http://www.parentcaresolution.comParent Care SolutionsThere are tough decisions to make in caring for parents.  The character and integrity and courage of an entire family can come out in those moments.  One of the dangers is that in making the tough decisions it's easy to assume a brusque, cold, and technical demeanor.  We often talk about our parents as if they weren't there even though they are in the same room.  They begin to feel like objects and we begin to treat them like objects. Try to remember back as a child when you couldn't do things for yourself  and needed other people to help you with guidance and direction.  At one level  you resented it unless you felt like they were caring as well as directive.  It's the love that made the difference: in their tone, demeanor and attitude.  Tough decisions work better with a melody line of love playing around them.  Even though you don't treat gangrene with lilac water, it doesn't mean that kindness is not just as effective an antiseptic when applied to a difficult situation. No one ever alienated anyone with a kind voice, a gentle touch, a helping hand.  Let the demands of the care giving situation bring out the best of the love that you have in you and create more if possible.  The goal in care giving is to become more connected and not less.  Love is the bridge. RESOLVE as a care giver that you will filter your actions through passion, compassion, and love to communicate the value to the one you are caring for.  1/6/2009http://www.parentcaresolution.com/comments.asp?id=527I'ts interesting how when things come along in the lives of care givers that they tend to focus on the experience, good or bad, instead of the learning that comes out of it.  Part of being able to manage the constant barrage of things that come your way as a care giver is to sort through them in a way that lets you learn and not just endure. I think that care giving on a full time basis as a family member or even part time, is filled with opportunities for self discovery and awareness.  Care giving forces you to take your theories about life, philosophical, theological, spiritual, and see if they can measure up.  It's one thing to quote the scriptures, it's another thing to apply them.  It's in the application that they have relevance, not in the recitation.  Each and every moment is an opportunity to reinforce the the validity of what you believe about what's possible from each moment. The real challenge in care giving is to make meaning out of what it is that you have been asked to do.  The meaning is about your learning, and your growth, and your progress as a human in the service of another one.  Resentment is nothing more than resilience turned inward.  Both resentment and resilience are possiblities of learning as well as experience creators. RESOLVE as a care giver that you will strive to make your learning greater than your expeience.1/5/2009http://www.parentcaresolution.com/comments.asp?id=526 I was thinking the other day about how it could be easier between care givers and the ones they are caring for.   Family Care giving is sort of an indentured servitude driven by duty and loosly hung together with affection.  Tensions arise that have nothing to do with what is going on but all that has to go on.  Familiarity leads to resentment and resentment can lead to contempt.  So, here are some thoughts for the one being cared for that could be translated into action: 1. Stop Complaining first thing in the morning:  The fact of the matter is that if you didn't sleep well, no one can do anything about it.  Stop reciting the litany of things that don't work.  It's like a huge toxic sludge dump first thing in the morning.  If you are alive and well and breathing, warm, have food, water, and are not soiling yourself, lighten up a bit before the eggs get going. 2. Contribute during the day- Instead of being a consumer, be a contributor.  Even though you might be paying people to take care of you, wiping your mouth and getting your juice and counting out your pills was not someone's life plan when they came on the earth.  Help them help you. 3. Be Grateful-  Old people and sick people just forget about the things they have going for them.  It's as if all the accumulated ills of their lives manifest to give them their own personal franchise on misery.  If you are a care giver of an ungrateful parent, show them how to do that or ask them to stop complaining.  Minimally, don't sit in the same room and listen to them 4. Work in a team- It takes lots of people to make your life work when you are being cared for.  You can't do it by yourself and the sooner you realize this and stop struggling with them, the better off  you will be.  Support them, talk with them, collaborate with them, just stop berating them. 5. Bracket the day with something you control- Begin the day with a devotional or inspirational and end it with a gratitude focus.  Think of the middle like halftime in a ball game.  there's nothing more irrelevant than the score at halftime. RESOLVE as a care giver that you will help the one you are caring for be a better partner by using these ground rules.1/1/2009http://www.parentcaresolution.com/comments.asp?id=525I love the dual opportunity that comes with the end of the old year on one day and the beginning of the New Year on the next day.  