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Julia Child, one and all
Last week's Fearless Caregiver Conference
held in Port St. Lucie, Florida created such positive energy
that I think the conference center is still spinning. Douglas
Beach, Florida's Secretary of Elder Affairs, graciously joined
us and responded to every question that was posed to him by our
audience of intrepid caregivers. Wow, I think that any White
House spokesperson would be glad these weren't the members of
the press he or she had to regularly face. To Secretary Beach's
credit, he answered every question honestly and directly, even
if there were no great solutions to the concerns about the
dwindling resources we are facing around the nation. And as the
caregivers told me later, they truly appreciated his candor.
As I was standing in the doorway at the end
of the day, an attendee told me that she got the answers she was
looking for concerning stress management and that she'd be back
next year. Moments later, another attendee told me that her
only disappointment with the conference had been that she did
not find the "magic bullet" she was looking for regarding
stress. Yes, she had learned about the importance of managing
her stress, how to get her family members to help, and how other
members of the audience successfully dealt with their own stress
and depression, but she felt that there was no one magic bullet
and for that she was disappointed.
I thought about what she had said for a
moment and realized that actually all of the ingredients for her
own stress reduction recipe was in fact to be found throughout
the day's proceedings. She just had to pick and choose which
would work for her. Of course there is no one magic bullet for
every caregiver, but rather there was the opportunity to create
her personal recipe for stress management or if I may, "Stressipe."
All she had to do was pick the ingredients off the shelves
throughout the day.
There was the caregiver who spoke of the
value of her support group, or the gentlemen who discovered his
artistic talents, the family member who learned to take a
"Mental Bubble Bath." These are all ingredients for the lady
standing in front of me to choose from in order to create her
very own signature dish. She thought about that for a while,
smiled and said, "You know, I think I'll be back next year too."
As far as I'm concerned, there can never be
enough cooks in this kitchen.
Take care
Gary Barg
Editor-in-Chief
gary@caregiver.com
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Additional
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Enjoying the holidays as a caregiver includes letting go
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Caregiver Story |
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Remembering Mimi and Learning
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Sometimes we can look to our past to learn how to find
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Caretips |
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Holiday
Stress and Caregiving
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By
Michael Plontz
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While everyone else is enjoying the hustle and bustle and the joy of
the holiday season, there are many caregivers out there who just want the
whole thing over with.
....Continued
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Carenotes |
Hi, I'm M and I'm in Arizona. Mom isn't in a stage for anything
that I'm aware of, but I still think something is going on.
There is an emotion growth that's been stunted, (in my opinion)
at about 12 years old, and she seems to get worse the older she
gets. Both my grandmother and her sister died with advanced
mental impairments but not Alz. "Old age" the doctors said. I
think something's going on because I can see mom getting worse.
My own mental processes have slowed, which is making me think
something genetic is going on.
I think I'm just tired. I go to work, mom works, too, and I come
home to do more work. Mom doesn't clean. She doesn't do much of
anything. I sometimes work weekends, so I'll ask her to do the
laundry. When I get home, half of it is still sitting there.
Dishes pile up next to her chair. She'll go into the kitchen,
not taking the dishes with her, and get something else to pile
up. Spills remain spilled.
The living room was torn apart this weekend because we got rid
of an old raggy couch and put in something else. The room
remained torn apart. I got home from work last night, took one
look at it, and almost cried. Mom acted like an 8yr old who knew
she did something wrong. I huffed and puffed and stomped around
for a while, over-ruled my OCD, and refused to start cleaning. I
sat at my computer, put the headphones on, and ignored her. When
I calmed down a little, I cleaned the kitchen only because I
selfishly wanted to make myself something to eat and wanted the
counters at least manageable. She finally got up and grunted and
groaned her way to doing a small section at a time of the living
room.
What I really wanted to do was to get back into the car and go
find a forest and hug a tree.
Thanks for listening,
M
Answer This Week's CareNote:
carenotes/2007/index.htm
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