On Christmas Eve morning in 2009, business owner Deborah Delaney was pulling the cinnamon rolls from the oven in her well-appointed Wayzata home and worrying about preparations for her guests arriving for that evening’s festivities.

At that moment, the phone rang with news that would change her life, ultimately for the better. “I want you to know that your [breast] biopsy came back as cancerous,” a nurse told Delaney. After a few moments of conversation, Delaney, a youthful 53-year-old, returned the phone to the receiver. “I’m going to die,” she thought.

“Then I composed myself and thought, ‘I have to get this thing out of me,’” Delaney she recalled in an interview last week. “Then I remembered, I’ve got all these people coming over. And my husband, Dale, sat down next to me and put his arm around me and said, ‘It’s going to be OK.’ “We told our [two] girls. And then I said, ‘Come on, we’ve got all this cooking to do.’”

In her heart, Delaney, a confident saleswoman and manager who had made more than $250,000 annually during the 1990s in the telecommunications business, was shaken by the prospect of months of treatment and her own mortality.

In January, the cancer was removed. She underwent chemotherapy and radiation over several months and got a positive prognosis: There’s a 95 percent probability that she’ll live at least another 15 years.

“I’ll take that,” she said. “I’ve got a business to run.”

In 2002, Delaney had left the telecom industry and invested more than $100,000 into launching Sarah Adult Day Services in Savage, the first Twin Cities “SarahCare” franchise. The business provides adult day and chronic-care management for about a third to half the price of a full-time nursing home. The service offers at-home care providers a break and works with clients through nurses, nursing assistants, therapists and others to help patients lead as full a life as possible.

Delaney chose SarahCare, because she had dropped out of college so that she could care for her ailing mother — while also working a full-time job. And Delaney’s market research showed that elder care was a boom market.

‘Vulnerable adult’

Her illness only increased the hard-charging Delaney’s passion for her business, her customers, their families and her staff.

“I had become a vulnerable adult,” she said. “I needed help … I get it now. I’m softer, more empathetic. People mean more to me.”

Delaney was changed by a process that began every other Thursday for several months that began with nurses filling two large syringes with cancer-killing toxins, known as “Red Devils,” after donning protective garb so they wouldn’t be burned if anything spills.

“‘Oh my God,’” Delaney recalled thinking as the needles penetrated her skin. “Your head gets loaded with a terrible weight. You’re very tired. It’s called ‘chemo brain.’ I’d be wiped out through Monday. Then I’d go to work. I’d try to hide the fear and pain. But I’d lose my memory. I couldn’t remember the names of people. Or where I put my keys, even though they were on the same corner of the desk as usual.”

Good Fortune

There also was financial stress. It took until 2008 for SarahCare to break even. Delaney had to invest more than she had projected. She refinanced her Wayzata dream house, valued at $1.2 million in 2006, to pay down business-related debt. The monthly payment rose from $3,000 to $8,000. And her husband lost his job before Delaney got sick.

Still, Delaney could not stop marveling at what she regarded as her good fortune. The love and generosity of her family, close friends and staff buoyed her spirits. She cut her CEO salary to $50,000 to save money. And she grew closer to her husband and prouder of her college-educated daughters, one of whom works at SarahCare.

The busy staff, including nursing assistants who make $12 to $14 an hour, always had time to inquire about the boss’ health and what they could do.

Even though it was expensive, Delaney was grateful that she was able to provide health insurance to employees.

“Who knows when one of them could discover cancer, have a stroke or fall and hit their head,” Delaney said. “It can happen to anyone.”

As Delaney’s health improved this year and her memory and energy returned, she and Dale made some life-enhancing decisions. They sold the expensive speedboat, gave away possessions that didn’t matter anymore and put the big house up for sale.

“I’ve got a second chance,” Delaney said. “Now, I don’t need the big house, the boat and all those things that used to mean a lot to me. I still need to make a living. But it’s more about what I can do to help others. I’m more reflective. My reward is helping struggling families.”

Delaney is calm, energetic, positive and focused.

SarahCare was featured at a booth at the IDS Center on Tuesday, November 16.  We have a great time and met a lot of people. We were at the IDS to raise awareness for caregiving and answer questions and concerns.

See you next year!

Sara

To read the article, go to: http://www.savagepacer.com/news/general-news/right-place-right-time-michelle-green-called-angel-110

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

On November 2 at 2 p.m. Flagship Franchises of Minnesota Owner Deborah Delaney will discuss breast cancer and how it affects family and business

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — October 7, 2010 — We depend on our mothers to help us in every aspect of our lives but what happens when mom gets sick? Flagship Franchises Owner Deborah Delaney discovered firsthand how to manage this life-changing moment.

Delaney was shocked by the news but she did not let it control her life. Delaney had a family to care for and a business to run. Delaney runs the SarahCare Adult Day Center in Savage, Minn. The facility specializes in providing superior adult day care and home health care services to vulnerable adults.

