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CDS Guest Blog: Independent Living

Rick Frame

June 16, 2014

Independence... few appreciate that word as much as those who have lost even the most basic independence. For my first 36 years, I led a wonderfully ordinary life, being perfectly able-bodied and fiercely independent. Then it happened; in the blink of an eye, that was all taken away, just like it has been for so many others. I was cast into a whole new world, a world where my independence was gone and I would have to be taken care of by someone else.

After leaving the hospital, I had to decide how I wanted to live my new life. I could either live in a nursing home, where staff would take care of me and I would lose any independence I might've had left. Or, if I was able, live at home and receive my care from a home health agency. Neither option sounded great, but I knew I wanted to go home.

Taking care of a quadriplegic is a lot of work, and I found out that home health agencies paid aides the same rate, whether they were doing every task imaginable for me or just sitting with me, making lunch, and maybe doing a load of laundry. As you can imagine, finding someone to take care of me wasn't easy. The agency would send anyone they could hire for the job, even if he/she didn’t have any idea how to help me. The first person they sent sat in a chair and refused to touch me. The second only had experience as a delivery truck driver. This was not working out; there had to be another option.

I learned about a service delivery option called Consumer Directed Services or CDS. It was designed to save the state money by allowing a person to live at home and manage his or her own attendant care. The state would set a budget for the individual's care, as long as the cost was less than the care that was given in a nursing home. The ability for a person to remain in his/her own home is a huge step towards regaining some lost independence and the CDS program complements that by allowing him/her to hire and manage his/her own caregivers.

When I first learned about CDS, it wasn't available in Texas, but I didn't have long to wait. Now in operation since 1999, CDS is the answer to the desire of many Texans with disabilities to be more independent and self-sufficient. Indeed, today, I manage my own capable and reliable attendants from my own home (pictured left, Rick with attendant "Sparkles").