Her Final Year

During the month of November, we worked with several local businesses in Quincy & Milton, MA.

Here’s a brief description of the businesses involved:

1. 7-Eleven: Located at 678 Adams Street in Quincy, MA, this store has – literally – cornered the market on “convenience.” Owned & operated by Dennis Lane, the store does a phenomenal business and has the best milk prices around. Kathi & I often frequent it, and have relied upon it being the only store open during some of the insane weather we’ve occasionally had in this little pocket of New England.
   Visit them on Facebook.
   
2. Stella’s Breakfast & Lunch: A mainstay of Milton Center, Stella’s is located at 558 Adams Street in Milton, MA. It was one of the regular places we took Georgia, who not only loved breakfast (“It’s the most important meal of the day” was her favorite quote) but she also found an interesting synchronicity that helped her connect with the owners-operators: they are Greek, and it reminded her how her own parents had operated a small, similar-type restaurant in Somerville while she was growing up. To top off the sense of identify, the mother & daughter we often saw working there are named “Georgia” and “Kathi.”To our Georgia, that was simply an additional delightful happenstance.
3. Villa Rosa Restaurant: Kathi & I often brought Georgia to the Villa Rosa, located at 705 Adams Street (the corner of Beale & Adams) in Quincy, Ma. We often frequented the Lounge there, where it was easier in the smaller environment to keep Georgia engaged. The Villa Rosa features Italian/American cuisine, and we sometimes took advantage of a Prime Rib special when it was offered to feed three of us – the portions were generous & delicious. When people say that the Villa Rosa is family-friendly & family run, they mean it: Maria & Ken, Chef Mike and maitre de Donna as well as several of the bar tenders and wait staff were all great, making each visit special.Check out their Facebook page and website.
   
4. The UPS Store #5175: Close, convenient & friendly, the folks at the UPS Store (#5175) in the Walgreen’s Shopping Plaza at 550 Adams Street in Quincy made life much easier for us. Georgia had begun intercepting the mail, shredding a lot of the business correspondence intended for me – the folks at the UPS Store helped me get an appropriately sized mailbox at a reasonable price, and were always very happy to help out whenever I’d go there and realize I’d forgotten my key. They also provide off-hours access, which – particularly during the more hectic caregiving times – was a blessing.Check out their business page.
   
5. Unchained Pizza: Kathi & I got to know Unchained Pizza while we were in “caregiver recovery mode” and working on Her Final Year. The people, the food and the service – including delivery – was always top-notch. Located in the Walgreen’s Shopping Plaza at 550 Adams Street in Quincy, MA, they’ve only been around for just over a year now…but they’ve grown in popularity, and with good reason. We’re glad to list them here as a participating local business.Check out their Facebook page and website.

The participating businesses hosted a small basket for people to drop in a business card or a personal contact card. On Wednesday, November 30, we collected those cards; yesterday, after marking each with the name of the location where it was deposited, we drew a winner who’ll receive a free, signed copy of Her Final Year.

We are proud to announce that the winner is Eric Issner of Milton, who entered at Unchained Pizza (550 Granite Street, Quincy). Congratulations, Eric! Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated in our drawing and for your ongoing help with bringing awareness to the topic of home caregiving, and in particular to Her Final Year.

Namaste.

The month of November is National Family Caregiver Month, and several businesses which were important to Kathi & I during the course of caregiving and the aftermath, as well as during the work of assembling Her Final Year: A Care-Giving Memoir with Jim & Martha, have agreed to help us get the word out about Her Final Year. To that end, they’ve each let us put a small sign & basket in their establishments to collect business cards for a drawing to be held at the end of the month for a free copy of the book, signed by Kathi & I.

We are grateful for their support.

Below is a small photo gallery of the five participating business establishments. Show your support for their assistance, and give them your business & patronage. Don’t forget to drop a business card or personal information card into the collection basket for the drawing wherever you see our poster.

Here’s a brief description of the businesses involved:

1. 7-Eleven: Located at 678 Adams Street in Quincy, MA, this store has – literally – cornered the market on “convenience.” Owned & operated by Dennis Lane, the store does a phenomenal business and has the best milk prices around. Kathi & I often frequent it, and have relied upon it being the only store open during some of the insane weather we’ve occasionally had in this little pocket of New England.
   
   Visit them on Facebook.
   
2. Stella’s Breakfast & Lunch: A mainstay of Milton Center, Stella’s is located at 558 Adams Street in Milton, MA. It was one of the regular places we took Georgia, who not only loved breakfast (“It’s the most important meal of the day” was her favorite quote) but she also found an interesting synchronicity that helped her connect with the owners-operators: they are Greek, and it reminded her how her own parents had operated a small, similar-type restaurant in Somerville while she was growing up. To top off the sense of identify, the mother & daughter we often saw working there are named “Georgia” and “Kathi.”To our Georgia, that was simply an additional delightful happenstance.
3. Villa Rosa Restaurant: Kathi & I often brought Georgia to the Villa Rosa, located at 705 Adams Street (the corner of Beale & Adams) in Quincy, Ma. We often frequented the Lounge there, where it was easier in the smaller environment to keep Georgia engaged. The Villa Rosa features Italian/American cuisine, and we sometimes took advantage of a Prime Rib special when it was offered to feed three of us – the portions were generous & delicious. When people say that the Villa Rosa is family-friendly & family run, they mean it: Maria & Ken, Chef Mike and maitre de Donna as well as several of the bar tenders and wait staff were all great, making each visit special.Check out their Facebook page and website.
   
