{"id":800102,"date":"2019-10-05T17:31:39","date_gmt":"2019-10-05T23:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=372456"},"modified":"2019-10-05T17:31:39","modified_gmt":"2019-10-05T23:31:39","slug":"lenkas-loving-care-provides-in-home-services-to-seniors-a-rarity-in-summit-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/lenkas-loving-care-provides-in-home-services-to-seniors-a-rarity-in-summit-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Lenka\u2019s Loving Care provides in-home services to seniors, a rarity in Summit County"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n

<\/p>

Lenka\u2019s Loving Care provides much-needed in-home senior care for Summit County seniors.<\/strong>
Photo courtesy of Lenka Lesmerisis<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Senior care in Summit County can be difficult to find<\/a>. Lack of senior care is one of the reasons many seniors have to seek care outside of the county, leaving their homes and potentially worsening memory and other cognitive conditions. Lenka Lesmerises, former owner of Lenka\u2019s Cleaning Service, recognized the need for senior care in Summit County through personal experience. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was helping elderly people on my own but I saw how huge the need was and I could never fulfill that on my own so that\u2019s when I took the step to get a license,\u201d Lesmerises said. <\/p>\n

Lesmerises received her official license for senior care services in June and now employs 16 caregivers. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe provide anything from companionship to personal care where we actually give them full on showers and feed them,\u201d Lesmerises said. \u201cAnything that can help them stay in their homes safely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lesmerises\u2019 services can also include housework that the client may not be able to complete themselves, cooking, help with daily activities like grooming and assistance on outings.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of our clients are still very active and we take them skiing and on hikes,\u201d Lesmerises said. <\/p>\n

The point of Lenka\u2019s Loving Care is to allow seniors to stay in their homes in Summit County if they so choose, as Lesmerises believes this is very important to retain memory, happiness and community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most amazing thing is to help someone die peacefully in their home with their family. I don\u2019t think people realize how important this is to elderly people to pass away on their own terms,\u201d Lesmerises said. <\/p>\n

Heather Gillis\u2019 mother, Ina Gillis, required in-home care at her home in Keystone\u2019s River Run. Ina Gillis was well known in the community as she had been involved with Keystone Resort for most of her life. Ina had lived in Keystone since 1971. Her husband was the mountain manager at the resort and Ina was a ski instructor for many years. <\/p>\n

When Ina got older, she stood at the bridge at Keystone that skiers and snowboarders pass before getting on the gondola to greet people. The bridge was named \u201cIna\u2019s Bridge\u201d in her honor in 2016. <\/p>\n

In-home care was important to the Gillis\u2019 due to Ina\u2019s strong connection to the area. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother had absolutely refused to go anywhere and she said that often. She loved this place, she\u2019s got a view of River Run trail from her house,\u201d Heather said. \u201cShe just absolutely loved it and we wanted to support that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heather said she found Lenka\u2019s Loving Care through another service she was using, which was about to end services in Summit County. <\/p>\n

\u201cLenka agreed to help us take care of mom and find other people that she trusted that could pull other shifts as well and for her, that sort of morphed into realizing that she wanted to build this into a business,\u201d Heather said. <\/p>\n

Heather explained that, at first, the care her mother required wasn\u2019t constant, it was simply someone being there to make sure she didn\u2019t fall or to help her if she did, but eventually Ina required 24\/7 care. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t have done it without her,\u201d Heather said. \u201cLenka was doing all the shopping and cooking her meals, keeping her entertained as best they could. All the caregivers were just phenomenal with mom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ina Gillis passed away this year on March 5 in her home, where she was with Heather and her sister. Heather said she was also visited by \u201cthree of her very favorite guys\u201d on the day she died, the last being John Buhler, former Keystone Ski Resort Chief. Ina died shortly after his visit, which Heather believes is no coincidence. <\/p>\n

\u201cMom lived a really good life and she loved the life she was living until the very end,\u201d Heather said. \u201cTo me, that\u2019s the most important thing that you can do for somebody is to give them a good goodbye\u2026 We literally could not have done it without Lenka and I would recommend her to anyone. She has so much integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to helping seniors towards the end of their life, Lenka\u2019s Loving Care provides relief for primary caregivers. Pam Piper, uses Lenka\u2019s Loving Care both for help with her husband and his health, as well as for her own health as the primary caregiver of a patient with dementia. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working with three different caregivers who come to the house and pitch in and do household things that I never would have imagined needed being done,\u201d Piper said as she recounted how the caregivers from Lenka\u2019s Loving Care helped plant flowers in the Piper\u2019s yard. <\/p>\n

Piper remarked that Lesmerises is \u201call heart\u201d and that her services are much-needed in Summit County. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey help us as we continue down this road that we didn\u2019t want to be on but here we are,\u201d Piper said. \u201cThe more I\u2019ve talked to people\u2026there\u2019s a tremendous amount of demand for these services in Summit County.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piper explained that with a diagnosis of a chronic progressive disease, there are many changes that need to be made in the household to care for the patient. In addition to the medical care Piper\u2019s husband needs, Piper said there are also legal actions that have to be taken, such as giving a caregiver power of attorney and environmental actions like installing grip handles and other safety features in the home. <\/p>\n

As these needs are addressed, Piper pointed out that caregiving is for her health as well. According to a 2003 study conducted by Ohio State University<\/a>, caregivers have a 63% higher mortality rate than their peers.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of what you would consider to be a normal everyday household we have kind of become a medical center. I am his primary caregiver as well as his wife. I need more and different kinds of help now that I didn\u2019t before,\u201d Piper said.<\/p>\n

Piper said having caregivers to help relieve her of her caregiving duties improves her quality of life allowing her to leave the house knowing her husband is taken care of. She also is able to depend on her days off, as Lesmerises schedules care-taking shifts in advance for the month.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so grateful that we do have a licensed home health care here in Summit. Prior to that the closest licensed home health care we found was in Eagle,\u201d Piper said.<\/p>\n

Due to the impacts the caregivers are able to have on families, Lesmerises said that many of her employees have expressed their appreciation for a truly meaningful job. She plans to hire more employees as she continues to see a larger need for senior care in Summit County and is working to find funding for more affordable care.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been in touch with every local agency that has anything to do with elderly people and we are starting to brainstorm the options. Right now there is a limited amount of grants available and we are looking into what could be done to help everyone in need no matter what their financial situation is,\u201d Lesmerises said in an email.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lenka\u2019s Loving Care provides much-needed in-home senior care for Summit County seniors.Photo courtesy of Lenka Lesmerisis Senior care in Summit County can be difficult to find. Lack of senior care is one of the reasons many seniors have to seek care outside of the county, leaving their homes and potentially worsening memory and other cognitive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-800102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 00:18:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}