While it has almost no logical relevance or basis for justification, the fact is that at least one time during the year, we get a psychological and spiritual chance to wipe the slate clean and start over.  We acknowledge the things that worked, polish the things that didn't a bit and move on toward greater learning and progress.  I think it's in the wiping the slate clean and not accumulating the old stuff that is what allows to continually make progress. In care giving, it's easy to let the things that didn't work accumulate.  You know, "I should've done this.  I should've done that.  I forgot something here.  I forgot something there".  The net result of that type of thinking is that we constantly stay in a sense of inadequacy about what we could've done versus what we did do..  The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of us have done the best we can as care givers as we have had to be care givers. Look back at the last year.  Take a look at what you did that made a difference in the life of the one you were caring for.  Disregard the things that didn't turn out like you thought despite really good intentions.  Forgive yourself and let go and do the same for others.  Take the best ideas and move them forward into next year. RESOLVE as a care giver that forward is the direction you will move and focus in.12/31/2008http://www.parentcaresolution.com/comments.asp?id=524 I think we are old people the same way we are young people only with more solidity.  Nothing actually changes as we get older.  If you are gracious and caring and generous as you grow in life, then old age actually accentuates those things.  If you are miserly and cynical and negative, then I think the same thing befalls you as you age. I can always tell the demeanor of a person's life either by the way I'm greated or the way I'm treated  when in their presence.  One of the telling things  is the smile that they have or don't have on their face as they recount their life or the subject we are dealing with.  The smile betrays an easiness  with their situation or it doesn't.  It also reveals how they look at life in general. It actually costs nothing to  have a pleasant face.   A couple of face muscles, the thought about transmitting a warm beam, the idea that just with a smile you can make a day better.  As a caregiver, the greatest resource that you may have is the smile that you bring to the one you are caring for.  Let them see in your face the ease, gratitude and appreciation at which you have approached life. RESOLVE as a care giver that you will use the lifetime of wisdom in  your face to encourage and brighten the one you are caring for.  12/29/2008http://www.parentcaresolution.com/comments.asp?id=523I remember when my father was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's. the virtual flood of information, people, things to do, and opinions were simply overwhelming.  It was sort of like being lost and stopping at a little country rode for directions and the woman running the fruit stand giving you the entire 200 year history of the area plus all the best places to eat and a ten day forecast all at the same time.. As a care giver, especially a family one, it is important to realize that even the most astute medical professionals have only educated opinions. Our downfall is when we take those opinions as verdicts.  Facts are not trends and trends are not certainties.  It is too easy to fall into some sort of predestination thinking based on their statistics and history.  The fact of the matter is that each and every disease requiring some sort of care giving has its own path with unique twists and turns.  A diagnosis of Alzhimer's doesn't mean a long slow miserable slide into oblivion.  A diagnosis of cancer, the same thing.  There are adjustments and adaptations that may be required but there is no requirement that you accept an opinion as a verdict.  the Trick here is to acknowledge and not indulge the opinions of anyone around the parent you are taking care of unless they support how you want to operate and how you want to be with the one you are caring for. RESOLVE as a care giver that you will fashion your own future view with imput from others and not let them design that view for you exclusively.12/27/2008http://www.parentcaresolution.com/comments.asp?id=522I'm becoming more aware of  how looks and glances can speak more than words as I age and mature and understand how listening is actually better than talking a lot.  Part of that comes with maturity and part just comes from realizing as creatures we have so many subtleties of communications that we don't take all the advantage of we could.  It's not actually necessary to say anything to let people know you care.  A smile, a glance, a grin and a thousand words have been sent across the optic nerve;:  It's interesting how  timber wolves can communicate with raised eyebrows and body posture over a 100 yard distance and we as humans need Blackberry's, cell phones, and e-mail to go from room to room.   Lots of things apparently to learn from other creatures on this planet before we leave. I've seen what a glance can do to encourage in my own life on projects or in relationships.  I've seen what a simple reassurring smile can do to take up the energy level in room that is desparately in need of it.  As a care giver, your greatest medicine is your smile and your touch.  It's simply impossible to overmedicate with them. The greatest thing about Christmas is absolutely the smiles.  