As light rain falls outside the auditorium at the VA’s Sousley Complex, VA social worker James Moore taps lightly on a set of drums, waiting for veterans and their caregivers to join him for a round of wellness drumming. He’s one of two dozen or so people representing the VA and other organizations who’re there to help those who help veterans at home every day. Caregivers like Jody Carroll. She’s been married to Army vet Jim Carroll for 53 years.
“I was on a date with another boy. And he pulled up beside me and asked me to go with him and I thought he was crazy. And he said, ‘Will you at least give me let's give me your phone number?’ And as soon as I got home from that night he called me and I guess we've been inseparable ever since”
“What did your date think about this?”
“Well, he wasn't real happy about it.”
When Jim Carroll interrupted Jody’s date, he was still recovering from a nearly-fatal wreck that happened while he was transporting soldiers who’d gone absent without leave. On January 2nd, he fell trying to change a lightbulb in their sunroom and hit his head on a brick step. After rehab, he got better, but in late March, he collapsed in their bedroom. He suffered a brain bleed and underwent surgery. On this day he’s being looked after by an employee of a home caregiver service while Jody looks for help at the VA.
“I have lost my partner in a way that I never thought would happen. It breaks my heart. I mean, you have to remove your emotions and your feelings to take care of them. When they speak harshly to you. When they're in a lot of pain.”
Before she begins to visit the helpers …
“Anything we haven't covered anything else you want to say?”
“Pray for me. I need it. I feel like I'm just sometimes I feel like I'm losing my grip.”
Among those who may help her regain it is Cassie Graham, a psychologist in the VA’s Whole Health Program. They offer complimentary services like yoga, tai chi, art, drumming, aromatherapy, some of them online, and she says they try to change the conversation from, “What’s the matter with you?” to “What matters to you?”
“They go through this day to day of so many tasks and feeling overburdened or, but not necessarily be able to say that too at the same time. And so for them, what matters to me, what matters maybe to who I'm caring for, what matters to us together, and taking a look at that to give them some purpose and a mission of why they keep doing everything they're doing on a day to day basis.”
Some servicemen and women have lost a limb in the line of duty, or later, through illness or injury. Jennifer Toney, the VA’s prosthetics representative, helps with a wide array of medical equipment – and more.
“One of the things that I do is I provide modifications for homes, in the bathrooms so that I can provide access to a shower. And if a veteran hasn't had a shower in a year, and they've been taking sponge baths, to be able to take a shower is very meaningful. And I get to provide that and it means a lot to me.”
At one table, employees of a London-based home health care business are painting fingernails.
“Oh, let's do like a purple. That is a really pretty color. I would love glitter, but I don't think I'm up for it.”
Pam White brought her 81-year-old husband, John, who spent 28 years in the Coast Guard.
“He's blind and he's sort of deaf and he's got cancer. So we've got a lot of different things — and heart. So but he's, we're on the go. We're both working artists. And he's, we do art shows. And it's just -- the VA is wonderful. They have provided wonderful, wonderful things for him and opportunities for me, so I'm really thankful.”
So is Jody Carroll. A few days after the caregiver fair, asked if she was glad she went, she says “Oh, absolutely.” She learned about community respite options, online counseling and other ways to ease her burden. And her grip is stronger.
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