When Roles Reverse: A Guide to Parenting Your Parents

After his father suffered a massive stroke and his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Jim Comer found himself an overnight "parent" at the age of 51. When he walked into his father's hospital room everyone looked to him as the "man who knew all the answers." He soon realized he didn't even know the questions.

In ten years of caregiving, Comer has not only learned the questions he has lived them, and with When Roles Reverse he shares his hard-won answers.

He learned to deal with hospitals, insurance companies, rehab centers, his father's deafness and his mother's dementia. Through it all Jim has kept his sanity and sense of humor, in the process forging a deeper, more intimate relationship with his parents.

With laugh-out-loud humor, Jim deals with improvisational moments for which there is no preparation:

You find three gallons of Scotch in your dad's retirement home closet;

Your Mother refuses to leave her home of 34 years and can only be coaxed into the car with promises of ice cream;

At a crowded Sunday dinner table, your father announces that he wants you to give him an enema after lunch . . .

And offers personal experience and expert insight on the many issues it's absolutely essential to plan for such as:

Wills, powers of attorney, and other legal documents every family needs

Which siblings will be there when your parents need them?

Selecting a first-rate care facility and getting long-term care insurance

New Medicaid guidelines and how to qualify

Hospice care and end-of-life decisions

When Roles Reverse even includes "Fifty Questions that will save you Time, Money, and Tears," a special section designed to help families initiate vital communication and prepare for the crises, confusion and unexpected joys of caregiving.

Jim Comer has appeared on The Today Show, written jokes for Bob Hope and Joan Rivers, and worked as a speech coach and creative consultant for Fortune 500 companies for twenty years.

Jim Comer went from no involvement in running his parents? lives to complete control over their affairs after his father suffered a massive stroke and his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Determined to get his mother closer to him and his father's hospital, he told her they were going for ice cream, and they drove away from her home of thirty-four years as if going on an errand. What to do with their house and fifty-five years of mementos? How to figure out their finances? When Roles Reverse merges Jim's warm, often humorous, story with practical advice and well-researched resources to create an indispensable guide for anyone faced with caring for aging parents, relatives, or friends.

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