As part of a lifestyle and aging series, we’re working with renowned photographer Terry Lorant to showcase inspirational leaders in the industry. Each month, we’ll feature one or a few inspirational member(s) of the Amazing Care Network community who is using his or her voice to empower others in the collective aging experience — and read, in their own words, what the Amazing Care Network’s efforts mean to them.

This month, we’re proud to feature Lola Christensen, part of our Amazing Care Network team.

I worked for Cora at Kaiser, during the time she was starting her family. She made such an impression on all of us…her energy, her drive, her professionalism, how she treated the people who worked for her.  I was an assistant manager, and yet, when I would go in for my one on one meeting, she would come out from behind her desk and sit down like she had nothing else to do in the world but concentrate on me and what we had to discuss.  I thought that was absolutely amazing.  I asked her one time, how do you fit everything in to your day? How do you do that, and she said, I make appointments to think about things, and then I give it my full attention. That made such an impression on me, that she was so disciplined.  

We both went on with Kaiser in different capacities, Cora went to Kaiser Hawaii and we kept in touch. I was a business expert for the IT department. Then I retired from Kaiser at 59 1/2.  Well, retirement was a game changer!  My husband, who has passed now, was quite a character.  The first morning of my retirement, I got up, fixed my coffee…I was so pleased with myself, and went in to turn on the morning news shows.  And he comes into the living room and says to me “we don’t watch TV in the morning here”.  And I said, “well you didn’t, but you do now!”  It was kind of funny.  Shortly after that, about 6 months later, Cora called me.  I had no real interest in going back to work, but Cora can be persuasive!  She assured me that she was going to save my marriage by getting me back out of the house during the day!  And I said I didn’t have any idea that my marriage needed to be saved, but I trusted her.  So, I went to work for Cora part time while she was launching Sterling in 2004 I think I was the 3rd or 4th employee that she had. We had a tiny office, we all sat together.  I did all the operations stuff.  We grew from there, and I stayed with Sterling until 2015.  

There were changes at Sterling at that point, but I wasn’t really ready to stop working. And right then Cora was just starting Amazing Care and she asked me to come and work on that.  So, I did, and that’s where I am today.

Q: what was the vision for Amazing Care initially, and how have you seen that evolve?  

Initially, Cora had ideas about having groups of friends that would be like “pods” of Amazing Care people…affinity groups.  The focus would be to get the word out about how important it is to save for your future and to have a savings account that would be just for you, and the decisions you want to make about your care and your life.  And at the same time, to learn and share with friends about what we’re experiencing as we age.  There’s so much to share and to learn about how to go through all of this.

I had 4 relatives, my mother, two aunts and the boyfriend of 40 years of one of the aunts.  In one 3 month period, I moved them ALL out of their homes, sold their homes, and moved them all into assisted living, all together.  It was a LOT of work.  All of them were at different places of being able to care for themselves. They were all from the same town, San Leandro.  My mother recently passed away.  She was 99 years, 10 months and 4 days old. We were planning the 100th birthday party.  I have one aunt left, and she has serious problems with dementia. She’s still there in the same care facility.  I can share lots of things about caring for, and being responsible for people who can no longer care for or be responsible for themselves.  There are different levels of that.  My aunt who is still living, doesn’t any longer know my name.  She knows we’re close…she will tell me “we’re very close”.  She’s happy to see me, she’s just a real happy person which is unusual for dementia.  I’ve dealt with the other end of the spectrum too.  

A good example…I would try to do some of the legwork for these folks…get their utilities turned off when they moved out of their houses.  Of course I needed the power of attorney to do it.  And then there would be a long process of mailing in forms and talking to lots of people.  Then, when the time came to take care of this for my mother, I called up and said “I want to turn off the services for my mother”. And the response was an easy, “OK, no problem”.  So, for the rest of them…when I tried to get things done for them, I would just say, “I’m needing to do this or that for my mother, or my father”.  I had the power of attorney paperwork; it was all totally legitimate, but it just made every step of the process vastly easier to say I was taking care of something for my mom or dad.  Useful tip!  These are the kinds of things that Cora was hoping that we could share with one another.  I found this out the hard way…how to be efficient with some of the tasks that you end up needing to take care of when you are in a caregiver position.

Because, you can be the power of attorney for someone, but in actuality, to exercise it, you need to get two letters from two separate doctors saying this person is no longer capable of taking care of their affairs.  I didn’t know that.  I figured I had the POA, so I could just go to work.  But no.  So if you know this ahead of time, you can start getting the letters organized ahead of time.

I have been taking care of these people…they all spent  every holiday at our home…they were part of our family.  Then, the more care they needed, the more I did.  Well now, I’m almost 75 years old, and I’m moving right into that phase where they were when I started being responsible for their care.  And you DO have to take care of yourself.  My aunt is in the memory unit at assisted living now.  I have committed that I will see her at least once a month…I try to get there every week, but I don’t try to over-commit to what I can do.  And believe me, of the 4 of them, the first two who passed, they were a LOT of work.  My aunt, who was the sweetest, nicest person in the whole world, got Alzheimer’s, and she turned into another person.  She became a monster.  She got kicked out of her care facility. We had to put her in a place specifically for Alzheimer’s patients.  She turned into a person who was terribly difficult to be around. She stole things.  The doctor said, deep down, she was probably always like that…dementia brings out the real person. But, it was tough.  I hate to think that, because I just loved her to bits, and she’d been just the sweetest person her whole life.

