Empowering Aging with Tina Buchanan MSW, ALCM, Founder & CEO of Visionary Care Consultants: 5 Red Flags To Look For During The Holidays.
There is a defining moment, and a resulting “compelling story”, that brought her to where she is today –coaching people like you on exactly what to do to help older adults and their family members maximize and manage resources for their end of life planning. That defining moment in her life happened in late 2016. She comes from a very tight-knit family. They were always very close spending most holidays together especially Christmas. These extravagant gatherings were the doing of her grandmother and grandfather mostly. They always went above and beyond and made these times so memorable for all of the family. Her Grandfather and Grandmother fell ill a several years back and eventually signed onto hospice early 2017. In leading up to this moment, she watched them struggle endlessly. The Veterans Administration, the policies behind long term care benefits, the overwhelm of deciding if they wanted Advance Directives and of course the red tape. She stepped up and became their Care Coordinator in her mother’s sheer overwhelm. She was aggravated by the systems and all of the paperwork that came with the end of life planning.
When Tina realized the fragile nature of her grandparents’ condition, she knew she needed to provide this support to other family members out there that were struggling with the same issues. Before starting Visionary Care, she had been working in the field of end of life care in a corporate environment for about 10 years. She started her journey towards this field when she was in school as she pursued her degree in Social Work. They didn’t get to pick their internships and she always thought she didn’t want to work with the elderly. They say what you resist most is what you need the most. Right? This internship, which she struggled with wanting to accept, single-handily changed her life when she was placed in a skilled nursing home.
The very first patient that she was paired with was a Hospice patient “Mary”. She had no support system and no living relatives. They asked Tina to be her support system. I remember so clearly seeing her in a room alone, stuck in bed all day unable to sit or stand and Tina was the only human that she looked forward to seeing every day. She mentioned that she had nothing to offer Tina and sometimes there weren’t many conversations between them, but seeing the light that spilled over her face during their time together was even more heartbreaking. She needed to navigate these huge decisions alone. She felt tossed uncomplainingly aside and Tina was there to help guide through her last days. Mary and Tina saw each other for a few weeks every day, up until she passed. Tina was heartbroken and more importantly, forever changed. Mary didn’t realize that she had given Tina the most important lesson of her life. She didn’t know that she had changed her forever.