Client Says Holly Is ‘a Whirlwind’
CAREGiver Holly Giacona is the Home Instead® version of the Energizer Bunny. After watching Holly scurry about as she completed her light housekeeping tasks, the client smiled and finally said, “Holly, will you just sit down?”
The client told his daughter, “Holly is like whirlwind who just looks for things to do. She took the initiative to work on my refrigerator, and it hasn’t been that clean and organized in 15 years.” The client’s daughter wasn’t going to let the compliment pass without telling someone else, so she called the Home Instead staff members in Shelby Township and told them. With additional superlatives for Holly coming from other sources, owner Kerry Pareja’s award-winning franchise honored Holly as its February CAREGiver of the Month.
Holly humbly said: “I don’t feel I do enough for the clients.” She added, “I loved it when the client’s daughter called. She had noticed I was doing everything I could to keep her dad’s home clean. He’s a sharp guy who takes note of everything I do. He’s my newest client to whom I went to serve around the first of the year. Yes, I do sit down. I’ve played poker with him.”
It seems fitting that Holly joined Home Instead around Valentine’s Day in 2020. “My heart goes out to seniors. My husband said I am drawn to older people,” Holly said. If she seems to be a natural at caregiving, it’s because she has been helping people for a good deal of her life.
Holly’s mother died of cancer when Holly was nearly 16, and Holly shifted from helping with her mother’s care to family caregiving for her 14-year-old brother. Holly’s dad managed fairly well for the next 24 years. He found a girlfriend who became just like a second mother to Holly, a woman for whom Holly would later help after she was afflicted with early onset Alzheimer’s.
Holly’s first foray into senior care occurred when she took care of her grandmother – her dad’s mother – for five years. Her grandmother died at age 95 in August 2009, and Holly’s father shockingly died less than a year later, on May 2, 2010. “Dad was the kind of guy who never wanted any help. He was an independent soul who suffered a major stroke at age 75 and died a couple of days later. There was no time to help him, and he would have been reluctant to accept any help if it was in his power. His passing came during a really challenging time because I was seven months pregnant and was 40 years old at the time,” Holly recalled.
For Holly, there was plenty of caregiving in the years after her father’s death. First, she took care of the mother of her dad’s longtime girlfriend, the girlfriend’s brother and then her late father’s girlfriend. “I took care of her for five years with help at the end. For three or four years, it was pretty normal. It was like being her daughter and hanging out with her. But there was a massive decline in the final 12 months when she need 24/7 care, and our family caregiving team consisted of two of her children and me. She died in 2019 at age 75. Emotionally for me, it was worse than losing my mom,” explained Holly, who joined Home Instead a year later.
Experiencing the death of a senior loved one is never easy, no matter how many times someone has gone through it. As a Home Instead CAREGiver, Holly endured the death of a client Dec. 29, 2020. “I started with the client in July or August. I had worked with her quite a bit each week and had developed a close relationship with her and her daughter. She was a hospice client who needed 24/7 care. I miss her,” Holly said.
Holly, who assists two men as regular clients, was asked if it seems as if she is helping her late father when she serves her clients. “One client is 86, about the same age as my father would be if he had lived. But that’s as far as the comparability goes. He and my other client allow me to help them, and I don’t think Dad would be OK with that, to his detriment. For example, my dad was driving earlier on the same day when he suffered the stroke.”
Holly said his clients “are good guys.”
“One client had a stroke in September and was hospitalized. I help him exercise his left hand. He takes bottle caps off and sorts M&Ms to try to improve his dexterity,” said Holly, serving in the role of an encourager and de facto physical therapist.
When Holly looks into the future, she says, “I won’t be going anywhere else. I like everybody in the Home Instead office. Communications are good, and so is the flexibility. After I lost the client in December, I wanted to scale back a bit. The client was wonderful, but it was challenging. I did it for her – that’s where my heart was. Sometimes you have to step back and take a bit of a break.”
All Home Instead CAREGivers are screened, trained, bonded and insured. For inquiries about employment, please call (586) 992-0100 or apply online. For further information about Home Instead, visit our website.