“I knew in order for my business to survive my entire family needed to help,” said Delaney. “My daughters came to work for me as well as my husband. It was a group effort.”

Delaney will discuss her journey on The Real Mom TV web show. The program is an interactive show that discusses real issues and real solutions about women. The host is Annie Foonberg. Annie is the mother of 3 children and is very involved in breast cancer issues.

You can find more information at www.TheRealMomTV.com.

For More information about SarahCare Adult Day Services, at www.sarahcaremn.com.

About SarahCare Adult Day Services
SarahCare© is a participant-driven program developed in 1985 by internationally renowned gerontologist Dr. Merle Griff, Ph.D. in Canton, Ohio. The unique program begins with the individual and reaches outward to involve the community as a whole. SarahCare© offers unparalleled assistance to the participant’s special needs, but more importantly recognizes the uniqueness of each individual. Beyond our professional staff of nurses and specialists helping with the daily tasks of living, SarahCare© seeks to share in the richness of the individual’s personal life and actually customize the environment to stimulate the client’s senses.

Sara Lien
SarahCare Public Relations Director
952-220-5414
Sel001@msn.com

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There are 65 million caregivers in the United States. Most of them are overwhelmed, looking for compassion and someone to listen. Adult day service is the answer. The services are designed to provide social and health services to adults who need supervised care in a safe place outside the home. In addition, they give caregivers respite from the constant demands of caregiving.

“Adult Day Centers are not just a place to receive health care services,” said SarahCare Owner and CEO Deborah Delaney. “We offer a club-like atmosphere where adults can participate in social and therapeutic activities and receive personal care.”

Caregivers can be assured of competent care. In fact, SarahCare CNA and driver Michelle Green recently demonstrated the highest level of care. She was moving the SarahCare bus at the parking lot across from the facility when she drove up next to a tow truck. She saw the driver lying on the ground and he was blue in the face. She asked what happened and no one knew. She immediately performed CPR and as a result of Michelle’s efforts the tow driver survived and they are optimistic for his recovery.

“This is an example of the type of employees we believe in,” said Delaney. “We strive to be a participant in our community and we don’t hesitate to care for those around us.”

Don’t forget to remember a loved one on National Adult Day Services Week. September 19-25 is set aside to raise awareness of the availability and accessibility of adult day programs nationwide. Go to www.nadsa.org for more information.

ABOUT FLAGSHIP FRANCHISES OF MN, INC. AND SARAHCARE ADULT DAY CENTERS
Imagine a place where special loved ones can feel a sense of purpose. Where laughter is the medicine, friendship is the means and activities abound. Imagination is no longer necessary. The place is SarahCare. Our staff understands that each individual has unique impairments, health problems and needs. We specialize in meeting these needs. We are different because we are a participant-driven program. We concentrate on creating unique programs for the individual and we reach out to the community as a whole.
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Democratic-Farmer-Labor Candidate for Governor, Matt Entenza met with families and their loved one’s on July 28th to discuss Elder, Caregiver issues and the future.

Betty led him into the shower, helped him dress each morning and took him everywhere with her because, once he started wandering, as some dementia patients do, she dared not leave him alone. She learned how to change the colostomy bag he wore since he’d survived rectal cancer years earlier. She slept, fitfully, with a monitor by her bed so that she could respond if he needed her at night.

“It was difficult, but I was able to take care of him,” says Betty, now 80. “Because it happens slowly, you don’t realize how bad it’s getting.”

She agreed to have Leonard attend an adult day program at nearby Holy Cross Hospital — he enjoyed socializing there — so that she could get a few hours’ break several times a week; she found a Holy Cross caregivers support group very useful. But she refused the pleas from her three adult children to hire an aide to help at home. “I always felt like I had it under control,” she explains, though her children thought the $18-an-hour cost also troubled a frugal woman who shops at dollar stores.

As the months passed, “we could see the stress level affecting her,” recalls her daughter Linda Fenlon. “The frustrating part was, we wanted her to have some independence, some quality of life. But she saw it as her duty in life to take care of him.”

For four years, Betty Crierie rarely asked for or accepted her family’s help, until a Wednesday last June. As she left her support group meeting, she remembers, “I got this funny feeling in my chest.” It worsened on the 10-minute drive home. She called her daughter and said, “I’m calling 911. I think I’m having a heart attack.”
‘In sickness and in health’

Caring for a sick or disabled elderly relative exacts a toll — physical, emotional, financial — on any family member, but being a spousal caregiver brings particular challenges.

“Spouses are older and dealing with their own age-related health limitations,” says Steven H. Zarit, a Pennsylvania State University gerontologist. The tasks they shoulder have grown more demanding: Family caregivers now administer arsenals of medications and undertake procedures, from wound care to dialysis, that were once the province of medical professionals.

