Bonnie, CareGiver

Montevideo, Minnesota

Weekends don't always tell the whole story. You can spend a weekend with the person and not necessarily know what it's like.

What are some of the real nitty, gritty difficult things?

Um, it's that she's not able to dress herself and she needs to be dressed. Every morning she needs help getting out of bed. She needs help in the bathroom; she needs help bathing. Every time she goes to the bathroom she needs help. We go through many sheets. There's a lot of laundry. We go through many items of clothing - just some very basic things. That is an ongoing thing everyday.

What do you do for yourself for respite?

I still have a social life. But it is always on my mind. It's always there - I have a hard time relaxing and forgetting. It's gotten progressively worse. It's worse now than it was six months ago I'm now finding it hard to leave her. Maybe for a few hours while she's sleeping in her chair. If I go somewhere I'm always thinking about it.

Before she went to the nursing home we did have quite a bit of home health care. They could come in ... I teach afternoons, evenings ... so I could have home health care come in late afternoon to make sure that she ate her dinner and make sure that she took her medication. They would do that the days that I was working. I also had a lady come in - a bath lady - come in to help her with her bath once a week.

All of that helps - the home health aid nurse coming in one morning a week, and she still does - to do her medications for the week. But after she came home now this summer I haven't had any help. We just started with the bath lady coming one morning a week and that's sort of to gear up for fall when I'll go back to teaching.

I opened a dance studio when I moved here. So, that's the dream I also realized - one of my dreams. It's been very successful. I think everything is meant to be. It wouldn't have gone quite as well as it did. That's what I mean as far as yeah, there's a sacrifice but I've gained so much too. So, it's hard to think of it as a sacrifice.

When you said what are the changes, the big changes… everything changed. My whole life changed! Physically… I'm living in a different house even though this has been home for many years. I'm living with my Mom and I have a different occupation and I have all new people in my life. I have all these young people in my life too - in my students.

Can you describe the moment when you said I'm gonna do this? I'm gonna try.

Let's see… I thought about moving here a few years ago and the dance studio thing and I had let it go probably five years prior to when I did do it. But, with my mother's health, entering into it; I think that probably was what really gave me that push to do it. I suppose it was like the first person I told and said this is what I'm doing and I committed to it. It was really good. It was my secret for quite a while. I didn't really share it with a lot of people. It was something that I knew that I was going to do and I really liked that. I kept it inside for a while. I knew for quite a while before I did it. I didn't even tell my Mom for a while. I wanted to be pretty sure because I didn't want her to get her hopes up?

Bonnie & mother with Rev. Knutson

What does honor mean to you?

I think to honor is to respect - to respect the person. I suppose it's to love, but to treat them very special. That's probably more - just to treat them special. To put them in… you always think of honor and putting someone up higher. I suppose that is sort of it isn't it? …that they mean a lot to you.

Is it a privilege? Do you get something out of it?

Oh sure. Of course… this is not the kind of thing a person would do if there wasn't love there. It's much too difficult and it's a lot of work. You couldn't do it just to do it. You have to want to do it and you have to care. There are a lot of emotions that go on throughout the day. A lot of times you have to take a step back and, you know, and just take a deep breath I guess. Yes, it certainly is a privilege. It's something that I'm gaining that I wouldn't have if I weren't doing it. But I couldn't not do it either.

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