Natasha'a experience as a Carer
As part of Carers Week, Natasha Levens (Lead Business Analyst, Group Technology Services) speaks about her experience as a Carer, supporting her mother.
My parents have always been incredibly active, until Lockdown. Unfortunately having to stay in the home, with a helpful family who remove the need to go to the shops, had a detrimental effect on my parents’ mobility. The lack of getting out and about also took a turn on their mental agility and they became quite confused.
In 2023 my Dad had a serious accident which nearly killed him and kept him in hospital for about 6 months. While my Dad was in hospital my Mum’s health deteriorated to the point that she was unable to be left on her own.
With both of my parents needing care, it was too much for one member of the family to provide, so my husband and I converted our house so that my Mum could come and live with us.
Impact on life
When I became a Mother I discovered “parent guilt” for having to put my children into childcare while I worked. Now I’ve discovered “carer guilt”, for having to leave my Mum to entertain herself while I work. I wish I could take her out on nice trips to National Trust properties, but I remind myself that if I wasn’t working, we wouldn’t have been able to convert our house for Mum to come and live with us.
Living in a busy family with 3 children has helped to improve my Mum’s mental agility, because there is always so much going on. Having accessible living accommodation, removing the need to go up and down stairs has really improved my Mum’s mobility, which is fantastic.
However, my Mum does need a lot of help with things that many people can take for granted. My Mum can make a cup of coffee, but she can’t carry it to another room. The impact on me is that even though my children now sleep past 7am at the weekend, my Mum doesn’t!
My Mum is a wheelchair user, so I try to take her out in my lunchbreak – even if it’s just a walk over to Tesco to get a loaf of bread. What that means for me though is I don’t really get a chance to spend any time alone.
There are more positives than negatives though. It’s wonderful to be able to spend so much time with my Mum. Seeing the relationships between my Mum and my children blossom is a joy, they make each other happy. For my husband, he gets to go and see the football or meet his friends in the pub whenever he likes! It also makes us make time to go out together, without the children, which we didn’t give much focus to before.
Support and Resources
I became aware of Attendance Allowance, which is a Government scheme to which all people of state pension age are entitled to. This helps with the day to day costs.
Discovering SSE have a policy for Carers Leave came as a very welcome surprise.
