Client Implores Janice: ‘Please Be My Daughter’
Tears streamed down CAREGiver of the Month Janice Cruz’s cheeks. Her 82-year-old client, who never had any children, had just asked Janice if she would agree to be her daughter. “She made me cry,” Janice said, misty-eyed as she recalled the memorable day.
“I said, ‘Yes, ma’am, I sure will be your daughter.’ ” Janice quickly interjected: “There was no way I was going to tell her, ‘No.’ There was no way that would come off my lips. At that moment, I became her daughter even though I am 11 years younger than she is.”
Janice, a CAREGiver at Home Instead® of Mount Airy for the past year, had tried to retire at age 62. She had been a CNA-2 – a highly skilled CNA – who did such things as wound treatments when she worked at care communities for about 10 years. She sought to spend more time with her husband on their acreage, where they tend to their goats, guineas, two dogs and a cat. It was fine for a while.
But when friends approached Janice about private-duty caregiving, she could not say no. “I ‘unretired’ to help others because they trusted me with their kin. It was supposed to be temporary, but weeks turned into months, which turned into years,” she said.
“I helped a 95-year-old man until his wife came home from rehabilitation. I took care of a friend’s father-in-law. He had Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia. To continue to take care of another private-duty client, I had to join an agency – Home Instead,” Janice said, explaining her entry onto Home Instead’s CAREGiver team in September 2020. “I took care of him for about one year altogether. He had to go to a nursing home and died about four or five months ago. It’s hard when you lose a client.”
The client was gone, but Janice did not leave Home Instead and return to retirement. Why? “I really like Home Instead, and I like my job. The Home Instead office staff consists of people who are down to earth. They are like family. I can talk to them about anything. If I don’t understand something, they take the time to explain it.”
Referring to Janice’s CAREGiver of the Month honor, a Home Instead staff member said: “Our office chose Janice because she is very humble and wants to take care of clients who she can help and for whom she can make a difference. Janice has a servant’s heart. To her, it is personal.”
Janice continues to do something she’s done since her teenage years. Janice was called into a family caregiver role when she was young. “I helped both my brother and my mother. She seemed to always be a nervous person. No one talked about dementia back then, but I think I could see early signs of it with my mother. She needed the help.”
Her brother’s situation was far different. He suffered life-threatening injuries in a car accident at age 14. “He had a brain injury, and he had to learn how to walk and talk again, just about every activity of daily living. He was in a coma for 23 days. So, of course, I helped him. It was a tragedy and I tried my best to help him. He’s 65 now. Mom died at 63 in a pedestrian-vehicle accident,” Janice said.
“We were poor. I quit school at age 16 and worked. I went back to school at age 17 and finished at 20. I worked for about 23 years at a mill before it closed, and then I went to nursing school. I was on track to be an RN, but I got headaches and had to quit for a semester. I came back and got all the training necessary to be a CNA-2. I’ve now settled into a caregiving mode.”
Janice describes her current two Home Instead clients as “good people, interesting folks whom I love both. We get along fine. When I take one of the clients for a walk with her walker, her dog and cat follow us. There we are – the four of us.”
Janice said: “I am going to continue to work as long as I can. Bottom line is, my clients do me as much good as I do for them. Going to work gives me something to look forward to. My husband knows I am doing something I love. When I first started this journey many years ago, I quickly learned I could make people feel better. I love it.”
All Home Instead CAREGivers are screened, trained, bonded and insured. For inquiries about employment, please call (336) 789-4472 or apply online. For further information about Home Instead, visit our website.