4. The UPS Store #5175: Close, convenient & friendly, the folks at the UPS Store (#5175) in the Walgreen’s Shopping Plaza at 550 Adams Street in Quincy made life much easier for us. Georgia had begun intercepting the mail, shredding a lot of the business correspondence intended for me – the folks at the UPS Store helped me get an appropriately sized mailbox at a reasonable price, and were always very happy to help out whenever I’d go there and realize I’d forgotten my key. They also provide off-hours access, which – particularly during the more hectic caregiving times – was a blessing.Check out their business page.
   
5. Unchained Pizza: Kathi & I got to know Unchained Pizza while we were in “caregiver recovery mode” and working on Her Final Year. The people, the food and the service – including delivery – was always top-notch. Located in the Walgreen’s Shopping Plaza at 550 Adams Street in Quincy, MA, they’ve only been around for just over a year now…but they’ve grown in popularity, and with good reason. We’re glad to list them here as a participating local business.Check out their Facebook page and website.

All the businesses listed above helped us, both during and after the caregiving & recovery period. They’ve each provided quality service with friendly, sincere customer service.

If you’re in the area, please visit each of them and show them some love. While you’re there, enter our drawing if you’d like a chance to win a free copy of Her Final Year: A Care-Giving Memoir signed by Kathi & I.

Thank you.

Via caregiving club (dot com):

November is the start of National Family Caregiver Month and to celebrate the 65 million Americans caring for a loved one who has a chronic illness, a disability or whose age requires more help, I thought I would present my 10 ideas for the Caregiver Bill of Rights. [...more...]

That was from the article National Caregiver Month Kicks Off With the Caregiver Bill of Rights.

Here’s another version of a Caregiver Bill of Rights.

What do you think – what would you add or change between the two different articles’ interpretations?

(Hat-tip to @CaregiverTweets (Lynn Wilson) for the heads-up.)

Crossposted at Daily Kos.

It’s been months. You’re feeling isolated – alone. Financially, your income has dropped substantially and you’re scrambling to pay bills, but it’s all a haze. You’re primary focus is your loved one. You can’t seem to break through the red tape to take advantage of help that you qualify for, and the one you’ve been focused on providing care for is deteriorating. You know it’s approaching the end.

From the introduction of Her Final Year: A Care-Giving Memoir:

Every week, sometimes every day, little changes to daily habits provided further course corrections as each family charted a new path into unfamiliar territory. At some point, care giving began to have more of an impact in terms of time and availability requirements; this led to, and was exacerbated by, changes in income — which also had repercussions into areas like the personal health and health insurance options of the caregivers, in addition to altering options that normally required a small financial outlay. In short, everything had an effect - the small changes compounded, built one upon the other in a spiral of change and isolation.

You feel as though things are spiraling out of control, that the issues and problems are becoming exponentially more treacherous, yet the doctors, nurses, health aides & advisors – those you could afford to see, or which your insurance covered, or which you were able to qualify for under some assistance package – have all told you you’ve done a great job. You can’t see it. You can’t feel it.

You’re haggard. Stressed. Exhausted. And you feel like a failure.

You’re not.

Nobody – except you, perhaps – expects you to be a saint. It may be that in the eyes of your loved one, you are one. Or, perhaps, the disease or condition that is claiming the life of your loved one has twisted his or her perceptions more darkly – you are the exact opposite: a hell-spawned demon sent to cause them unending suffering. Some diseases, some illnesses, can do that.

But if you care, and if you are trying your best, chances are you’re doing fine. You’re human. You’ll make mistakes. You’ll have moments of clarity amid seas of chaos, and you’ll have bouts of doubt that haunt you from day to day – sometimes, minute to minute.

Don’t stop caring. Don’t feel that caring isn’t enough. But don’t add to the burden – forgive yourself & let it go. Caregiver guilt can kill or disable you; it can impede your capacity to care for yourself and for your loved one.

And, although you are likely ~not~ taking proper care of yourself, sacrificing your own needs in order to focus on the needs of your loved one, you need to do better at ensuring that you don’t kill yourself or have a heart attack due to the stress.

Caregivers need respite; it’s not a crime. It’s not a weakness. It’s a requirement. If you’re to survive to help your loved one, and beyond, then you have to take care of yourself.

