My father died almost four years ago, in April 2012. It came after several years of care giving, doctor’s visits, and ultimately a couple of weeks in the hospital and a few days in a nursing home. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but his symptoms were light on his loss of motor skills and heavy on his loss of cognitive abilities. It was very difficult to watch the man I loved deteriorate over time, and the process was painful – not knowing what the next week or month would bring.
My parents lived in Ohio, where I grew up, and my mother was his primary caretaker. My siblings and I did all we could from afar, and our visits became more frequent as his condition progressed. To say the process was all-consuming is an understatement. You may be going through something very similar (or already experienced it) yourself.
In additional to caring for our elderly, there are many parents who suddenly find they have an adult child in need; so their son or daughter moves “back home” to have the safety of a roof over their head and the comfort of unconditional love. There are many reasons this may occur, and it is often through no fault of their own.
You may even know someone (or be that person) who is having to care for BOTH a parent and an adult child. People in this situation are not alone, and are part of the appropriately named “Sandwich Generation.” They find themselves stressing about the time, money and resources they are spending to provide care for their parent and child when they feel they should be using the time and resources to better prepare themselves for their own retirement and financial future.
My father serves as a large inspiration for our business model at Odyssey. We work at great lengths to help our clients become as prepared as they can possibly be - for their own retirement and for other future financial goals.
As a service to the community, we are organizing two Consumer Advocacy Workshops to shed light on the topics of Social Security, Medicare and Senior Care. These topics are of great importance, and all of us, whether or not we are a part of the Sandwich Generation, must do the best we can to navigate the challenges and myriad of options that exist. There are often good, better, and sometimes, a best way to simplify the complexity of these topics.