My story
I write songs, and I run a home care company. It is one idea with two doors.
Teri Rosado is a songwriter with a Billboard number one as a writer, and the owner of the HomeWell Care Services franchise for Orlando with her partner Martin Mudd. She came to home care after her own cancer treatment, and she brings music into dementia and Alzheimer's care.
Growing up with music
There was always somebody singing in my house, and nobody in my house was a professional. That is the important part. Music was not a career in front of me, it was the thing you did while you cooked, while you cleaned, while you waited for news.
I started writing because I could not stop rewriting other people's songs in my head. Eventually one of mine went further than I expected and ended up a Billboard number one, recorded by a Latin artist. That credit opened doors I am still walking through.
The cancer year and what it changed
Then I got sick. I am not going to make that year sound like a lesson, because it was mostly waiting rooms and fear. What I will say is that I wrote through it, and that being on the receiving end of care taught me more than any training could.
I learned what it feels like when somebody rushes you. I learned what it feels like when somebody sits down first. I learned that the difference between those two is the whole business.
Why I started a home care company
Martin and I took on the HomeWell Care Services franchise for the Orlando area. Non medical in home care: companionship, personal care, respite so a family caregiver can sleep, and support in the weeks after a hospital stay.
People assume the music is the passion and the care is the job. It is closer to the other way round. The care company is where I get to do the thing the song was about, every single day, for people I have met.
The song, and the messages that followed
I wrote one song during treatment as a gift for myself. I put it out without expecting much. What came back were messages from women my age telling me about their own year, their own diagnosis, their own family who did not know what to say.
That is when the two halves of my life stopped feeling separate.
What I am building now
Personal music sessions for seniors and families, including people living with dementia. Live afternoons in assisted living and memory care communities around Orlando. And a care business that answers the phone.
I am also a dreamer, and I will admit the next idea out loud: we have two dogs, and a lot of the people we sit with cannot keep a pet any more. So music and dogs. That is where this is going.
If any of that sounded like your family, start with one call.
Tell me what is happening at home. I will tell you honestly whether we are the right people, and what it would cost.