Hands-on Care Needed For My Wife In Sunnyvale - My wife of 40+ ye...
$20 – $35/hr • Full time • Starts Jan 29 • Sunnyvale, CA
About who needs care: My wife of 40+ years has slowly developed multiple health issues over the past 10 years. (Long detailed list, not forhere). As a consequence, she spends virtually all her time in bed in a darkened room. She still does most of her own personal care e.g., going to the bathroom, brushing her teeth, but needs help getting to farther rooms of the house, bathing, and other strenuous tasks. She eats a very specialized meal (I prepare this). She has very specific care routines developed over years of trial and error.
She used to write childrens books (poems especially). She is extremely skilled in crochet, but degeneration in her hands and having to lie in bed, these make yarn work essentially impossible. I think she is doing surprisingly well emotionally considering all her physical issues and limitations.
A typical day for her is:
Wake at noon roughly (+/- 2 hours)
Do waking bathroom routines
Eat breakfast, take medications
Attend to any medical appointments (in person or online)
Eat lunch (usually starts around 3-4 PM)
A nap (happens before lunch if no appointment)
A sit-down shower (alternate days) with me assisting, usually around 6:30 PM
Other medical self-care procedures on alternate days, application of medication to her scalp (with my help)
Eat dinner (typically 7:30)
Start her bedtime routines (typically 8:30); she will do these on her own and I leave for bed around 9 PM. So no assistance is needed after this time.
She reads or watches movies (iPad) in bed until roughly midnight
About the care needs: The ideal caregiver should be detail-oriented. Many of my wifes care routines are very specific. They also change rather frequently! Yes, I too sometimes get them wrong or forget!
The care person must be very patient (more than me :-) ) and tolerant of her requests. No, she is not a hypochondriac. She has a diagnosed condition known as central sensitization, where bright lights, strong smells, loud noises, high temperatures for the room or food or drinking water, all cause distress or migraines. To the rest of us people who do not have my wifes condition, it is common to think that she is being absurdly picky.
Perhaps it goes without saying: a care giver must use absolutely no hair spray or perfume. Instant migraine for my wife.
Interests: on a few occasions my wife is so tired out she just wants to vegetate in front of an iPad movie. But with so few visitors, she would love to have a person (other than me of course) to talk to and to listen to her in a caring and compassionate way. Hobbies, well, a person doing knitting, or crochet, or knowing bridge, those interests would be easy common subjects to talk about.
Services needed include: transportation, meal preparation, errands / shopping, light housekeeping, companionship, feeding, and bathing / dressing.…