Where Grief Takes Us: A Caregiver’s Journey Living with Loss
Somehow I knew I had to walk through that grief. I couldn’t work it away, or ignore it, or pretend it wasn’t there.
Mortality, Loss, and Finding Peace
Dealing with the loss of a loved one is emotional torture. It can be wretched. Almost violent in its disruption especially when loss comes as a surprise. Death can be insufferable for those who are left behind and therefore mortality as a topic is generally...
Grief: loneliness, some things aren’t meant to be
Five years post Annie’s death, I still can’t accept what I know I must. The loneliness just hangs around me like a fog. Although the darkness has subsided, I feel like I’ve been wandering in overcast skies now, for what seems like an eternity. And...
Grief or relief, what is it?
“Carol, I’m so sorry about your dad,” people told me after he died. “I’m sure you miss him.” They were right. I missed him terribly. But, my dad had, effectively, died on an operating table ten years before. The man we just buried was my dad, yet not really. The pain...
Headaches? It might be caregiver burnout
Headaches & facial pain caused by emotional distress Case Study: Joan* Joan was referred to my office due to her daily headaches and facial pain that had continued to get worse despite taking over-the-counter medication on a daily basis and treating herself to a...
Managing caregiver’s guilt
February 13, 2014. The day I became a caregiver. That was the day Jeff came home following nearly seven months spent in three hospitals after his spinal cord injury. Of course I had been preparing for my role of caregiver for months. The nurses, therapists, and staff...Caregiving addiction: It’s more real than you might think!
On November 2nd, 2010, I lost my wife Annie to a blood cancer. As Annie’s caregiver for thirty months, we were always looking over our shoulders, dealing with a prognosis that was exceeded within the first three weeks of her diagnosis. So I was always dealing...Do I look like I’m dying? A caregiver and the cancer trap
In the summer of 2007, my wife Annie started suffering from fatigue and pain in her legs. In the evenings before we went to bed, I would sit on one end of our couch and she would lay down with her head at the opposite end stretching her legs out so I could massage...
Thanksgiving moments: Coming of age in unsteady times
Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. Most years when I was a kid, we packed up the station wagon and drove north to central Maine, where my dad’s cousin and her family lived in a rambling farmhouse surrounded by wooded acres and winding roads. The...
My mom. She lived. She died. She’s here.
I’m not good with talking about my emotions publicly, openly, and without hesitation. I’m not good at feeling angry or upset or confused. I’m not good at knowing that my life is changed forever. What I am good at, though, is realizing that just because my life is...Caregiver Stories: Sarah LaFave of Lori’s Hands
Sarah LaFave writes about the love and care she and her mother exchanged when their family had to deal with breast cancer … when Sarah and her brother, Brett, were still children.
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