Taking on the role of parent
There are times when an adult child must step in and take on the role of parent. That time came for 40-year-old Jacki Johnson several months before her mother passed away.
As her mother’s health began to deteriorate, so did her father's memory and his ability to care for himself and his wife. That’s when Jacki decided she had to do something and offered to care for her mother, Lillian Fjosne.
“I’m a stay-at-home mom and I live one house away from my parents,” said Jacki, who lives in Willow River. “While my mother was sick, I cared for her in my home, and now that my father needs extra help, I am close and available to |
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give him the extra support he needs.”
It was hard for Jacki and her eight siblings to come to terms with the fact that, after their mother died, their hardworking, stoic, 79-year-old father, Willard Fjosne, was in trouble.
“We ignored a lot of clues for a long time,” said Jacki. “It wasn’t until my father was in a couple of crisis situations, one in which he could have
frozen to death, that we knew we needed to consult someone to help us.”
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Willard Fjosne continues to live at home, thanks to help from his daughter Jacki Johnson and his other children. They in turn got help from the Elder Care program.
What are signs that your elderly parent needs help? And how do you start the conversation? Get advice from Michael Van Scoy, MD, and Siobhan McMahon, a nurse practitioner. |
Jacki had been attending a dementia support group when she heard about the Memory Clinic in SMDC Health System’s Elder Care prrogram. She and one of her sisters made an appointment and took their father to see Siobhan McMahon, a nurse practitioner in the Memory Clinic.
“Siobhan talked us through a lot of the problems we were experiencing dealing with my father’s memory and helped us make some plans to deal with both his and our challenges,” said Jacki.
“One of the tips she gave us was to have a calendar and notebook at his house. People sign in on the calendar and write in the notebook when they come to visit. That way, when he calls me and tells me no one has come to see him, I have him check the calendar and notebook and tell me if anyone has signed in or left a note. Usually, someone has been there.”
For now, Willard lives at home with his dog Bucky. He misses his wife terribly and sometimes doesn’t remember she has died. Jacki and her siblings are doing everything they can to keep him at home as long as possible.
“We are thinking about when he will need to move,” said Jacki. “Right now, it helps that there are so many of us. There are four of us who are able to do a lot for my Dad.”
Two pieces of advice Jacki would give people who find themselves taking on the role of parenting their own parents: “Make the time to be with your parents when they need you, even if it’s uncomfortable for you. You will really appreciate it when they are gone. And, leave your options open, their situation and yours can change from one hour to the next.”