Elroy's Famous Too

Recently Elroy was interviewed by AARP Magazine for an article about caregiving. On the article page, they have sidebar discussing Share the Care. Here is what it says, including Elroy's wonderful quote:

Interested in going several steps beyond helping out a caregiver now and then? One innovative idea is shared-care networks—groups of people who get together to share the work that otherwise would fall on one caregiver.

“I think of it as barn building,” says Sheila Warnock, founder of ShareTheCaregiving (see “Getting Help,” above). “Everyone has to lend a hand.”

A care network can be two people or many more, Warnock says. “It works as a way of re-creating the nuclear families that we had years ago.”

That’s precisely what happened five years ago in Honolulu, where volunteers formed a network to help 80-year-old Elroy Chun and his son and daughter-in-law care for Elroy’s wife, Peg, 61, who has ALS, a progressive neurological disease.

There are now 25 volunteers, and they call themselves Peg’s Legs. They work in four-hour shifts alongside paid health care workers. That allows Elroy to report to work each day as a building-industry consultant and to do manageable tasks such as laundry. “Thank God they are here,” Elroy says. “They help keep me alive and Peg at home.”

http://www.aarpmagazine.org/family/caregiving/caring_for_the_caregiver.html