JOLIET, IL – When Roger Bromley and his wife, Connie, packed up and moved from their home in Maroa into his mother’s Joliet house to become her caregivers, the responsibility was more than he anticipated.
“Her doctor told me I needed to get help – not help with her, but help for me, because of my stress,” Bromley said, adding his mother had dementia. “I couldn’t tell that I was under that much stress, but other people around me could tell.”
Within a year of the move, Bromley joined a caregivers support group at Leeza’s Place in Joliet – a facility created by TV personality Leeza Gibbons where caregivers could go for help and resources.
“I met a bunch of other people who were going through the same things,” Bromley said. “Most of them longer than I had.”
When Leeza’s Place closed, Bromley worked with The Timbers of Shorewood staff to start a new caregivers support group. That is in its second year and open to anyone in the community – not just those who live at The Timbers of Shorewood, a retirement community focused on senior independent living and assisted living, or have loved ones there. It meets at 6:30 p.m. Thursdays.
“It’s good to talk it out and get it out on the table. … We are an encouraging group,” Bromley said.
Caregivers need care, too.
Read more in the Joliet Herald-News
By Jeanne Millsap
Joliet Herald News – August 4, 2015
