Five years and two months after Victoria Labian was first honored as a Care Professional of the Month at Home Instead® of Victoria, Texas, she has been recognized again, Recruiting and Retention Coordinator Maegan Coldewey announced. Victoria is still a highly esteemed senior-care professional, but she also has taken on double duty as a family caregiver.
“A lot has changed for me since Home Instead selected me as its Care Pro of the Month in July 2018,” said Victoria, who first worked for the award-winning Home Instead franchise from July 2015 to April 2021 before leaving. Victoria returned in 2022. “I have moved back in with parents to help care for them, and in turn they help me care for my daughter, who is 8 years old.”
Victoria added: “We learned that my daughter has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and possibly autism spectrum disorder (ASD), so that has been challenging. She is making progress, but there have been lots of appointments and communication with doctors, therapists and teachers. I am committed to helping my daughter achieve as much independence as possible, and to have the best life possible. We continue to take day trips, weekend trips and a few vacations, exploring the world and making memories.”
Over the years, Victoria’s family caregiving experiences have been memorable and sometimes challenging. Every day for two months during one of her high school years, Victoria looked in on her grandmother and helped after she had suffered a broken collarbone. Later, Victoria’s grandmother underwent heart surgery, and Victoria repeated the routine during her in-home convalescence.
It was no surprise, then, when Victoria became a CNA in 1999 and enjoyed a successful senior-care career in a skilled care community after her family moved from Victoria, Texas, to Union, South Carolina. “Care for my grandmother – that’s how I got into CNA work,” Victoria said, “I loved my job of helping the residents and making their lives better.”
In July 2015, two years after Victoria had moved back to Victoria, she was on a summer break from her job as a regularly rotating substitute high school teacher in the Victoria Independent School District. That’s when she saw a newspaper advertisement for Home Instead and joined the Care Pro staff. Home Instead benefited from getting an experienced, compassionate senior-care specialist, and Victoria benefited from Home Instead’s job flexibility.
“I love working with schoolchildren and seniors, so I did both. My school district job was my fulltime job, and I worked during holidays and summers for Home Instead. I also filled in as a Care Pro during times like fall breaks, winter holidays, spring breaks,” Victoria said.
During her first summer with Home Instead, Victoria assisted a dementia client in Cuero, about a 30-minute drive northwest of Victoria. “Her husband had to have surgery, so she had 24/7 care, and I had a day shift. She was the sweetest person. She was a school district chef, and she loved to cook. We made biscuits together,” Victoria said.
“As part of her dementia behavior, she obsessed over the mail and anticipated the daily 11 a.m. delivery. I’d get the mail, set aside the bills so we wouldn’t lose them and give her the rest of the mail to sort. I put the bills aside for the family to pay because she might put them somewhere and forget where they were. If she wanted to show me the mail, I’d sit down with her. It gave her something to do. We might do that several times a day. I’d never tell her, ‘We’re done.’ I’d just go with the flow. We’d finally conclude everything that day was junk mail.”
Generally speaking, Victoria said, people with dementia should never be corrected. “The early stages of dementia are harder on the senior loved ones because they know something is wrong, that they are losing their memory,” Victoria said. “As the dementia goes into advanced stages, they sometimes feel better about themselves because they don’t realize they are repetitive. You can placate obsessive behavior, but there can be anxiety. Many of them lose their appetites, and they may not be hungry but eat out of habit.”
She added: “Setting consistent routines helps those with dementia. Having the same Care Pros helps because it is a good security blanket. To even have a stranger in your home can feel like an intrusion. For ladies, the kitchen can be like a sacred space for them and a violation to have someone else do the meal preparation. It’s best to make suggestions for them or ask them to join you in an activity if possible. I always tread lightly, because it is their home. I always respect them and their home.”
Victoria gets “so attached” to seniors, and then feels badly when they are gone or she loses contact with them. “But serving them is the highest honor,” she explained.
At our award-winning Home Instead franchise, owned by Pietro Jordao and Dillon Rice, Care Professionals are screened, trained and insured. For inquiries about employment, please call (361) 433-0330 or apply online at
https://www.homeinstead.com/location/781/home-care-jobs/ . For further information about Home Instead, visit our website at https://www.homeinstead.com/location/781/ .
