Staying Fit
Junette and Johnny Clayborn provide around-the-clock care for their daughter Colleen in their Harrison, Ark., home.
Nick Oxford
Junette and Johnny Clayborn, both former teachers, have cared for their daughter Colleen, now 52, who was hit by a drunk driver while she was running in 2007. Colleen, a former English teacher, suffered severe injuries to her brain and body, followed by a stroke, and spent two years at rehabilitation centers before going home to her husband and two teenage sons. Her parents moved her to their Harrison, Ark., home in summer 2014 after Colleen’s sons graduated from high school so that her husband, Mark, can continue to work. Colleen can use only her left hand and has limited speech; she uses a wheelchair and requires around-the-clock care, which her parents provide.
"I’ll massage and move her shoulders, arms and legs, with push and pull moves, rotational movements and stretches."
Junette administers eye drops to her daughter Colleen four times a day.
Nick Oxford
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Johnny massages his daughter's leg.
Nick Oxford
Junette, 76
I do the hands-on care: I bathe and feed her and give her medicine, schedule doctors’ appointments, give her eye drops four times a day, and keep her daily records and her medical records up to date. I order all her medications, pick them up and organize them every week. Johnny helps me dress and move her because I can’t do any heavy lifting for medical reasons. If I cut up her food in pieces, she can feed herself with her left hand. Someone needs to be with Colleen constantly, so I only do the shopping once a week.
We developed more than 26 different ways to make our routines easier by modifying our home and getting the right technology, supplies and equipment. To make it easier to roll her over in bed, we put a soft, thin blanket under her bed pad so Johnny can grab it and pull her toward him instead of using her shoulder. We made a marker that slides back and forth on the headboard to help us remember which side we placed the pillow on to get her off her back after changing her during the night — that way we know to place it on the other side the next night. And I make her gowns like hospital gowns by cutting up the middle of the back to about the shoulder blade area — this makes dressing and changing her so easy . Colleen’s husband is a great help, too; he comes and stays with us on the weekends, takes her out to eat, and goes to most of her medical appointments with us.
One of the hardest parts is that Colleen can’t form sentences, so she can’t tell us what she needs or when she hurts. We have to watch closely to see if she’s developing rashes, infections, bruises or other medical problems. We haven’t slept through the night in years because we have to get up and move her at night so she doesn’t get bedsores, or change her if she soils herself. Sometimes I think I just can’t pull myself out of bed one more time — but I do.
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