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Hey Greg ... what happened my friend? Your caregiver of 12 yrs moved to Phoenix with you and you're
paying her $1000/month. Did that house of cards fall in on you?
Not to be nosey ... just concerned as my agency dropped my last Wednesday. Pisses me off that I'm eligible
for MediCARE home help but the MediCARE agencies are all going to just Nursing, OT, PT & Social Workers.
So I've had to scramble to get care. Thank God my one aide who worked for the agency told me not to
worry for where it is IMPERATIVE that we need someone ... my commode nights. My husband can not
do that alone. Unfortunately she recently moved and is 45 minutes away for an hour & ten minutes of work.
But she knows the routine. She's EXTREMELY reliable (the BIGGEST problem with hiring alone AND even
getting aides from agencies) so we agreed upon $17.50 a visit although she's ok with $15. She got paid $20
a visit from the agency. So her dependable character and gas prices really earns her $17 ish despite
under the table.
I had a church make an announcement 2 weeks ago and a girl (woman ... age 45) called. She's never done
this before but wants the work. She's only 15 minutes away and is happy with $8 an hour. We plan on
having her come Mon, Wed, & Fridays for 3 hours to do the care my husband cannot and then do housework.
Hiring through a paper can be scary. I did that in my small hometown and got ripped off to the tune of $20,000.00
worth with many priceless things. I found another good aide right after from the same ad but I got bitten nonetheless.
That was an area of 180,000 population and now here in Tucson ... the pop is over a million now. AND it's a
border town so an ad in the paper is asking for trouble with our vulnerability.
Agencies charge arms, legs and torsos when hiring privately and STILL the care & dependability is shaky or poor.
All my aides have seen that first hand.
Try the local Jewish Family & Children's center. Sometimes the local Independent Living Center has a list of
PCAs, etc.
I tried 20 organizations here with no luck.
But what happened? Is your mom there? Wassup with your live-in aide?
Lori Michaelson
C4/5 complete quad, 25 years post
Tucson, AZ
-------Original Message-------
Date: 08/07/05 12:24:23
Subject: [QUAD-L] Caregivers
I may be needing weekend help, just getting up/down basically. I'm not sure how to do it...
1. Live-in for weekend help
2. Pay a service
3. Put an ad in for hourly service
It only takes 15-20 minutes to go to be or get up, no one will want to work for 20 minutes. I could add in some light house work, etc. Anyone in the Phoenix area use a service they can recommend? Finding ones that know how to work with quads is never easy.
Thanks, Greg
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