Re-Use the Basic Stuff as Needed

Caregivers take different routes to this calling. Some are thrust into it suddenly, some see it coming like impending disaster, and some volunteer for it. I doubt that anybody sees all the trouble they signed up for when they took the job. Once we’re in the middle of the work, most of us see that we’ve bitten off, if not more than we can chew, more than we thought we bit off. That realization almost always...

Things Caregivers Need to Watch

As caregivers, we learn what to monitor so we can judge just how well our caree is doing. We learn to take temperature, blood pressure and blood sugar, how to count respiration in breaths per minute, to measure food and liquid intake, urine and stool output. All this measuring is designed to tell us how our caree is doing. You can take CNA classes to learn what you don’t already know. But they don’t...

Contingency Plans Rarely Work

So many family caregivers are the only support option for the carees we serve. While other family members usually exist, they tend to be too far away, too busy, or too something else to be of value when they’re really needed. The other day, I was handing Lisa a cup of coffee. I was standing and she was seated on the floor leaning against the sofa for support. It turns out that there’s a tiny spot on my...

Before You Judge Their Behavior . . .

Family caregivers do an awful lot for their carees. Even the most thoughtless and insensitive caree has to agree with this. But one of the really tough things for us to deal with is the irrational response of our caree to the assistance we offer. When she was alive, my mother-in-law used to sometimes have the most assaultive responses to things I did for her that were not done perfectly, or in accordance with...

What is Our Primary Responsibility?

(Editor’s Note: Today, we welcome a second new blogger, Jonathan, who cares for his wife and cared for his mother-in-law.) With all the video out there garnering viewership and making money for people, it’s hard to sort through the reviews designed to benefit the reviewer or make money for a friend from those that actually sing the praises of good work. Oprah went nuts over a movie called “Eat, Pray,...

How Big Your Caregiving Role Makes You

I had a friend who married a man who bragged about his big house. To him, a big house made him a big man. In our society, my friend’s husband isn’t the only one who measures bigness by the size of material possessions. Because of your caregiving role, you may feel that you’ve sacrificed one material possession after another, perhaps to the extent that you feel you have very little. The savings account for the...

Helping Your Care Recipient Feel Helpful

Several years ago, I worked for a social service organization in Hunterdon County, N.J. I managed several programs that assisted the county’s elderly persons as well as their family caregivers. One of the programs, Volunteer Friendly Visitors, matched volunteers with homebound seniors; the volunteers would make at least one monthly visit to the senior. I had two seniors, in particular, in great need of...