As a care giver, just make every day like christmas. RESOLVE AS A CAREGIVER THT YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE YOUR FACE SPEAK WHAT YOUR HEART IS FEELING.12/25/2008http://www.parentcaresolution.com/comments.asp?id=521Sometimes it's just impossible to be near parents who are in some sort of care arrangment during the holidays.  the complexities of time, travel, expense, competing family interests, don't allow us to drop eveything and fly to where they are or even drive.  but here's what you can do: 1. Call them:  Even if a nurse has to hold the phone to their ear, they can hear you.  Nothing complicated here, no foreign policy discussions, just "We love you" shouted by everyone in the house all at one time loud enough for the patient in the next room to hear. 2. Tell them when you're coming again:  Hope is measured by old people in visits and conversations.  Each one reassures that they will not be left behind and forgotten.  Make the committment, go see them, and reassure them as long as they are still here you will still be here. 3. Tell them you appreciate them:  Life has certain relection points built in naturally.  Birth is one, sickness is one, death is certainly another.  Appreciation is like gratitude that you've given form to u.  Let them know in your voice and writing what you appreciate about what they have done and what they continue to do but most importantly for who they are. RESOLVE as a care giver that you will make these three gifts not just a part of a Holiday routine but part of an everyday routine.  12/24/2008http://www.parentcaresolution.com/comments.asp?id=520As caregivers and as ones being cared for we give too much credence to the words of those we allow to be in power over us:  Physicians, Lawyers, prescriptionist, theologians.  As a result, their words have the effects of verdicts when they should simply be opinion.  Facts are not trends and trends are not certainties and opinions are not verdicts.  It is in paying attention litterally to the verdict of those we hold in power that we become changed.   While I may acknowledge the validity of an opinion by a professional, I never indulge the absoluteness or irrevocableness of the verdict just because it came from the professional. What this means is that hope is the verdict that we must all listen for and indeed the only one that matteers.  Not hope so much in the changeability of an outcome we would like to avoid as caregivers or as the ones being cared for but hope in the sense that we determine that hope is the verdict that we base our continued existence upon and the one we use to encourage the continued existence of the one we are caring for. Hope is the opinion that encourages us to "Sail On" in spite of the the waves in front and behind us.  We don't "Sail On'" in some false Quyixotic bravado but rather in the knowledge that the line between success and failure is often a fine one and crossed only at the last moment when all resources are gone and energy is failing.  Hope is the last resource and the last energy. RESOLVE as a caregiver that your Hope will be the Opinion of Power for yourself and the one you are caring for.12/23/2008http://www.parentcaresolution.com/comments.asp?id=519I think sometimes that the reson old folk's houses are so dark all the time is that no light is inside and no light gets in from the outside.  It's as if when our bodies start shutting down and shutting things out that we make the symbolic move to our physical dwellings as well.  Add to that the occassional morbid usual suspect list of well wishers and doomsdayers and it almost acts like an emotional permafrost barrier for britghtness and cheeriness. My experience as a care giver and as one being cared for is that two things are guaranteed to brighten your attention and environment:  children and  animals. Both have a total propensity to be in the moment and, especially with animals, a sensitivity to the person that they are with that rivals in many ways the greatest care giver.  Children are so anchored in their center of the universe belief about themselves that whtever they find fascinating, you will soon be fascinated with them.  With the animals, you  will have never spent such a peaceful Fall afternoon as to have two labroador retrievers sitting on a back porch barking at the occasional geese flying overhead or barely raising a head to see if the squirrel might slow down enough to have a fun but not a fatal chase. You cannot control muchs about aging and dying either as a participant in those processes or as a caregiver but you can control what you find amusing and what you find to let light in about.  As I write this I am being cared for in the recovery of a malignant brain tumor which the doctors are convinced ( and would like to convince me) has no light associated with it's outcome at all.  My "light" if you will is that I am here until I'm not and while i'm here I'm not going to focus on what 'isn't".  What 'Is" here is what's always been: Chances to grow, learn, make progress. connect, collaborate, talk, share ideas.  Light and laughter have as their are impossible without the connection with other things and ideas.  A windowshade has to be raised.  A phone all has to be made.  All the energy starts flowing. RESOLVE as a care giver that you will be a source of brightness and laughter for the one you are caring for.  12/22/2008http://www.parentcaresolution.com/comments.asp?id=518