When an aging child helps to take care of an aging parent, major modifications to daily life become routine for the child and his or her family. Recently I read When Family Calls There is Only One Answer, by Mike Cassidy, published at the San Jose MercuryNews.com, making me think a lot about how my family continues to modify our lives. Read this article to the end to learn about the amazing relationship between a granddad and his granddaughter.
These days we find that our commitment to stay on top of aging parent health issues influences everything we do, including daily meals, exercise, vacations, work, sleep, and fun. Moreover, whenever we schedule activities, we keep in mind that things can change quickly and unexpectedly, whether we leave a concert to drive to a parent (luckily for us only 100 miles away) or cancel a weekend away because of a parent’s medical issue.
Always in the back of our minds is the possibility that one or both of us may need to spend a significant time away from home, though we have less distance to worry about than many families.
Mike Cassidy has written many columns on health care.
As Our Parents Age So Do We 