Shared Story

I started out in Health Care about 20 years ago as a homemaker in an elder’s home. This Elder taught me more than my grandmothers had been able to teach me because of estrangement in the family. I was very fortunate to get to know “Jean” and learn from her what it was like to be a nurse at Denver General in the 1950’s. I supported Jean with all daily care, bathing, dressing, eating, and toileting, while her son and daughter lived in other states. I supported her with phone conversations, birthday cards, anniversaries’, anything to keep Jean connected to her friends and family. At the time I was in school, and although I was with Jean most days and nights outside of school, I still needed to keep a place of my own for a variety of reasons. Looking back, it probably would have worked out better if I had lived with her. However, this often is not an option for homemakers due to unwarranted risk. Sure bad things happen but not to the extent the media likes to portray things. There is A LOT more good coming out of long term care than many in the mainstream are aware of.

After undergrad I became a Certified Nurse Assistant in a Nursing Home because I wanted to learn more about aging with dis-ease. This was the hardest job I have ever had. Supporting 12 plus people with their most intimate cares, while doctors and nurses charted and had meetings. Some of the doctors and nurses would support the certified nurse assistants, but many would not. Not because there wasn’t time, but I think because nurses had to advocate for so long to be heard by doctors, now we were advocating to be heard by both. Being in a patriarchal structure put certified nurse assistants at the bottom, thus the work of care partnership became known as “the dirty work.” How can providing the most intimate care to the states most vulnerable be seen as “dirty work”?

Don’t get me wrong, cleaning an adult person up after they have a bowel movement is a lot, both for the care partner and the adult experiencing incontinence. However, when done with care, connection and meaning, the embarrassment decreases and integrity increases. We start to see each other as human and vulnerable. We need to shift the paradigm and see direct care partnership in a different way. Direct Care Partners are the backbone of the healthcare system, without them, what would happen to our states most vulnerable? What would happen to the landscape of the workforce? More people would surely need to stay home to take care of their loved ones. How will society support the significantly increasing demand for direct care partners if we continuously look at them as being at the bottom of the patriarch? What would happen if we turned things upside down, and made care partnership at the top?