In 2015, Rosanne Corcoran’s mother, who has dementia, moved in with Corcoran and her family in the Philadelphia area. Corcoran, who runs a caregiver support group and talks about caregiving and dementia on Daughterhood, The Podcast, was able to hire some outside help for her mother’s care in 2018 but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Corcoran now cares for her mother around the clock.
“The caregiver came for four to five hours a day so I could run errands, go to the grocery store, attend doctor’s appointments, and pick my daughter up from school. I even joined a gym. I couldn’t believe it, I had a little bit of a routine going and it was great,” Corcoran says. “I haven t been able to do any of that since last March.”
The Victor J. Saracini Department of Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic in Horsham announced Tuesday that it will be offering the COVID-19 vaccine through the end of this week.
The clinic, located at 433 Caredean Drive in Horsham, will provide vaccines for those with appointments only between 4 and 7 p.m. through Friday and all day Saturday, the release states. Veterans must be enrolled in VA Healthcare to be eligible and they must be either 75 years or older or 65 years old or older with comorbidity. You have to be be registered with the VA for benefits, a representative from the clinic said. We are getting a lot of calls from retired military who are under the impression they can walk in and get a vaccine and that not true right now.
Veterans enrolled in VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System’s Home-Based Primary Care (HBPC) program are receiving COVID-19 vaccines in their homes.
Air Force Veteran Bill Schenker received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on Jan. 26 in his home. His wife and caregiver, Lois, also received her first dose of the vaccine. She was eligible as a caregiver in VA’s Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers (PCAFC).
Bill Schenker served in the Air Force from 1969 to 1972 as a C-130 aircraft mechanic. He was stationed all over the world, including Langley Air Force Base in the U.S. and overseas in Thailand, Vietnam, Germany and England.
Barbara Briggs Ward is a writer living in Ogdensburg, New York. Her short story The Kitchens was third runner-up in the 2021 Great American Fiction Contest. She is the author of
The Reindeer Keeper, chosen by Yahoo!’s Christmas Book Club as their December 2012 Book of the Month. Her second work of Christmas fiction,
The Snowman Maker, was released October 2013. Her short stories have appeared in
Chicken Soup for the Soul,
Christmas Magic, Family Caregivers,
Ladies’ Home Journal, and
Highlights children s magazine. She was a featured author on Mountain Lake PBS and Target Book Festivals in Boston and New York. For more, visit BarbaraBriggsWard.com.