At 65, she's her 84-year-old mom's sole caregiver — and it's the hardest job she's ever had

Carla Romagnano is in her 60s. She works full time as a bookkeeper for a grocery chain, a job she has held for 45 years. When she comes home, her second shift starts: caring for her 84-year-old mother, who lives with her in Idaho.

"Caregiving is the hardest job I've ever had," she said.

Her mom broke her femur in a fall in 2022 and was diagnosed with dementia around the same time. Romagnano and her father initially split the caregiving duties. He died of sepsis shortly after they put the family home on the market. The packing and moving fell to her.

"I don't know how I packed that house," she said. "I would get up at 7 a.m. and go to bed at midnight."

She promised her father she would not put her mom in a nursing home unless it was absolutely necessary. "It's not yet," she said.

Romagnano sleeps on the couch every night, just outside her mother's bedroom door. She has done so for almost three years. A monitor in her own bedroom would not get her there fast enough if her mom tried to get up in the night, she said. Her mother uses a walker and is at risk of falls.

"I'm not going to chance it by being across the hall or down the hall and not be able to get to her in time," Romagnano said.

Her mom has a commode in the bedroom. If she needs help, she calls out. Romagnano is right outside the door.

An in-home caregiver comes during the day while Romagnano works. Consistency matters for her mother, she said. When the regular caregiver cannot make it, they skip that day rather than introduce a new face.