You know the problem has arrived when the same call comes in for the third time and you handle it the same way: drive over, lift, reset, leave, and wait for the next one. Each call looks like a one-time event. Together they are a job nobody has named.
Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.
Step 1: Open a call log
Use one sheet of paper. Do not rely on memory or your phone's recent list, which mixes in work calls and calls from the bank. Head the columns: what happened, who called, what you did, how long you stayed, and what it cost you in time away from your own day.
Write the last seven calls about your parent, oldest first:
1. ______________________________________
2. ______________________________________
3. ______________________________________
4. ______________________________________
5. ______________________________________
6. ______________________________________
7. ______________________________________
Step 2: Circle the repeats
Circle any call that matches an earlier one in kind: the lockout, the fall someone caught in time, the stove left on, the missed ride, the unanswered door, the bathroom that needed a second person. Count the circles. Two circles in a week is a pattern. Three is the sign you are looking for.
Step 3: Sort each repeat into one of three bins
Put every circled call in exactly one bin.
Emergency. Needs 911 or an urgent medical response now. Stop reading and make that call. A caregiver is not the response to this bin.
Medical question. Needs the parent's doctor or pharmacist: a missed dose, a new symptom, a question about how a medicine is taken. Medicine stays with the family, the doctor, and the pharmacist. A non-medical caregiver may remind a parent that a dose is due and may pick up a prescription as an errand, and nothing beyond that.
Presence or errand. Someone needs to be in the house, drive, pick up, check, or wait. This is the bin a non-medical in-home caregiver can cover.
Write the counts:
Emergency ______ Medical question ______ Presence or errand ______
Step 4: Read the count
If presence or errand is the largest bin and it repeats three or more times in your log, you have the problem a caregiver is hired to solve. Move on to the hiring steps in the Start Here guide.
If emergency is the largest bin, stop hiring for now. That pattern belongs in a conversation with the parent's doctor and care team, and no caregiver arrangement replaces it.
If medical question is the largest bin, a caregiver can still cover the reminder and pickup part, but the questions themselves go to the doctor or pharmacist. Write that split into your notes before you talk to anyone.
Step 5: Name the repeat in one sentence
Fill in the blanks and keep the sentence on the top of the sheet:
Every week, someone has to ______________________ at ______________________, and right now that someone is me.
Fill the first blank with the repeat, not the emergency. A repeat is something like checking the house, driving to the pharmacy, or sitting until the plumber arrives.
What to bring to the first call
Bring the filled log and the one-sentence line to the first conversation with an agency or a direct hire. Ask each one which of your bins they will take, and which they will not. Write their answers next to your counts. The places where the answers differ from your counts are the questions to press on before you sign anything.
The Start Here: Five Steps to Hiring page shows where this sheet fits in the first week.