Welcome to 2012!!!

Feels good to start a new year off fresh! This blog has been through a number of changes in the past few years and now I am launching yet another change.

The focus will be wellness of the caregiver. There is so much that a caregiver has to do and I want to pat each and everyone on the back. It is a selfless job that is very rewarding and very demanding.

For that reason I will use this forum as a "happy place", if you will, for caregivers to find peace and solace. A place to recuperate and renew from the stressful, day-to-day of caregiving. Caregivers give a lot of themselves and sometimes forget about taking care of themselves. It can feel selfish and self-centered but it is important to take needed time to tend to your well being.

Each month this blog will feature a different aspect of well being that aids at calming our hectic lives. Articles and links to cites that can be of further help will be mentioned here along with stories and products that promote relaxation.

Some of the sample themes will be:

• Music relaxation therapy
• Aroma therapy
• Exercise for relaxation
• Proper diet to relieve stress

I will also feature my own personal art along with relaxation tapes and book reviews.

Please visit often and share your thoughts or concerns.

Focus on Care Givers!!!!

It's hard to believe that I have had such a long absence from this blog but it's true!!!

Reason? Care giving and life are very difficult! Simply put, during the course of taking care of things LIFE gets in the way. But not in a gloomy way. I have had the chance to pursue care giving from several angles and I have discovered many things about me along the way.

I first started this emotional journey based on my personal experiences dealing with a loved one that was slowly passing away in front of my eyes. I fought with how to give her dignity and a sanctuary at this stressful time. I was not able to do much for her but I developed a desire to help other families with this difficult struggle.

And over the past three years I was able to investigate just how people actually handle the subject. Needless to say it was very eye opening. Depending on the relationship with the sick or impaired person, the care giver had to face things about themselves that they probably were not ready to handle and to a certain extent the care giver became a patient.

Some viewed the situation as a time to make amends for every wrong they may have committed in the past and others viewed it as an opportunity for revenge. There was extreme heroism and extreme anger and resentment. The full range of human emotion was unleashed and it began to dawn on me that care giving is not a "one-size-fits-all" subject easily relegated to changing a wall color. The needs of both the patient and the care giver needs to be addressed seriously and simultaneously in order to work properly.

So now the focus will lean more towards the need of the care giver. After all, let's face it, most are thrown unwittingly into the situation without the slightest bit of training and forethought.

The most important lesson to take away from this is that the care giver must, MUST, take care of themselves, FIRST before attempting to take care of someone else.

Let me know what you think.

Des

Book Review: Memory Lessons, A Doctor's Story

I recently had the opportunity to review Memory Lessons, A Doctor's Story. Through the pages of this book a doctor describes his father's experience with Alzheimers.

Leonard Winakur's words "Let that be a lesson to you", ring our loud and strong in this loving memoir of a relationship that although unique is common to all of us - the changing responsibilities and the shifts in roles as we, our parents, and society in general ages-in-place.

Many people prefer to have their heads in the sand hoping they will never have to cope with the issues that are raised in Memory Lessons. Unfortunately to a greater or lesser extent we will all have to face some form of age related care, whether giver or recipient, so we ALL need to be prepared.

What I found so touching was the perspective of someone you would think would have all the advantages, a doctor, who could handle the aging process with supernatural knowledge and skirt the mistakes that the average person would walk into blindly. However, that was not the case and the candid admission of this journey is sobering.

All should take note and act shrewdly and learn from these lessons.

For more information on this book, check out the Amazon link in the sidebar.