It’s not easy being a caretaker
Solero lived in her home since 1965, so she knew the neighborhood very well since she never drove and walked everywhere. Now she was taking longer to get back from a quick errand and soon enough her family knew that she couldn’t go anywhere by herself anymore.
“She became afraid of the water and I would have to help her shower, she was losing her sense of picking out her clothes for the specific seasons, like she would wear shorts in the winter and I had to lay her clothes the night before,” said Perez.
As her health began to decline, her daughter found an adult day program where a nurse would come visit her twice a day. One day the police found her wandering off and that’s when Perez brought her mom to live with her and her family. This is when she became her mother’s caretaker, taking her away from her home where nothing was familiar to her. She even moved into a bedroom where she would sleep with her and Perez would wake up and her mom would be staring at her. “One time she almost hit me and it was something related to my sister and when we took her to the hospital they told us that she couldn’t live with us anymore because it was a big concern,” she explains.
This experience made her stronger because giving up on her mom was never an option. Every day was a learning experience when she lived with her mom, which only lasted 2 months. “It’s difficult because you’re always second-guessing yourself, so I always questioned whether I was helping her to the best of my ability. I never had any instructions, I never dealt with it directly, I always asked myself if I was doing this the right way or if I could do more,” she explains.
