Inside Aging Parent Care

Ebooks for Caregivers of Alzheimer’s Patients

By Carol September 27th, 2011

Reviewing Hope for Helpers and More Help for Helpers by Michael Byrd

Bill recently posted his response to Pat Robertson’s remarks on Alzheimer’s disease and caregiving. Bill and many others have expressed another side of the caregiving experience in the wake of Robertson’s suggestion that a man should divorce his wife in advanced stages of the disease. No one denies that caring for someone with dementia is a tough road, but caregivers know that the journey can bring us more than just pain and sacrifice.

Chaplain Michael Byrd has written two timely ebooks for caregivers who want to keep on caregiving and save their sanity. Michael draws on his more than fifteen years experience working with elders and their caregivers to create these helpful companion electronic resources.

While he brings his generous spirituality to …

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Loss and Love

By Bill September 1st, 2011

I am writing fairly brief posts because I am a bit busy caregiving. My wife Carol is recovering nicely from surgery and her son Steve will have surgery Friday. I am caregiver for both.

This story ran in Sunday’s Denver Post newspaper. It is a story about the tragedy of Alzheimer’s and the enduring magic of love. Do read it all. I would insert it here, but copyright laws prevent my doing so.

Alzheimer's

The story is one of someone slowly being robbed of her mind, and her husband’s witness to her decline. She always recognized him, and some elements of her personality stayed with her. This is similar to what happened to Frank and Audrey, Carol’s parents. Frank had significant memory loss, but his personality was intact until he died of other …

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Revisiting the Crocodile: A Caregiver Sums Up

By Carol July 12th, 2011

You never know how a death is going to take you until it happens. Even so, I think it is normal to try to prepare by looking ahead–especially during a long good-bye like my father’s.

We can find so much information on grief and mourning that researching the subject almost gets in the way. After my mother’s death I had a particularly hard time getting past what I’d learned I “should” feel to what I actually was feeling. In the early days after Dad died, I felt stunned. Encountering Death and losing Dad left me disoriented and at loose ends.

I needed structure and some way to understand my life now, post caregiving and orphaned. Three weeks after Dad died, I had this helpful dream: I walk down a hill to the edge of …

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Dad In The Rear View Mirror

By Judi July 10th, 2011

Sometimes when we were driving, and I was in the backseat with my brother, I would watch my dad’s eyes. Then he would looked at me in the rear view mirror;

and he would smile.

my dad…

handsome

silently carried the wounds of a World War-on his body, in his heart

raised and provided for a family

tucked me in at night

created a thriving business

“99.999% pure democrat-pure as the driven snow”

followed his dreams of beekeeping and sailing

saved a woman and left her

loved a woman and buried her

lived 91 years, 10 months

I love you daddy…

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Technorati Tags: coping with death, Death of a Parent, family memories

Instant and Lifetime Caregivers

By Bill July 7th, 2011

Last week Carol and I were on our way to a talk on caregiving for windows. We have an older house with steel casement windows that need repair, painting, and weatherproofing. Most window experts cringe at the thought of approaching a steel casement window. So we were glad to learn that this expert would attempt to address the issue.

On the way, we were on a one way street with a 30 MPH speed limit. We were going 35, and traffic was roaring past us. As we approached a busy cross street, we heard a loud thunk in front of us. Several bystanders ran to help, as it was apparent there were injuries. We picked our way through the debris (lots of books) and went on.

I was struck that in an instant on …

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