Jenny Maroun once lived a life filled with family, friends, and travel. Her husband, Jean, spent 40 years as Head of Oncology at the Ottawa Hospital Cancer Center, while Jenny devoted three decades to nursing in a retirement home, caring for seniors, many of whom lived with dementia. Their careers were demanding, but they made room for the things they loved: travelling, socializing, and spending time with their two children and grandchildren.
But life started to change for Jenny in about 2014 when Jean retired at the age of 73. After retirement Jean continued seeing patients once a week at a small clinic. But in 2016, Jenny was recognizing the first signs of Alzheimer’s in her husband.
During one of last vacations the couple took together, Jean was having difficulty remembering sequences of events and where they were supposed to meet the tour guide. Then in 2017, as Jean was on his way to a visit to the home of a client he had visited many times, he got lost.
Jenny pushed for Jean to be assessed and in February 2018 Jean underwent a CT scan. The scan confirmed what Jenny already suspected – Jean was displaying the first stages of Alzheimer’s, something he would always deny having.
Life After the Diagnosis
At the time, Jenny had a feeling she could handle her husband’s diagnosis. Afterall, she worked for many years in a retirement home, where about 50% of the residents had some sort of dementia. After all those years of working with seniors, the retirement Jenny was looking forward to enjoying with her husband was slowly being taken away from her by dementia.
“As time goes by it’s been quite an eye opener,” admitted Jenny in an interview. “Living with somebody 24 hours a day is much different than an 8-hour shift.”
Over the past six years, Jean’s condition has gradually deteriorated. When he was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, he was still doing most of his daily activities himself, but with each passing year, he lost many of his abilities, and Jenny has had to take on an increasing amount of responsibility as caregiver. Friends are still an important part of their lives but dementia has proven to be a barrier to their normal social life, leaving Jenny increasingly isolated.
The love between Jenny and Jean endures to this day, but being the caregiver of somebody living with dementia presents many challenges for people like Jenny. She refuses to put Jean in a retirement home, despite his doctor’s recommendations. Luckily Jenny has been able to call on her training as a nurse but acknowledges other caregivers she’s met have it much worse than her.
How Supports Can Make Such a Difference
Having support is essential when caregivers want to keep their loved one at home for as long as they can. Taking care of a loved one at home places a heavy weight on caregivers like Jenny, and by supporting people like her, we are reducing strain on the larger care system. People with advanced stages of dementia cannot care for themselves. Somebody must help.
Carefor’s Carling Adult Day Program supports seniors living with dementia. The program helps clients stay connected and social. It also helps caregivers by giving them a break, so they can do what they need to do to care for themselves. If these kinds of supports were not available, rates of caregiver burn out would increase, and there would be more seniors in hospitals and long-term care, pushing an already strained healthcare system.
Jenny calls the Carling Adult Day Program “a godsend” because it allows her to “…go out and see [her] friends, go to the hairdressers, knowing that [her husband] is safe.”
April 7 is National Caregiver’s Day in Canada. This date was adopted by Canadian Members of Parliament to formally recognize the contribution of people like Jenny, unpaid caregivers who provide essential support for their loved ones. We are proud to work alongside and support caregivers like Jenny who are the backbone of our healthcare system.
If you are a caregiver in need of support, please visit our website.