By Alexandra Newman
It all started with a phone call to find their local senior center.
An anecdote I often use when talking about Area Agency on Aging’s Info-Line for Aging & Disability. I use it to say that no question is too big or too small for our Aging Specialists. It doesn’t have to be a complex question about in-home care services or Medicare; it can be about activities and connection with others.
But last week, I heard those exact words come out of the mouth of an Area Agency on Aging client.
Bertie, 79, of St. Joseph, is a client of Area Agency on Aging utilizing the MI Choice Waiver, Integrated Care at Home and Friendly Caller programs.
“When I moved up here in 2016 to be closer to my daughter, I didn’t know anyone. I had heard of Area Agency on Aging when I worked in a group home for 27 years in Indiana, so when I moved here, I gave them a call to find the local senior center,” Bertie said.
She began going to the St. Joseph-Lincoln Senior Center, and soon found some friends and activities to keep her busy. Her friend Patty invited her to play cards in the community room at a local senior housing apartment complex, and soon Bertie was applying to live there, too.
When Bertie was a child, her parents owned a drive-in theatre in Michigan City and she started working there when she was 6, boiling hot dogs and washing dishes and moved up to changing the movie reels.
“I worked there until I was 18 and then worked up until 70. When I first retired when I was 66, the company I worked for couldn’t find a replacement, so I ended up going back to work,” Bertie said.
She still enjoys going to the movies with her preferred care worker, Tasha, who happens to be her friend Patty’s daughter.
Bertie calls Tasha her angel. After she had brain surgery in 2019, Tasha started helping her with stuff around the house, like grocery shopping, laundry, taking her to hair and doctor’s appointments, and many trips to the movie theater and out to eat.
When Bertie became enrolled in the MI Choice Waiver program, which allows older adults and adults with disabilities to get nursing home level of care in their own home rather than a nursing home, Tasha became Bertie’s preferred care worker, getting paid to take care of Bertie for up to 10 hours a week.
“From that very first call, again, they got me hooked up with Medicaid. And, I didn’t have to do anything. They helped with all the paperwork,” Bertie said. “And, after that, it was just one thing after another that got better for me.”
A few years later, in May 2024, after Bertie was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, Bertie’s care manager recommended her for Area Agency on Aging’s Integrated Care at Home program which brings primary care and more into the homes of those who have chronic conditions and/or have trouble getting to their doctor’s appointments.
Bertie said she’s grateful for having a medical team and care manager who are always there for her.
“It’s just been wonderful to know that there’s somebody I can call to answer my questions,” Bertie said. “They are both very thorough and I like people who are people persons.”
Bertie said she developed depression, living alone for the first time in her life. She said when she opened up about that to her care manager, they connected her with the Friendly Caller volunteer program.
“They set me up with Val, and she calls me every week, even when she’s on vacation. She was in the hospital one time and even called me. We have the nicest conversations,” she said.
The two swap recipes, and Val regales Bertie with stories of her travels.
In addition to those programs, she has a fall button bracelet provided by AAA, which she’s had to use several times to get help getting up off the floor.
She said she also receives a holiday care package each December.
The Integrated Care at Home team monitors her blood pressure daily through a remote patient monitoring device, and they recently got her set up with a hospital bed, so she can better elevate her legs to prevent swelling.
Bertie doesn’t drive anymore, but she does visit with neighbors in her apartment building. She said she tells them all they should be connected to Area Agency on Aging.
“I worked two jobs for many years, but I was always a giver, helping people when I could. Calling Area Agency on Aging was the first time I had to ask for help. I’m very independent. I just can’t even describe the feeling that it gave me not to have to worry for the first time in my life. It’s made such a difference in my life,” Bertie said.
The Generations column appears each weekend in The Herald-Palladium.