The first thing we realized, we had to take her car away. It was a traumatic time. But she’d drive and get lost. One time, it was so lucky, a man who owned a tire company notice that she was looking lost and confused.  He went thru her purse and got her address and drove her home from Hayward to San Leandro, then went to a neighbor to say what had happened.  The neighbor called me right away, and I went over that day and took the car.  She tried so hard to talk me out of it.  And it was terribly, terribly hard for me to do.  But, it had to happen.  Later, she and her boyfriend died within 5 days of each other.  They’d been together for 40 years, and at the end lived in units right next to each other at the care home.  

They both had trusts.  And this is important.  I’ve learned more about trusts than I ever wanted to learn.  It’s a huge responsibility when someone asks you to be their trustee.  One aunt did everything right…she put everything in the name of the trust. and it turns out that is really important.  So, taking care of everything for her after she passed was relatively easy.  The boyfriend on the other hand, had accounts all over the place. Even tho I was on the accounts as a co-signer, I wasn’t a trustee. Taking care of his business is still ongoing. So, I would say…everybody who has a trust, make sure you put Everything in the name of the trust.  

Of the 4 people that I was caring for, my mother was the oldest, and without question, the most important one to me.  She required the least amount of assistance.  The others required a lot of assistance.  Each one of them needed their own attention.  Each one needed a different level of attention.  At times it was very difficult. There were times that I’d go to the assisted living place to see one of them, and I’d hide out from the others so they didn’t know I was there, because I wanted to avoid hurt feelings.  There were 4 of them, and no matter what I did, I always felt guilty that I wasn’t doing enough.  You have to be careful about that one.

***

When someone dies, people say to you, everybody says to you, exactly the same thing: “if you need anything at all just give me a call, let me know, and I’ll be there for you”.  But, that’s not what people really need.  It’s kind and well intentioned, but for the person who is grieving, and trying to find their way forward, it’s another responsibility…to call you and to have to figure something out, to ask for something specific.  It’s never going to happen.  Have you ever gotten a call from anybody who you said that nice thing to?  Instead, after a week or two, give that person a call and ask, can I take you to lunch, or to get some groceries, or to a movie with me this afternoon.  Think of something to do that doesn’t put the responsibility on them for making a decision.  We all want to be helpful and to do something kind.  I’ve learned now tho, to wait the 10 days, two weeks and I call up and say ‘let me bring dinner over for you’ or something, depending on where the person is with their grief.  You don’t know, and you have to think, is my attempt at kindness going to just put some more responsibility on this person who is trying to figure out how to get through this time?  When you’re going through it, you don’t even really know what to ask.  Six months after my husband died, I would have liked to call all those people and say ‘can you go out to dinner with me?’ because that’s what I missed more than anything, just being able to go to the movies or out to dinner with somebody.  

***

Amazing Care is developing a service for people who need caregivers for their loved ones.  They have the ability to sign up with Amazing Care, and put money into an account so that the caregivers can take care of the activities that need to be done…shopping, going to the doctor or hair dresser, the pharmacy etc.   And the family has the ability to assign tasks and also keep control and know exactly what’s going on with the details of the finances around those aspects of caregiving.  

This is the new direction for growing Amazing Care.  The teas still support people who are interested in the Amazing Care accounts and learning about aging and being able to talk about those things that come along with the process.  So at this point there are two separate parts of Amazing Care.  We just got an email from a woman this morning who had seen the website and she wants to join Amazing Care, and she also wants a care card because she’s responsible for the care of her 86 year old mother.  So, having a care card for individuals…this is part of growing the business and expanding the possibilities.  The company will find avenues that we haven’t yet seen.  I have no doubts in my mind that the company will grow. Because I know Cora, and if this wasn’t going to be a “go”, she would have learned that already and moved on.  I truly believe in Cora and Amazing Care.

The teas are like a perk for your establishing the savings account for when you get older.  Cora finds the best speakers to enlighten and inspire people, to help in the journey of aging and taking care of aging loved ones.  And taking care of ourselves.  There’s no down side to this idea at all!  

My daughter is a member and she has an account that she contributes to every month.  She had an opportunity to go to Kansas to visit her daughter and she didn’t have the ready cash, so she used her Amazing Care money, and she’ll replenish it. It’s for her.  I told her, that’s what it’s for.  It’s after tax money.  Nobody can tell you what to do with it.  For your mental health, going to visit your daughter in Kansas is exactly what you should be spending your money on.  There is no down side to Amazing Care.  None.

Join ACN! Learn more HERE. If you’re an ACN Member and would like to be featured, please contact amazingcarenetwork@gmail.com.