­ly need­ed for mom’s care, the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process for a care­giv­er/nurse be­comes much eas­i­er.

An­oth­er cause of these un­re­al­is­tic re­quests made to care­givers is that we lis­ten too of­ten to per­sons who are not in­volved in the dai­ly care of dad, who nev­er had to care for a se­nior, who love to put their two cents in every­thing and then, they walk out the door and go home. Plain and sim­ple: “Emp­ty ves­sels make the most noise.”

You may find that I’m very blunt when it comes to this top­ic, but WE Fam­i­ly Care­givers don’t have room for what I call sta­t­ic, noise or neg­a­tive en­er­gy in our space or our ca­ree’s. We need to de­cide what we re­al­ly want and then work to­wards get­ting it. If you get one per­son to cov­er every­thing on your list, you’ll like­ly drop to your knees and sing prais­es to God Almighty. But hav­ing over­ly high ex­pec­ta­tions for some­one who you hard­ly even know will prob­a­bly set them up for fail­ure be­fore they even be­gin.

The next pop­u­lar cause of false ex­pec­ta­tions is think­ing that no one can pro­vide care like you. OH RE­AL­LY! Then why are you look­ing for a care­giv­er/nurse? If we re­al­ly be­lieved this, then the thought or con­ver­sa­tion of hir­ing a care­giv­er would nev­er hap­pen. We go as far to be­lieve that “oth­er sib­lings can’t help be­cause they don’t know mom like I do.” If that’s the case, then great. Share the in­for­ma­tion or lit­tle things about mom that would help them help you to help mom. Knowl­edge is pow­er on­ly when it is shared, so stop hog­ging the in­for­ma­tion and share, share, share.

An­oth­er is­sue is sidelin­ing the ca­ree from join­ing in on the con­ver­sa­tion. If mom or dad is able to con­tribute to the type of care they re­ceive, then in­clude them in it. Ask them what they would like as­sis­tance in get­ting done. You may be sur­prised — it may be things you haven’t even thought of. If how­ev­er, they are not able to con­tribute to the con­ver­sa­tion, then ask their doc­tor. “What do you think would be the best care as­sis­tance I can give mom right now?” It may be to just have some­one give in­sulin or check blood pres­sure and sug­ar. Maybe it’s just com­pan­ion­ship. Re­mem­ber the first step to be­ing a great care­giv­er is hav­ing em­pa­thy and be­ing able to put your­self in the oth­er per­son’s shoe.

As Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, we love to talk “we busi­ness” with peo­ple. Talk­ing works both ways. You can ei­ther get vi­tal in­for­ma­tion or, you can cre­ate more prob­lems with the wrong in­for­ma­tion com­ing at you. Many of us talk our busi­ness with every San­dra, Har­ry, Mary, and In­drani. Choose who you are talk­ing your busi­ness with, some­times hear­ing the same neg­a­tive sto­ry over and over and over can make you feel the sit­u­a­tion is a lot worse than it is. It can al­so send you in­to a state of de­pres­sion, frus­tra­tion, anger or hope­less­ness. Some­times we need to talk to some­one but as my moth­er used to say, “Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are.” Same ap­plies. You want peo­ple who are sup­port­ive to not on­ly sur­round you but al­so your ca­ree. Who shows a gen­uine con­cern when ask­ing about your mom or dad? What can they do to help you and your ca­ree? Don’t be afraid to cut peo­ple out of your life. Re­mem­ber, peo­ple come in­to your life for a sea­son, or a rea­son.

You need to set a re­al­is­tic ex­pec­ta­tion of how many hours you want this per­son to work. Do you want some­one to come for two hours a day? Let’s think about it—I mean re­al­ly think about it. Most care­givers/nurs­es trav­el to and from their jobs. Trans­porta­tion is ex­pen­sive no mat­ter where you live in Trin­ba­go. So how is this go­ing to make any sense for some­one? Four hours may still be a chal­lenge for some, be­cause it is on­ly a hand­ful of per­sons that would be in­ter­est­ed in do­ing this — and, to be hon­est, this will be in ad­di­tion to their oth­er job. You should re­al­is­ti­cal­ly be look­ing at hir­ing some­one for 6 hours, or more.

You might want some­one for a full 12 hours, but you set a ridicu­lous bud­get of $100 a day. Would you take this job when it pays so lit­tle for so much time? Don’t get me wrong. It is not on­ly about the mon­ey; re­mem­ber, this is their bread and but­ter. Care­givers have fam­i­lies and bills to pay just like the rest of us. On the flip side, some care­givers/nurs­es ask for as much as $45/$50 per hour. The ma­jor­i­ty of fam­i­lies can­not af­ford this.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view, when you are hav­ing this dis­cus­sion with this a prospec­tive care­giv­er, you are cre­at­ing a po­ten­tial re­la­tion­ship so dis­cuss the fig­ure and see if they can flex to what you can af­ford. It takes two hands to clap.

I have been re­it­er­at­ing through­out these ar­ti­cles WRITE IT DOWN, BREAK IT DOWN, READ IT OUT LOUD and most im­por­tant, LIS­TEN WITH YOUR GUT. Your gut will tell you where you are go­ing wrong, what you have been do­ing right and what are the next steps need­ed.

When you are able to de­ci­pher the re­al­i­ty of your loved one’s sit­u­a­tion and what as­sis­tance is ac­tu­al­ly need­ed dad, on­ly then would you have con­quered the Care­giv­ing Co­nun­drum.

__

Are you a Fam­i­ly Care­giv­er? Or Were you a Fam­i­ly Care­giv­er? ALL are Wel­comed.

Join the Care­givers Sup­port Group of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Mem­ber­ship is FREE. Call or What­sApp (868)310-2742. Month­ly Sup­port Group meet­ing held 2nd Sat­ur­day Every Month 11am to 1pm on June 8th, Ju­ly 13th, Au­gust 10th, Sep­tem­ber 14th, Oc­to­ber 12th, No­vem­ber 9th and De­cem­ber 14th. Lo­ca­tion will be giv­en when you con­firm at­ten­dance. As our lo­ca­tions are ex­cit­ing, warm and invit­ing and al­ways chang­ing. We look for­ward to meet­ing you. Send com­ments to email ashamun­gal@gmail.com or What­sApp (868)310-2742.