Thank you so much. I'm so glad to have the opportunity to meet with all of you.
My goal today is very simple. I would like to tell you a little bit about myself, our charity, what I have learned about caregiving, and a special assignment I did around caregiving for veterans. That's my goal today.
I am the founder of our registered Canadian charity. We have been established since 2008. We're different. We're an Internet-based charity. Most of our work is done online through video and podcast.
For the last 12 years or so, I have been a regular contributor to a Canadian magazine called Caregiver Solutions.
Here are a few fundamentals about caregiving. I'm sure you've heard or experienced some of them, but I think it's important to note what the life of a caregiver is.
No one ever wants to be a caregiver. It's not like we wake up one day and say, “Gosh, I can hardly wait to be a caregiver; that's what I've waited my whole life to do.” It doesn't happen that way. It starts gradually. Our efforts increase as the health of our care recipients declines.
Our job is so varied. We have only two hands, but really, every caregiver needs eight hands. We should all be octopuses; our lives would be a lot easier.
Our jobs are often horrendous 24-7. Often we do a lot of physical lifting. We help with hygiene care and feeding. We help with shopping. We are the taxi service. We go to medical appointments. We deal with the care recipient's frustrations, whatever they are. We deal with our own frustrations. We also have legal and financial responsibilities. Sometimes we pay bills and sometimes we are named in the legal documents for power of attorney. Often, when our loved one dies, we have another job, which is executor of the estate.
We do the whole gamut of everything that needs to be done for our care recipient. Many of us do it 24-7. We give up our jobs. We give up getting promotions.
It is a pretty tough job to be a caregiver. I always say that when I took care of my mom and dad for 10 years—my dad had cancer and my mom had dementia—truly, many days I was honoured to do what I did. Equally so, many days I went out of my mind. You have to know that's the life of a caregiver.
I'd like to share some experiences on the positive and the negative sides of being a caregiver. There are four that instantly come to mind on the positive side: joy, feeling honoured to help, feeling valued and feeling appreciated.
On the negative side, I must tell you that my chart is much longer than four items. We often feel out of control, stressed and burned out. Our number one issue is guilt. Caregivers deal with guilt every day for every reason. We have resentment. We could have anger. We are exhausted. We lose sleep. We lose income and promotions. We often spend our own money and are not compensated. We can be awfully isolated, which is a horrible place to be as a caregiver. We lose relationships, either with friends or spouses. We have poor health. I can tell you that no caregiver I have ever met is in better physical and mental shape once they become a caregiver. It's just the opposite. We are often overwhelmed and we often lose hope.
In my role in terms of helping this magazine and contributing, I was asked a few years ago to write a series of articles about caregiving to Canadian veterans. I found that to be a very interesting topic. My dad and most of my aunts and uncles.... Actually, my uncle lives at the Perley, as did my aunt until she died, so there's a great connection there. I was very interested to look at this topic of caregiving for the magazine that I write for.
I'd like to share with you now my thoughts on what I learned as I did that research.
Obviously, everything I've mentioned about caregiving is a given, but I would put it down to what I would call the “three Rs” of caregiving to veterans. I'll explain them, but they are retribution, repercussions and resilience.
Retribution is the first one.
As I did my research, I was astounded at how difficult it was to find people who wanted to talk to me. It was the hardest thing I've ever done in terms of research for this magazine. Veterans and their caregivers, I found, are afraid to speak out. They are afraid to be cut off, refused help or blacklisted. I often heard, “I'd love to talk to you, but my wife won't let me because Veterans Affairs is the evil empire.” Okay, that's pretty...speaking of a culture of distrust. Veterans and caregivers live in fear. That's my first “R”.
The second one is repercussions.
Am I over?