What do I have to complain about?
Moan, moan, moan. YOU’RE NOT ALONE, friends soothe. It doesn’t help, you know — telling me. I know friends mean well offering pop-in help and I am grateful, truly, but fact is David and I are adrift alone in a sea of day to day survival. Try a caregiver’s life for...
My life: Catherine F
What’s your life really like? So many caregivers are out there feeling like no one understands what they’re going through…but we suspect quite a few of you are going through similar things. February 3rd marked a year since my husband passed away....
Blink once for yes
A family and their home health aids tells the story of their brother (and son) jumping off his balcony and sustaining a TBI. They’ll never know what caused him to do it. What happens next? What choices did they have to make about his care? How do they keep him...
Never stop hugging: Don’t treat the dying like porcelain dolls
Though I had been keeping track of my mother’s weight and vital signs like some people analyze the statistics of their fantasy football players, I was still unprepared when I saw my mother’s emaciated body in person. How much weight could one lose in a month? A lot,...
Feeling human
“I can’t be angry.” Well I sure can. That is what I responded in my head when she told me it was cancer. I remember that evening eight years ago as if it were a moment a go. I pulled up to her house; she got in the car and told me what the doctor said. She had a book...
End of life care: What is it, when does it start
With “End of Life” care swirling around in news releases these days, and from all the information I’ve read, I was wondering how many of you actually know what end of life care is and “when it starts.” It’s a valid question, one...
Medical marijuana: Leveling the playing field
As a first time caregiver, and a person that was never around anyone that had cancer, being thrust into the position of caring for Annie on a full time basis was undoubtedly the most difficult thing I’d ever done or will do over my life time. I didn’t know...
“I’m not used to being disabled yet.”
Two years ago my husband’s aorta dissected. He was literally bleeding to death and Mayo Clinic surgeons operated on him three times in a desperate attempt to save his life. During the third operation my husband had a spinal stroke that paralyzed his legs. The surgeons...
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...
Pain and the perfect love
By now, my previous writing gives a clear indication of the complexities of a nasty cancer, and speaks to the ebb and flows of emotions. At times I felt like I was caught in a tug of war between two different worlds–the world of pain and suffering, and the world...
Meet Judith H: Caregiver, Memoirist
I’m 61 years old and will soon be publishing my first book about caring for aging parents. It’s entitled, The Dutiful Daughter’s Guide to Caregiving: A Practical Memoir. I’m a writer, a teacher, a friend, a sister, an ex-wife, a pet parent, and always a daughter,...
Showing the “self” some love (in the smallest of gestures)
In the early Brooklyn morning, I slide out of bed careful not to wake my partner. Donning a hooded sweatshirt I walk down the hall to the living room and stand by the street side window absorbing the day in wait. I take my seat. My eyes gently shut. I notice the...
Teachable Moments
When my husband’s tumor was first discovered, our children were only ages 9, 7, and 5. They were really too young to be kept in the loop about what was happening, and we went out of our way to hide it all. They were too young to hear about doctors, illness, tests, and...Erase
Rabbis Phyllis and Michael Sommer’s son, Sam, was diagnosed with AML (acute myelogenous leukemia). Phyllis shared her experience on her blog, Superman Sam. At the end of October 2013, Rabbis Phyllis Sommer and Rebecca Schorr had a crazy idea: what if thirty-six...
A Caregiver’s Promise
My husband was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the hospital. He had been there for three weeks, anesthetized, hooked up to monitors, unaware of his condition or what was going on in life. His “wound,” as the medical team called it, was a giant surgical scar that...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... Caregiver Profile: Andra H.
Who is a caregiver? Nearly 1/3 of Americans serve as family caregivers and millions more serve as paid professional caregivers. The Caregiver Space is sharing their stories. Meet Andra I’m 44 and engaged to the love of my life! Mom to one daughter. I love life...
Dealing with discouragement
My husband is disabled and I am his caregiver. After months of searching we finally bought a used wheelchair van. While we were thinking of buying a wheelchair van we were also thinking of the places we would go. I took my husband out for his first venture into the...
A Memorial for the Living: Don’t Wait to Celebrate Your Loved One’s Life
How many times have you sat in a memorial service and thought, “I only wish that he (or she) could be here to take all of this in”?
One Hundred Names for Love: Caregiving, Stroke, Language and Marriage
In her memoir, “One Hundred Names for Love,” Diane Ackerman looks at her own caregiving story through a microscopic viewfinder and provides the reader with enough anecdotal data to publish a study on what it means to be a caregiver. It is a deeply personal, honest, and moving narrative—a close-up look at another caregiver’s life, a perspective we rarely see.
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