Imagining
the Rewards of Caregiving
presented by WILL-TV
January 20, 2003
Avis Varner of Monticello travels to Champaign to receive four hours of dialysis at the Champaign-Urbana Dialysis Unit. The 86-year-old has been going three times a week for the past six years. Neither she nor her husband can drive, so they rely on caregivers from the Piatt County chapter of Faith ‘N Action, an interfaith network of volunteers that offers assistance and companionship to seniors and other persons in need.
Art Finet, who takes Avis to dialysis twice a month, says you have to be on a waiting list to care for Avis. “You feel better after spending time with Avis,” he says. “She has such a great attitude about her situation.”
“We’re sort of like a family,” Avis says.
Art and Avis are one of the caregiver-care recipient pairs featured in the WILL-TV production
Beyond Burden: Caregiving as a Basic Human Need.
“The program will affirm and provide support for the growing numbers of people who are caring for the elderly, the chronically sick and the disabled at home,” says Kimberlie Kranich, outreach coordinator at WILL and producer of the program. “We want to introduce viewers to people and organizations who have taken extraordinary action around caregiving and advocating for one’s own care.”
Susan Parenti of Urbana developed a “care club” to care for her mother, Jo, who has Alzheimer’s and lives in Skokie. The care club consists of people from Urbana and the Chicago area who live with Jo on a rotating, three-day schedule to provide her with 24-hour care.
"We're constantly told the story of how much care people need to get,” Susan says. “But people rarely tell the story of how much care people need to give. Could it be that the 'health care crisis' in the world has to do with the lack of structures that enable us to give care? Our care club is an example of a care-enabling structure. Participants are paid well for taking care of my mom, but we all think of this pay as a kind of 'grant' that permits them to go ahead and care!"
The program also features Lynn Randall of Champaign and her husband, Steve. Steve has a progressive muscle disease that keeps him wheelchair-bound most of the time. He fought for 18 months with an insurance company to get an electric wheelchair and now he’s looking for a way to finance special equipment for his van so that he can drive again.
“Should we not think about building into the framework of our society a situation where people can be supported?” Lynn asks.
Hosted by Amy Gajda, Beyond Burden was broadcast live from the TV studio. Guests
included caregivers and care recipients. Viewers phoned in
questions and comments.
“We’d like viewers to participate with us by calling in with their own stories,” Kranich says. “And we’d like to invite people to start to imagine a society in which caregiving and care receiving look different than they do today. That could mean governmental aid for family caregivers and teaching youth to anticipate caring for their parents when they get too old to care for themselves.”
Beyond Burden: Caregiving as a Basic Human Need is one of a series of radio and TV specials exploring caregiving that has aired on WILL since October 2002.
Beyond Burden