In a caregiving role, you make decisions daily. Some decisions seem rather simple (toast with cereal?) and others fall in the category of very series (Do I call the doctor?). Even worse, you may feel that these decisions—from the simple to the series—are made in solitude. It’s you. It all rests on you. So, today, [...]
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NPR featured a segment yesterday morning called “Teary-Eyed Evolution: Crying Serves a Purpose” Reporter Allison Aubrey writes: Maybe good criers were survivors. “Crying seems to elicit compassion and guilt,” (says Jesse Bering, who directs the Institute of Cognition and Culture at Belfast University), “and that itself may be an evolved mechanism to save relationships in [...]
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Several months ago, I was looked at a very tall To Do list that had to be completed within a very short time period. I was going over my list with a few colleagues, who I had asked to help me make sure I had a plan in place to complete what needed to be [...]
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Maybe it’s something you’ve been doing for years for your caree, like transferring him or her from bed to commode or preparing a special pureed meal. But every time you face the bed or the blender, you think: I just wish this would get easier. Or, perhaps it’s a moment during the day that still [...]
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Yesterday, on Huffington Post, Eliezer Sobel wrote about how we use our time. He then related a story about recently reconnecting with a childhood acquaintance (he tormented her in the playground so you can’t really say they were friends). They exchanged updates; she visited his website which features his two published books. How accomplished you [...]
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Yesterday’s USA Today featured a Q&A interview with Gail Sheehy about her new book, “Passages in Caregiving,” and her experience caring for her husband. The interviewer asked Sheehy: “You write about caregivers who go solo and try to play God. Why does that backfire?” Sheehy answered, “As long as you are catching mistakes and bird-dogging [...]
Last Saturday, Donna Webb joined me on Your Caregiving Journey; we spoke about her caregiving experience, as well as her recovery from a pinched nerve. She spoke about an injury she sustained years ago which flared recently because of too much time in front of the computer and physical caregiving. As she spoke, a thought [...]
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Helping my mom put away groceries has become an eye-opening experience. Her cabinets are very organized; you can easily find what you need. All is organized by a caring hand. But then I watch my mom re-fill the napkin holder. She’ll grab a large stack of napkins and then shove, shove, shove the stack into [...]
Every week, in Tell Us, we talk about what you typically can’t talk about with just anyone. This week, we’re going to give the difficult emotions a break and talk about what we always seem to talk about: What’s for dinner. So, today, tell us: What’s for dinner tonight?
It could be something little but its impact on you is day-long: It makes you crabby. Perhaps it’s one caregiving task you must do, but doing it makes you crabby. Or, it could be an interaction with just one person who just makes you crabby. Or, it could be the thought of a situation or [...]
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