Brenda Eicher-Beard's husband had a stroke in 2023.Courtesy of Brenda Eicher-BeardBrenda Eicher-Beard quit working once her husband had a stroke in 2023.She returned to the workforce after Medicare stopped covering care.She thinks assisted living wouldn't meet his needs, and it's cheaper to care for him at home.This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Brenda Eicher-Beard, in her 70s and living in Virginia. The following has been edited for length and clarity.I spent most of my career life in Maryland, but I moved to Virginia a decade ago because my daughter lives and works there.We kept our home in Maryland because we intended to return after helping with childcare. However, we ended up staying due to my husband's health declining, to be near my daughter for her assistance, and for the medical facilities and physicians.When my grandson was in kindergarten, my husband was in good health and helped with childcare while I continued to work. He picked him up from school and things like that. His health started to decline a bit in 2021, and we were trying to figure out a diagnosis. After seeing several different neurologists, the doctors said that he had atypical Parkinson's.He also had blood pressure issues that we were dealing with, and then he had a hemorrhagic stroke in January 2023, just a few months after the Parkinson's diagnosis, and I quit working. This fall I went back to work full time as a reading specialist to afford keeping him at home with private paid care.He never really took a day off workMy husband was a very healthy person. He never really took any time off from work. He was an athlete, went to college on a basketball scholarship, and was a teacher. He taught US history for decades and coached football and basketball. He was placed in the Maryland High School Coaches Hall of Fame for his football coaching.His stroke a few years ago has impaired him health-wise. They medevaced him from the local hospital to another. He was in intensive care for a month. Then he was in their stroke ward for several days before being in a rehabilitation hospital for a month.He came home, but went back into rehab a few months after. He had some other issues, but he's been home since then. Medicare was covering home healthcare for the first few months. It also covered occupational and physical therapy, but that ended in June 2025 based on the progress he had made. So I've been paying for home health and physical therapy; my husband no longer needs occupational therapy.We did speech therapy as an outpatient, but he was released from that. I paid privately for a speech therapist, but they're very limited, so it's hard to find. If Medicare does cover it, sometimes it's through an online call, which doesn't work for everybody, certainly not for older adults. We used money from selling our home because Medicare only covered so muchWe sold our home in Maryland in 2021, and we had some of those financial resources to use, but Medicare only covered so much. It covered a lot, don't get me wrong, but it stopped covering once he was out of the rehab hospital, and he did a little bit of therapy. To have more therapy, I had to pay individually. I was somewhat astounded that Medicare would stop paying, but they did.I guess I had the false conception of — my husband and I worked for school systems, we have a decent pension, we have Social Security, we have Medicare — Medicare would kind of come in and cover those things that we didn't. I worked for Baltimore County Public Schools for 30 years, and when I retired, they covered my health benefits until I reached Social Security and Medicare age. I just had no concept that Medicare wouldn't cover his nursing home care other than the initial 30 days of the rehab.We spend about $5,000 a monthI pay at least $240 a month for a private certified nursing assistant to come and assist with his showers. I was paying $140 an hour for physical therapy twice a week, but now paying $110 an hour for three times a week with a different company for an exercise physiotherapist. My husband can do limited walking with a walker and assistance. Working with the exercise physiotherapist allows my husband to stay home, because if he gets to the point where he's totally bedfast, I won't be able to take care of him by myself.Now that I work again in the education system, I'm basically there with him from 4:30 p.m. until I leave at 7:30 a.m. or 8 a.m. to come to school. I employ multiple caregivers, but only one would come for a day; the pay is from $20 an hour to $29 an hour for home healthcare in this area.We spent about $5,000 a month, with over $1,000 coming from physical therapy and the rest from other expenses, including the shower assistance and eight to nine hours a day for multiple caregivers. Since school was out in June, I paid very little for caregiving since I wasn't working. I'll be paying for more care again in July since I'll be getting surgery and need the help. I'll be working
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