I quit my successful career in Chicago to move to Texas and care for my grandmother. I’m now a full time caregiver.

I’d gone from a full-time corporate wage that enabled me to support myself to earning practically nothing. I started volunteering to try to stay in the game and doing a bit of freelance website graphic design work. But I didn’t get a full-time job because my salary would only have covered the care of my mom and grandma.

Other people do it, but it wasn’t a viable option for me — whether financially, physically, or mentally — to work full-time and then have a second job as an unpaid caregiver when I got home from the office.

My relatives had Medicare, but it doesn’t pay for non-medical home care, also called personal care assistance. It’s private, and you have to pay out of pocket. This type of eldercare is a minimum of $25 an hour. Then, if you consider placement in a memory care facility — which I have never really been interested in — it would be a minimum of $4,000 or $5,000 a month.

I’ve established a nonprofit to help dementia carers like me

Mama Nell died in 2017 at the age of 86. For the past seven years, it’s been just me and my mom. I love her dearly but have started thinking about what I’ve sacrificed. I sometimes ask myself where might I have been career-wise or family-wise if I hadn’t taken on this role of carer? Would I have a husband and children by now?

Still, I’ve been resourceful and intentional. In 2019, I founded the nonprofit Dementia Care Warriors to help Texan caregivers of loved ones with Alzheimer’s and related diseases. It gives advice and information on things like free “senior companions” — people who provide respite care funded by other non-profits. Mom’s companion takes her out to our local senior center and other places for lunch. She comes for five hours a day, four days a week. It gives me a break.

Meanwhile, my organization provides me with a social life and a sense of camaraderie. We seek out — and enjoy — each other’s company because we’re living the same life as carers.

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