Comer Communications

Jim Comer's parents were independent, capable people, people who met life's challenges head-on with diligence and good humor.

Then one day, literally overnight, they couldn't do it anymore. Jim's bestselling book "When Roles Reverse" is the story of how he returned home to Texas to pay back his parents for the love and support they showed him. With laugh-out-loud humor, touching stories and many pages of practical advice, the book chronicles how an adult child learns to care for his elderly parents and provide Alzheimer's support.

Jim got a call in California from his parents’ next-door neighbor that his father was his 86-year-old father was wandering on the sidewalk in front of their home in a daze and seemed to be having a stroke.  Caring for his wife, who had Alzheimer’s, had taken its toll.  Within hours, Jim was on a plane to Dallas, an instant caregiver at the age of 51.

 “I was an adult with my own life, and I hadn’t lived in Texas for years.  I knew nothing about nursing the elderly.  As I got off the plane to become a caregiver to my parents for the first time, I realized ‘I don’t know how to do this!’ But there was never any question that I would do it.  I’d heard that children don’t come with an owner’s manual – neither do parents!”  After four months of making weekend round-trips to Texas, Jim realized he couldn’t care for his elderly parents from a thousand miles.

 Over the past 14 years Jim Comer learned the ins and outs of caring for elderly parents.  Now he shares all of it with you in his bestselling book When Roles Reverse.  It combines heartwarming and humorous story, as well as interviews with experts on elder law, hospice care, long term care insurance and other important basics for the caregiver.  This advice can save you thousands of dollars and lots of stress.  The book is not just about Jim Comer paying back his parents — it’s the story of how you can come through for your parents, too.

 Jim urges readers to get the conversation going long before there is a crisis.  Planning ahead is essential for everyone’s peace of mind.  One of the most and useful chapter in When Roles Reverse is “Fifty Questions That Will Save You Time, Money and Tears.”  Comer recommends you sit down with your parents and go through the questions and write the answers in the space provided.  Having the information you need and knowing want your parents want and don’t want is an excellent start to meeting the challenges ahead.

 When Roles Reverse is not just Jim Comer’s Story – it could be your story, too

What impressed Jim the most as he took care of his elderly parents was how universal the issue is.  Many friends and acquaintances came to Jim for advice about issues and difficult decisions they had to make as the “sandwich generation” struggling to do right by their kids and their parents.  So Jim interviewed some of the leading experts in the field, collecting all the information along with every lesson he learned along the way, including mistakes and  triumphs, and put it into the second half of When Roles Reverse.  It is a useful “how to manual” that will, in Jim’s words, “save you time, money and tears.”   

Here is the table of contents for the second half of the book:

 

  Fifty Questions That Will Save You Time, Money and Tears

 

  Section 1: Caring For Your Parents: There’s No One Right Way

  ·        Home Care

  ·        The Continuum of Care: Overview of Long-Term Care Facilities

  ·        Retirement Homes

  ·        Assisted Living

  ·        Nursing Homes: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

  ·        Hospice: A compassionate Approach to Living and Dying

  Section 2: What You Don’t Know Will Hurt You: Legal and Financial Issues

  ·        Elder Law Attorneys

  ·        Documents Every Family Needs

  ·        Long-Term-Care Insurance

  ·        Funeral Planning: Get It In Writing

  Section 3: Resources: Finding The Help You Need

  ·        Geriatric Care Managers

  ·        Area Agencies On Aging

  ·        Medicare and Medicaid Billing

  ·        Veterans Benefits

  ·        National Agencies

  ·       Local Resources on Aging