Caregiver

    Caregiver = Angel

    Approximately one year ago I learned what it was really like to be a caregiver and the receiver of care. In December of 2007 I had ankle surgery and was told by the Doctor that I couldn’t put weight on the ankle for six weeks. As a result I was confined to a wheelchair and a walker ( I had a terrible time using crutches) I needed help taking a shower, getting into the bathroom, couldn’t negotiate stairs and generally had a difficult time taking care of myself.

    I was home and away from work for over a month. During that period of time my wife had the primary responsibility of taking care of me.  I learned how frustrating it was to be relatively helpless. But more important than that I realized the pressure I put on my wife to take care of me. Every time I needed something I expected her to be immediately available to get it for me. I often found myself calling out her name ( sometimes yelling it) and waiting for her to arrive to fulfill my request. One time when she was in the basement washing clothes I yelled her name for a good twenty minutes. I thought she had left the house and gone somewhere,  I panicked.  I found that I often became irritable and grumpy when it took her more than a few minutes to respond.

    Our caregiving experience only lasted about 30 days. I  imagined what it would be like if Mary had needed to take care of me for months and even years. Then I thought of some of my client families with one spouse debilitated by a stroke, Parkinson’s Disease or dementia.  And of course you know who the caregiver is 90% of the time. It is a wife, daughter or daughter in law. How many of us men would have the stamina and patience to take care of a spouse or our parents?

    These women are angels. They take better care of their parents and husbands than themselves. But unfortunately this takes a toll. They often have to leave the workplace to take care of a family member. As a result they often lose income, retirement benefits and seniority inside their company. But worse than that they often suffer physically from being a caregiver. Stress and physical exhaustion takes it’s toll, often making them sicker than those they take care of.

    We must take care of these angels, our wives, daughters and daughters in law. Because we know that they would take care of us.

    Four Steps to help a Dying Parent

    Few of us know what to do or what to say to our parents and loved ones who are close to death. We often try to avoid all discussions about the topic and take the easy way out, falsely reassuring them that they are doing well and will get better. Recently I read a book entitled Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying by Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley which has given me new insights into the process of dying, what to listen for, what to say and what to expect from our parents who are about to die.

    Callanan and Kelley have tended to the terminally ill for more than a decade as hospice nurses. In their book, they relate many touching stories of their experiences with patients at the end of life. Through these stories, I began to appreciate the many ways that the dying communicate their needs, reveal their feelings and even choreograph their final moments.

    The authors pose a very important question: “ Is it possible to find anything positive in this devastating event?  Can this remaining time be used to share treasured moments of living, while coping with the many losses death brings?”  Here are four recommendations they make that will help you:

    1. Dying people often share messages through symbols or suggestions that we often misinterpret as “hallucinations” or “confusion.” These messages fall into two categories: attempts to describe what they are experiencing while dying or a request for something they need for a peaceful death. Pay attention to everything they say. There may be an important message in any communication however vague or garbled.

    2. Your parent should get as much information as she wants about the changes taking place in her body and the likely scenarios of her death. She should be given the opportunity to maintain some control over her life by making decisions about medication, treatments and even the site of her death.

    3. In the last days of her life, your parent will probably go through five stages of dying, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Don’t try to give advice or solutions. Just listen and accept.

    4. Don’t be afraid to talk about death with your parent. Avoiding the subject may be interpreted as not caring. Don’t force the topic if they’re not ready to talk about it. But don’t shy away from it either. You might open with a question like, “Can you tell me what’s happening?” Don’t worry about saying the wrong thing. Remember, what is often harder to forgive is the failure to do or say anything.

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    Reprinted from Bob Mauterstock’s The Gift of Communication Blog. Subscribe at http://www.GiftofCommunication.com  and receive Bob’s Family Meeting Checklist Guide.

    Alzheimer’s Children

    I used to visit my mom at least twice a week. She had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and used to live in an assisted living community dedicated to memory-impaired residents before she passed away. When I would see her, she often commented that everything was mixed up, that she couldn’t remember anything and that she was very frustrated. I would sit opposite her and acknowledge her frustration but couldn’t really say that I understood what she was going through because I didn’t.

    When I was with her, I would try to put myself in her place. What if I tried to remember my spouse’s death but couldn’t remember when it was, if I was at the funeral or what the cause of death was? What if I searched my memory and couldn’t remember if I had one or two children and didn’t know where they were born? Imagining this situation would make me very anxious.  I would ask myself the question, “If I no longer have a past, do I have an identity? Would I become a non-entity?”

    Certainly my mother didn’t disappear during this time. She was a warm, loving presence in her community. Everyone who knew who she was commented on her friendly disposition and her sense of humor. It is interesting to note that once she began to lose her memory, she became a warmer, more caring person. She was very thankful for any show of kindness by anyone in her community and was so happy when I would come to see her.

    Perhaps there is a valuable lesson here. Doesn’t our memory often define who we are? When we are faced with a decision, don’t we usually look back in our past and see how we handled it before? Or, when we are in a challenging situation, don’t we often determine what we will do based on our success or failure in similar situations in the past?

    Isn’t this approach to life very much like driving on the road  looking in the rear view mirror? How much of our experience is actually new and fresh? Or is it mostly a rehash of what we’ve done before? With this perspective, I have begun to look at memory in a new way. If I had no memory, wouldn’t each experience be interesting and unique? Wouldn’t it be very much like a young child facing life for the first time?

    Perhaps we should begin to look at Alzheimer’s patients as those who live life totally in the present. When is it that they begin to accept their inability to recall events and live life totally now? And when they are able to do that, doesn’t life become a never-ending new experience with no barriers or limitations?

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    PERMISSION TO REPRINT:
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    Financial Advisors may reprint any articles from The Gift of Communication Blog in your own print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph:

    Reprinted from Bob Mauterstock’s The Gift of Communication Blog. Subscribe at http://www.GiftofCommunication.com  and receive Bob’s Family Meeting Checklist Guide.