Home Instead Senior Care Charlottesville Began from Personal Experience
In 1996, Jeanne McCusker and her family had a life-altering experience.
Six months after moving to the Charlottesville area, Jeanne’s Mom was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease at the age of 51.
The next four years the family rallied around caring for her Mom at home and making sure she had the quality of life that we all would want for our loved ones. Initially the process started with being support for her Mom as her physical capabilities started to change.
First, her Mom lost her ability to speak which was ironic since her Mom was a speech pathologist and audiologist. The challenge of the disease continued and slowly she started losing other abilities; typing on her communication device, feeding herself through her feeding tube and eventually she started falling.
“After a few scary trips to the hospital we knew things had to change. The worst was when we found my mom laying on the driveway with her head split open, it was dark, 40 degrees and my Mom couldn’t get up. She had to get staples in the cut on her head. The next day we may a change.”
As Jeanne often tells the families she works with, it is best to try to avoid crisis whenever possible but if it does happen it is time to swiftly make a change. She hired a caregiver immediately to help with her Mom.
The next year or so her family had a wonderful person in the house during the day helping the family and making sure her Mom was safe. As the disease came to the end stages they split the shifts: her Dad took the overnight shift, the private caregiver helped during the day, her sister in the evenings and Jeanne did the weekends since she traveled for work all week.
“It was overwhelming, exhausting and it was rewarding all at the same time,” Jeanne says. “The process of caregiving for a loved one is such an intensely personal experience and in the end two things usually arise. First, you are never sorry you did it and, two, no matter how well you did it you always think you could have done more.”
Jeanne’s Mom died peacefully at home on January 17, 2001.
Jeanne's Mission
"I had always wanted to start a business and throughout my sales career I enjoyed the relationships I developed with my customers. In 2003 I decided it was time to do it and I stumbled across Home Instead Senior Care. It was the perfect opportunity to do something important and help people get through what we went through whether it be aging or illness.
The quality of one’s life is so important and often it is the little things that matter the most. I remember how important it was for my Mom to have her makeup done, earrings and watch on. Something so small to those of us who can easily do it, but something so important to someone who is losing their independence.
It has been an incredible journey and I feel lucky to have met so many wonderful families through the years. My family experience has enabled me to help families on many different levels. I know I am doing what I am supposed to be doing and it is as if it is my last gift from my Mom."
