Hospitalized again, Mom being evaluated for another intestinal ailment, with enough blood loss to warrant a transfusion, it was time to gear up again.
—excerpt from Living Is for Living: A Caregiver’s Story
“Beast Mode” Time
Step Eight Discernment
AA’s Step Eight: “Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.” According to a fortune cookie, my life was about to get more interesting. It was time to move on with faith and open up to the healing ahead. (Al-Anon’s Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions)
—excerpt from Living Is for Living: A Caregiver’s Story
Standing by Me
When we danced as newlyweds to “Stand by Me,” I didn’t know exactly what that would mean, only that we’d have ups and downs and I hoped he’d be at my side through both. The words comforted me now as they had then, and I was ever grateful.
—excerpt from Living Is for Living: A Caregiver’s Story
Summer in Wisconsin ain’t too shabby either!
Brotherly Love on Mom’s Birthday
Of all the things I could give Mom for her birthday, the very best would be the promise to always try to work things out with my bros. Mom cherished each one of us, in different ways, and having us all in her life, in the ways that we could be, not only made my role as primary caregiver doable, it also helped to make her life, at 85 and with dementia, complete.
—excerpt from Living Is for Living: A Caregiver’s Story
Triple Salchow – enough is enough
As my spouse put it when I fretted: “getting your Mom two weeks in Maine is like completing a triple salchow – that’s something to feel good about.”
—excerpt from Living Is for Living: A Caregiver’s Story
Step Seven Humility
AA’s Step Seven: “Humbly asked our Higher Power to remove our shortcomings.” Faith in a Higher Power…It’s what helped me, Mom still in Maine for a bit longer, in another’s care. #thankGodforHannah! (Al-Anon’s Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions)
—excerpt from Living Is for Living: A Caregiver’s Story
The Happiest Days, i.e. “Going to Camp”
As we weighed the challenges of getting Mom to camp vs. her love of summers there, I remembered her advice twenty-five years earlier when I asked her about taking our newborn first to live in Prague so that Doug could take a job there: “Go for it.”
—excerpt from Living Is for Living: A Caregiver’s Story
The Challenges of Pain and Delirium as they relate to Dementia – aka Guess who has a UTI?
While it complicated her care, Mom’s inability to remember the pain or other details had its advantages: she loved taking guilt-free naps with Cinnamon and regularly expressed gratitude for her good health when I tucked her in at night.
—excerpt from Living Is for Living: A Caregiver’s Story
Summer Solstice 2017, the longest day and grief
After a busy spring, I was exhausted. It helped that, when our youngest played Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass on his phone, Mom danced in her chair, from head to toe.
—excerpt from Living Is for Living: A Caregiver’s Story
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