Caring for aging parents. A Love Story. Part 2 with Kim Doviak Van Hassel - Episode 23

The podcast features Kim Doviak Van Hassel, a caregiver coach, as she talks about her experience caring for her aging parents. In this episode, she discusses how her life changed after her mother fell. Kim was an only child who had been doing long-distance caregiving for her parents for a few years. Her parents were in their 80s and had some health problems, but they were managing well until her mother fell. Kim had been at their house for a few days to help them get to the doctors, and her mother fell when Kim was on the phone. Kim and her father didn't know what to do, but they eventually called for emergency response. Her mother refused to go to the ER, but they eventually got her into rehab. While in rehab, her mother had trouble breathing, and she went to the hospital where they discovered she couldn't swallow. She developed aspiration pneumonia, and they were told she couldn't eat anymore.