The title of this piece uses a quote I’ve seen in diaries and as tag-lines. It’s attributed to Meteor Blades – “Don’t tell me what you believe; show me what you do and I’ll tell you what you believe.” I think it applies here, because – even if you feel like you’re drowning, like you’re a failure, you keep going. You keep caring. You keep doing your best.

If you truly believed you’d failed, you’d have quit long ago.

You are not a failure.

You may not be a saint, but you’re certainly not a failure.

Do yourself a favor and seek respite – find a way to reach out to get someone to help, to give you a chance to take a walk, to get some uninterrupted sleep, to go out among people for a few hours. A chance to unwind, to relax.

Below, in comments, please share what avenues you’ve found helpful whenever you felt like you’d reached the end of your rope: what options did you find, or are you in need of options so that you can recharge?

Let’s put together what thoughts we can, and provide as many useful suggestions as we can think of…there are some folks for whom none of the ideas may be possible. What can we offer them to help them, even a little?

Both Jim and I found some respite in our online sharing among people in the Daily Kos community.

With the expansion of technology, what other options may be becoming available for those who are going the caregiving route solo?

Your thoughts are appreciated, and welcome.

Thank you. Namaste.

A recent discussion in the LinkedIn group Elder Care Professionals caught my attention last night: the discussion started with the assertion that “Caregivers must be certified.”

The first thing that occurred to me as I recalled caring for Georgia (a.k.a. “Mumsie” a.k.a. “Yia-Yia” a.k.a. etc…) was that the persons and/or organizations making such a claim must be certifiable…

Another person in the same group had come across the same original story (Caregivers Must Be Certified to Provide Better Patient Care and Self Care, Says CertifiedCare.org via stoneheartnewsletters.com) and also posted a discussion about it.¹ I liked the first comment in that discussion right away, made by Stan G. – here’s his first paragraph:

I think this is a false dichotomy. Certification is often an entry door with financial implications for those who hold certification and those who don’t. For 30 years as a speech-language pathologist I held clinical certification, as did others who practiced speech and language therapy. The certification standards did little to produce competent clinicians.

If we stick with just dealing with the basics, then the concept may be well-intentioned, but it is inherently unworkable (in my opinion) due to costs in time, attention and even financially. There are potentials for other unforeseen consequences, too.

During our own caregiving experience, my wife & I would have welcomed the opportunity to have some skilled guidance or some way to enhance our capacity to ensure that we were doing the right things in the right way at the right time…but, particularly in the case of Alzheimer’s Disease, that’s not always easy.

Time isn’t your friend. Opportunities to study – even online from the comfort of one’s own home, as the promised certification provides – aren’t always easy to seize. And while the course offers a “basics” for what appears to be a paltry $54.00 (tho the site’s registration page says “Want to ensure better care giving practices for just $90?“), their Alzheimer’s certification appears to rely upon the completion of 3 pre-requisite courses first…and money gets tight, quickly, when providing care at home. The loss of income, combined with trying to get things organized ~during~ the process of trying to manage life, pay bills and care for your loved one makes taking even one online course quite a challenge, never mind four (3 pre-requisites plus the actual Alzheimer’s Certification course).

Is it a good idea? In my opinion, that’s a “yes and no” answer, with my leaning more heavily toward “no.”

Yes, it’s good to have a place to get some additional information and perhaps even some training to help one cope. No, because “certification” can then become a pre-requisite itself with regard to coverage, qualifying for additional care or support, or even used as a tool by some family members to challenge full-time care-giving members in some of the nasty power-plays that unfortunately occur in many families.

What’s your take?

Footnotes
¹ Which would you rather have, a caregiver or a certified caregiver? Posted by Cathleen.

Caregiving isn’t something that humans alone do. Some may say that members of the animal kingdom are acting out of “instinct” and “don’t know any better” or are incapable of emotion, but they’d be wrong.

We see examples almost daily of animals, great and small, demonstrating a range of care & concern that appears to mimic – or echo – the same types of feelings within humans: love, loss, concern. Perhaps it’s something inherent in mammalian species, or easier for us to discern among fellow mammals than among species of other kingdoms like reptiles or insects. Perhaps not.

Regardless, we as a species of (relatively) hairless, somewhat-evolved and allegedly civilized apes are not the only species to have a capacity for caring for others, nor are we the only species which is capable of caring for members of other species.

This is something that those among us who have pets can attest to. And it’s something that research among our learned institutions have been finding and reinforcing.

In the space below, I’ve linked to a post made Sunday on Daily Kos. I’d posted it to the CareGiving Kos online group as “CareGiving Kos: The Support of the Fur Family.” It speaks more to the capacity of pets to act as caregivers, to both our own afflicted loves ones as well as to the benefit of our caregiving brothers & sisters. And it also provides examples of how we can, at times, be caregivers to our pets when they themselves are in need – an example of which was recently provide on this very blog by Jim, in his post entitled What matters.

Caring – it’s more universal and a part of life than people sometimes realize.

- John

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