Moreover, today’s longer life spans, in which once-fatal conditions such as heart disease have become manageable chronic illnesses, mean that the “sickness” part of “in sickness and in health” can last for many years. Spouses determined to single-handedly honor their vows, says Suzanne Mintz of the National Family Caregivers Association, “are using their old rules to fight a new problem.”

The medical and psychological literature have long reported that caregivers face risks to their own well-being, especially when they’re caring for people with dementia. Caregivers under stress have higher levels of depression and anxiety; their immune systems suffer. A 2005 Commonwealth Fund overview found that caregivers of all ages reported chronic conditions — including heart disease, diabetes, cancer and arthritis — at nearly twice the rate of non-caregivers, 45 percent vs. 24 percent.

In an oft-cited study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1999, University of Pittsburgh researchers followed nearly 400 elderly spousal caregivers for four years and reported that those experiencing mental or emotional strain had 63 percent higher mortality rates than non-caregivers. (Caregivers not experiencing emotional or mental strain did not have elevated mortality rates.)

And a study published this year by a team from the University of South Florida and the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that high caregiving strain among spouses increased the risk of strokes by 23 percent; the association was particularly strong among husbands caring for wives.

Betty Crierie was the classic example: Caring for her increasingly disabled husband, trying to shelter their adult children from the burden, unwilling to bring in a costly home-care aide when she felt she was doing fine on her own — until she had her heart attack. “We didn’t realize how much she was doing until we took turns taking care of Dad ourselves,” Linda Fenlon says. “It was so labor-intensive. We very quickly realized she couldn’t continue.”

While their mother recovered, the children moved their father into a nursing home, a wrenching act for all concerned. Betty visited Leonard there two or three times a week, continuing to do his laundry at home, until he died five months later at age 83.

Depression-era values

Why is it so difficult for older caregiving spouses to seek help? Zarit’s research has shown that compared with adult children taking care of an ailing parent, spouses don’t turn to adult day programs until later in the course of illness, and they’re more apt to withdraw the participant after a short time.

Sister Kathy Weber, who leads the Holy Cross support group that Betty Crierie attended, sees a Depression-era-bred reluctance to spend money on care, even when couples can afford it. “They’re supposed to get along somehow and squirrel it away for their kids — who want them to use it now, for their care, which would make the children’s lives easier, too,” Weber says.

Spouses don’t want to lose control of their homes or their relationships. Sometimes they hope to protect their partners’ dignity, not wanting children to see how diminished they’ve become. “There’s a lot of pride there,” Weber says.

What might help, caregiver advocates say, is for health providers to regard older couples as a unit, recognizing that a caregiver’s compromised health could prematurely institutionalize an ailing spouse. Some geriatric practices already do so. “On the intake forms in doctors’ offices, there should be questions to identify whether someone is a family caregiver,” suggests Mintz. “That would alert the physician and the staff to the situation and raise questions about that person’s own health. Is she taking care of herself?”

Meanwhile, President Obama’s proposed 2011 budget would add $102.5 million for family caregiving programs, “a step in the right direction,” Mintz says. The money would boost existing programs that serve family caregivers, including training and counseling, referrals, respite care, transportation, adult day programs and home care. AARP analysts estimate the increased funding could help an additional 200,000 families. Family caregivers can use the help: Medicare pays for doctors and hospitals but provides only very limited post-hospitalization home care, and Medicaid (which covers only the poor) allots most of its dollars to nursing homes. The financial burden of caring for a spouse at home falls mostly to families themselves.

But even with better support, watching a partner decline is difficult. “They are about to lose their lives as they’ve known them,” Weber explains.

That’s what happened to Sheila Fridovich, whose husband, Bernard, developed Pick’s disease, a form of dementia, in his late 60s. Sheila kept him at home in Annapolis, eventually hiring a daytime aide, for nearly six years.

“I couldn’t eat; I couldn’t breathe; I didn’t have a moment’s peace,” she acknowledges. Yet she refused to see a therapist or join a support group. “I needed to iron it out in my own head,” she says.

“We grew up in a generation where getting help from a therapist is not stigmatized,” theorizes her daughter Lauri Fridovich Lee, who joined a support group online. “For the older generation, it is.”

Eventually, consulting with a Veterans Affairs physician about drug coverage, Sheila discovered that Bernard, a Navy veteran, was eligible for admission to a specialized dementia unit at the VA Community Living and Rehabilitation Center in Baltimore. She moved Bernard there in 2006. At 79, he’s still a resident and gets excellent care, she says. But after a stroke, he cannot speak, and she’s not sure, on her Sunday visits, if he knows who she is.

“It’s a traumatic experience for a husband and wife, far more than for their kids,” Fridovich says now. She’s only 71, still working part time as an educational consultant, but “the way I live is not the way I lived before. I’m married but I’m not; I have a husband but I don’t. I’m in no man’s land.”

Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.” This article was produced in collaboration with Kaiser Health News. KHN is an editorially independent news service and a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health-care policy organization that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.