The Care Plan helps people navigate healthcare systems not set up for LGBTQ+ or racially diverse caregivers. After her wife was diagnosed with stage IV cancer in 2011, Marsha Wetzel spent the next two years taking care of Judy, her partner of 30 years, until Judy entered hospice care. Within weeks of Judy’s death, her […]Read More
Illinois Family Caregiver Coalition gives caregivers a voice, connects them with resources Balancing a career with caregiving put Amy Brennan in a precarious position. In 2016, the Chicago resident took five months off work with partial pay, through the Family Medical Leave Act. Her mother was in the final stages of cancer, and Brennan needed […]Read More
What advice would you give to someone new to caregiving? “Make sure that you have empathy for the patient that you’re actually taking care of. I think about every single patient that I’m taking care of as my grandmother, my grandfather, my mom or my dad, my sister or my brother. I treat them with […]Read More
Many veterans’ caregivers qualify for compensation with a little-known Veterans Affairs program. When Kathy Parker became the primary caregiver for her husband, an Army veteran with stage-four kidney failure, she felt confused, scared, and alone. She didn’t know exactly how to take care of him and felt she wasn’t getting the help they needed from […]Read More
9 tips to keep your loved one eating well with dementia When you think about side effects of dementia, eating probably isn’t one of the first issues to come to mind. But for a disease that impacts every area of a person’s life, mealtime definitely takes a hit. Over time, dementia may cause changes in […]Read More
Seek support when caring for a partner with dementia In the basement of Frank Pagura’s Elk Grove Village home is a woodshop, a respite from his role as full-time caregiver to his wife Rosemary, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease about five years ago. While Frank, 80, gets lost in the art of woodturning, Rosemary, 81, […]Read More
Michael Grecco is currently at the end of his rope. Not only is he, along with the rest of the world, dealing with the continued uneasiness of the pandemic, but for more than 15 years, he has had the responsibility of taking care of his now-81-year-old mother. A proud woman at her core, Grecco’s mother […]Read More
Finding one’s way through mourning and loss Carisa Urban was quite literally at the end of her rope. Working tirelessly as a nurse in a Covid-19 intensive care unit at a busy Chicagoland hospital, the Bolingbrook resident had her hands full. She found herself not only treating an onslaught of severely ill patients, but also personally dealing […]Read More
Chicago Health is committed to publishing a diversity of opinions. The opinions expressed in this op-ed article are the author’s own. My husband was diagnosed out of the blue with stage 4 lung cancer. We never saw it coming; he was a non-smoker and health nut. Plus, he had no alarming symptoms, just some back […]Read More
Launi Whedon’s husband David was diagnosed at age 62 with primary progressive aphasia, a form of frontotemporal dementia. “There is no cure, and the prognosis is grim, so I knew I needed ways to cope,” says Whedon, who participated in a research study that teaches caregiving skills. The program, called LEAF — Life Enhancing Activities […]Read More
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