News & Impact

Over their many years together, Jim and Dale became known as a San Francisco couple you could count on: to take part in campaigns for LGBT rights, to help friends living with—or dying of—HIV, and to support their city’s many cultural and athletic institutions. “I taught Dale to love football,” says Jim, 77, an ex-jock and Air Force vet, “and he taught me to love the ballet.”

But as Jim and Dale, who is 69, have gotten older, they have had to face their share of infirmities. Jim has congestive heart failure, osteoporosis, and many other physical ailments. Over the past dozen years, he has had at least as many surgeries, including a quadruple bypass. Following a serious operation Jim needed last year, the couple knew that they needed extra help at home.

“The situation was overwhelming,” says Dale, who suffers from a bad back and was recently hospitalized himself. “Jim couldn’t walk, and I didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone at home if I needed to go out.”

Remembering the information he had received from Jim’s skilled nursing facility about at-home care services, Dale reached out to Seniors At Home, JFCS’ senior care division, for needed support. The agency’s home care aide who assisted the couple helped Jim with activities of daily living, such as dressing, grooming, and getting out of his wheelchair, as well as with his exercises to speed his recovery. He also relieved Dale of domestic responsibilities that had become too difficult for him to manage on his own.

During the couple’s ordeal, a Seniors At Home palliative care manager also consulted with them closely—visiting them and talking to them regularly by phone—to assess their situation and to make sure that Jim was not experiencing serious discomfort.

A couple for more than 37 years, Jim and Dale are grateful for the care that Seniors At Home provided. They are also heartened by Jim’s progress and are happy to report that he is walking again on his own.