Gary Barg, Editor-in-Chief
Question: what is the most important skill you need as a fearless and formidable caregiver? I know some will say it is the ability to communicate your needs with your loved ones, and honestly – that’s a good answer. But that’s not it.
Some would say that it is the ability to build your own personal care team from friends and family members in order to receive the care you and your love ones deserve, That’s a great one, but that’s not it.
Some would even say (to which I wholeheartedly agree) it is the ability to find the time to care for yourself within the whirlwind that is caregiving. And we all know how important that is for family caregivers. We tend to take ourselves out of the circle of care. We make sure that our loved ones get all the respite they need, but never give ourselves a break. We make sure that our loved ones have all the medical attention they need; yet forgo our own basic checkups. We make sure that our loved ones get the nutrition they need, but we only eat our meals ordered through a clown’s mouth from a fast food drive-through lane at midnight. An important answer, indeed, but that’s not it.
No, I think the most important skill we need as fearless and formidable family caregivers is the ability to ask questions. You may say “What?” And I would reply, “Exactly, nice job.”
It is imperative to not be afraid to ask any question of any member of your loved one’s care team without feeling afraid that they would think less of you for not already knowing the answer you seek. So many times, our entry into the world of healthcare comes with a phone call in the middle of the night; dad has fallen, the test results have come back, and they are not good or even that our loved one has been in an accident. Our world is instantly turned upside down, our plans shattered and suddenly we need to immediately become “CEO’s of our Loved Ones Care.” We have entered a world chock-filled with unfamiliar acronyms; HMO, PPO, ACA, DME, LMNOP, with healthcare professionals looking to us to make life and death decisions for our loved ones.
I truly believe that the best tools at our disposal at these times are the ability to stay calm (or at least, remembering to count to ten before speaking) and the ability to ask questions of everyone involved. Our Fearless Caregiver Conferences are, as we tell our speakers, the No PowerPoint, no speechifying and no pontification zones. We and our expert panelists are certainly in the room to teach and answer questions posed by our caregiving attendees, but, most important of all, to help caregivers learn how valuable it is to ask their questions.
At the events we have a moment we call the Question Tsunami. When we first ask for questions of the attendees – it takes a while for that first hand to raise, but after that questions is asked, more times than not, three or four caregivers in attendance respond with brilliant answers from their own experiences, as well as the answers given by the panelists, Then a sea of hands are raised as people think of the most important question they hadn’t asked anyone yet about their own caregiving.
Asking questions? Now that’s the answer.
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