Margaret Bayer

Margaret and Andy were in their mid-60s when they met online. Their first date was a two-hour lunch, which was followed by a second date of dinner and dancing to the music of the Beatles. Over the next five years, they would get married and travel across Europe, where Andy was respected for his academic research. 

Then Andy began to experience falls and decreased mobility. He was diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s disease and other health challenges that eventually required full time care. 

For the next several years, Margaret and Andy adjusted their lives to allow for Andy to remain at home. But his health continued to decline—and with it, his independence. 

After an eight-week hospital stay in August 2023 after Andy broke his arm, he was assessed as needing a long term care placement. 

Throughout the years of caring for Andy, Margaret’s own health has frayed. She suffers from arthritis in her spine and experiences back spasms. She also has an autoimmune condition that is exacerbated by stress. Caring for her partner while managing her own needs as she ages has been very challenging; the supports she needs are not always there. Her lowering energy levels impede her visits to see Andy or transport him. “We have an agreement—if he falls, I call for help. I do not try to get him up,” she says. 

Margaret would like to see a health-care system in which caregivers feel seen and valued instead of feeling, as she says, “invisible unless [they make themselves] visible.” She notes that “in the past five years, not one doctor or nurse has asked me how [how she is] doing, and it has contributed to [her] feeling isolated.” 

Margaret has joined a support group for caregivers which has proven vital to her. Together they discuss their own mental, physical and spiritual needs. She sees an opportunity within the caregiver organization to offer meditation and exercise classes, and counselling to help caregivers deal with the loss of the life they imagined living with their partners, in Margaret’s case, travel, music and theatre. 

Still, Andy is at the centre of her world. “Love carries you through. It is the thread that binds, and it is an important piece to keep alive,” she says. “I am lucky that Andy can still express gratitude for what I do. That makes it all worthwhile.”