Before computers, I relied on a monthly magazine for my connection to other caregivers. I was a new mother of a baby with severe disabilities and that magazine was called “Exceptional Parent”(now re-named EParent Magazine). I would rifle through the magazine in search of the page titled ‘Letters’ and there,
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THE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Book Review: Memories of My Parents by Amy Madge
“Memories of My Parents” by Amy Madge is a story of love. Not romantic love, but the love of a daughter for her parents. Amy Madge never married – she chose to devote her life to a career, but hers was a really, REALLY close family. Amy became her parents’
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: The Idea of Personal Choice – A Tough One for Caregivers
The idea of personal choice is not something that we think of every day, but it’s a little like fresh air – try living without it. As the needs of a loved one escalate, opportunities for caregivers to exercise personal choice diminish. Of course, the effects of disability or aging
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Making Peace with Aging and Infirmity
On holiday in Cat Island, Bahamas recently, something happened. Regular readers of my blog might recall that I’ve blogged about Cat Island before – it’s a remarkable place in its beauty, its simplicity and its authentic (but few) inhabitants. Last year, I visited an 87 year old firecracker called Miss
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Caregiver Advocacy: Part 3, The Roundup
Caregiving a job that is made up of hundreds of small tasks. Each task in itself seems perfectly doable. But taken together and over time, caregiving can be isolating and soul destroying. It doesn’t have to be that way. The beginning of putting a broken caregiver’s life back together is
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Building a Winning Advocacy Team for Family Caregivers
At first, advocating for care seems like a daunting, almost impossible task. But like any unwieldy job, the trick is to break it down into manageable building blocks. I’ve tried to simplify the how-to’s of advocating for care in a workshop that I give for caregivers called “How to Know
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: How to Advocate for Care: Part 1
Advocating for care is a complicated task. The job of caregiving does not discriminate on the basis of family income, race, education or employment status. Anyone, anytime can find themselves suddenly thrust into the position of giving care to a loved one. And if the care needs are high, the
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: 4 Tips on Avoiding Conflict With an Aging Parent (or anyone who needs care!)
Caring.com is a great resource for family caregivers of seniors in the US. I am so pleased to share a very wise blog post from Paula Spencer Scott, their senior editor. Here, Paula gives sage advice on avoiding conflict with aging parents, but I know these tips will be useful
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: The GOOD of Good Manners in Caregiving
I am reminded so often that receiving care is a skill that requires training in good manners, empathy for the caregiver and a healthy dose of polite assertiveness. I found this old blog post from October, 2010 and I think it contains a message that’s worth repeating. It IS good
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Questions and Answers from a Best Friend
In keeping with my previous posts on the helpfulness of simple questions/answers for loved ones receiving care and their families, here is a wonderful testimony. This is the letter my best friend made me when I was in ICU with short term memory loss.
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Envisioning a Better Future for Caregivers
Arthur Kleinman understands families like mine. I know he does, because he wrote this: The chronically ill often are like those trapped at a frontier, wandering confused in a poorly known border area, waiting desperately to return to their native land. Chronicity for many is the dangerous crossing of the
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Lessons in the Meaning of Illness, Aging and Disability
In the days, months and years since my father’s first stroke, since the birth of my two children, since the diagnosis of our son’s disabilities and more recently, since my mother’s increasing infirmity, I have scoured books and my own memories to find meaning in my caregiving experiences. With my
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Lessons in the Meaning of Caregiving
I believe that I have a crush on a man I have never met. His name is Arthur Kleinman and he’s a Harvard psychiatrist and anthropologist. I’ve written before about Dr. Kleinman and his ‘eight questions’ that might have helped Lia Lee and her family in Anne Fadiman’s touching and
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Awakenings: The Push-Pull of Letting Go
I suppose I never really believed that Nicholas could live apart from us – that he could feel truly safe and happy with his caregivers fussing over his tube feeds, multiple medications and his endless appetite for exploring sports and technology. But, I finally accept that Nick IS happy. He
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Positive Self Talk = Powerful Medicine
I learned about the power of positive self-talk when my children were small. I would cross the street with Nicholas in his wheelchair, my daughter Natalie in her stroller and our golden retriever on a leash. I used to push Nick and Natalie at once, while keeping the dog with
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: The Care Company: Cindy Laverty, A Caregiver Turned Entrepreneur
There’s an interesting trend in caregiving. Women who have had their lives and careers de-railed suddenly by ‘extreme caregiving’ are taking their lessons learned and crafting them into new careers of helping others on a similar journey. I became interested in this phenomenon and wrote about it in my book,
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Mothers and Daughters are Closest When Daughters Become Mothers
As I look out of my living room window, I think about my neighbors. I don’t know anyone in my area who has invited an aging parent to live at home, together with children and grandchildren. But could this trend of isolating ourselves from our elders be slowly changing? I’m
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Advocating for Care: How to Win, How to Lose
I’ve been buried under a pile of blankets recently trying to keep warm – it’s been -30 degrees where I live in Canada! But I’ve also been holed up designing the meat of a workshop on advocacy for family caregivers. A quick google search into other such advocacy workshops reveals….nothing.
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Am I An Abuser?
All this talk of torture in my last post got me wondering about the most awful times of pain and suffering in our own Nicholas’ life. When Nick was small, he had a surgical procedure to correct gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD. The procedure was called an ‘open full-wrap fundoplication’.
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Torture, The Movies and the Politics of Caregiving
A couple of nights ago, my husband Jim and I went to the movies. We saw Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” – a film already infamous for its portrayal of torture as a measure to ensure post 9/11 homeland security and as a tool to locate and eliminate Osama Bin
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