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Health knowledge made personal
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Health knowledge made personal
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Although there are a few families that set up a plan for caregiving while parents are still healthy and independent, most families are thrown into caregiving when a medical emergency occurs.
First, you are spending hours at the hospital trying to understand complex medical issues so that you can help your parent make informed decisions. Privately, you worry and cry.
Next, you have barely had time for a sigh of relief that the emergency is past when the hospital social worker tells you that your parent is being discharged -- tomorrow. She asks, "Will you be taking care of your loved one at home?"
Excuse me? Your mom or dad has been weakened from illness and being bedridden and now cannot even walk to the bathroom! You don't know the a thing about taking care of someone who is really sick. Yikes!
If the social worker knows that your parent lives alone, she may recommend that your parent stay in a rehabilitation facility. Hurray! Your parent will get the care he needs.
Meanwhile, your parent is arguing with the hospital nurses and the social worker insisting that he is well enough to go home. "How will you take care of yourself if you can't walk steadily?" you ask in disbelief.
"Oh, I'll manage." Your parent is in total denial about his current situation. You cannot persuade him and you are frustrated and angry.
You are stewing in a cauldron of raw emotions (guilt, anger, love, worry, frustration) trying desperately to keep calm. It is so easy at this point to just give in.
Each family's solution will be different. The key is to find someone knowledgeable that you can talk to about your feelings. Sometimes that is a family member, but more often it will be a minister, rabbi, psychologist, or good friend who can make suggestions with your best interests in mind.
With help, you can work out a plan that provides care for your parent and leaves you feeling better.
CK W,
Having been a discharge planner/social worker in a hospital and telling the families exactly what you mentioned, I have seen first hand the panic and overwhelm families experience when an aging parent's health declines. One of the things I personally tried to do was give the families as much advance notice, and also found that by doing this I was more the exception to the rule. Highly recommend families get in contact with the discharge planners as soon as a loved one is admitted to provide them with information regarding their living arrangements and what the possible plans will be when the person discharges. Stay on top of the discharge planner. You may annoy them, but at least you will know exactly what the plans are.
You bring up a great point of families planning for the time they will become the decision maker and caregiver for their parents, while the parents can be part of the solution. This is probably one of the most difficult topics and situations a family can face, but one of the most important. I have a company that does just that. We work with the adult children coaching, advising and educating them on all the information that would be helpful and necessary. Furthermore, we counsel them on how to approach the parents to address this sensitive topic. Please look at our website and hopefully we could be a resource for others. It is www.fullcircleadvisors.net.
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Posted by Carol ..
Sheryl Karas, a former Alzheimer's Association consultant discovered that when caregivers called in to locate senior resources the bulk of her work wound up being providing emotional and spiritual support along the way. The issues that came up for family caregivers were very different for each person. It seemed like whatever their unresolved issues were - the family dynamics, feelings about things that happened in the past, beliefs and expectations they carried - THOSE were the things they needed to talk about most.
For many family caregivers, elder care or senior care in not always a labor of love; for some it can be a trap they fell into, an obligation, a task they resent and struggle to survive. In this conversation, Sheryl Karas shares with us when caregiving comes to us by default, how we can change this worst case scenario into one that actually works for all involved; the primary caregiver, family members or siblings, and the senior being cared for.
Click here to listen...
Sheryl says it's sad and frustrating when a family caregiver says they did not “choose” to be in this rold, they are a caregiver by default. Sheryl goes on to say she usually hears “My brother says his career keeps him too busy. My sister says she’s too busy with her three kids. I just got divorced and I don’t have kids or a career I care about. Mom insists on living at home and refuses to let a ‘stranger” into the house despite how much help she needs, so the job of taking care of her fell to me.” In this situation if pressed, Sheryl might hear that the woman cares about her mom and would feel guilty to say "no" to her... but the truth is that this caregiver doesn’t believe she had any choice but to say “yes.”
The anger and resentment can be so intense, that a caregiver cannot talk about her brother and sister without spitting out the words. In continuing work with the family caregiver, Sheryl finds out that family relationships are miserable because many times guilt is used to try to make other siblings do what they chose not to. Family dynamics are sometimes a disaster and primary family caregivers want someone to come in and fix it the family dynamics.
Caregivers are capable of making a change. No one can force a person to be a caregiver against their will. Our beliefs shape our experience and we always have the ability to change our experience by examining those beliefs and the choices that stem from them.
To contact Sheryl Karas at her blog onSpiritual Caregiving.org
Thank you for visiting. Carol @ WorkingCaregiver.com