With the end nearing to our family's long term relationship with Home Instead, I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of our family, to highlight an exemplary caregiver - Theresa (Tracy). From fall 2010 to present date, Tracy has worked in our home longer than any other Home Instead caregiver. Her reliability, dedication, thoughtfulness, and leadership qualities made her an invaluable asset to our parents' well being and care. As the longest assigned caregiver to our household, Tracy consistently brought professionalism and compassion to what we imagine has been a difficult assignment (a mother with a progressively slow, long term decline from Alzheimer's and a father with myriad health problems and emotional difficulties with his wife's illness and death.)
In addition to completing all of the defined job functions required of the in-home care givers, Tracy has had a unique ability to connect with our parents and navigate through sometimes very rough waters. In addition to our mother's intense physical needs, our father presented additional challenges through his periodically negative and obstinate behavior issues. Of all the caregivers, Tracy most connected with our father, knew how to read his moods, and how to manage his attitude in order to peacefully diffuse tense situations. In a most recent and significant example, it was Tracy who was the only one able to get our father cleaned up, dressed, and in attendance at our mother's funeral. Tracy has been instrumental in noticing any degree of change in both parents' physical, emotional, or mental health over the years. Her instincts were critical numerous times in alerting other medical professionals to their needs great or small. In fact, it was Tracy who noted our mother's turn for the worse a week before she died on 19 September 2014. Tracy immediately notified family members and alerted hospice to the need for more acute care and monitoring. Tracy consistently went above and beyond all others in taking personal responsibility for our parents' needs.
Tracy generally managed the household these past four years to include training new caregivers, monitoring daily supplies, and regularly briefing the family, the primary doctor, and hospice care on the most nuanced (and maybe otherwise overlooked) changes or problems with our parents. Her unwavering and tireless efforts to care for our parents gave us peace of mind that too few families are blessed with.
Thank you for introducing us to, and keeping Tracy, in our home these last several years, read more
