The Time It Takes
It was mid morning yesterday when I arrived at my Mom’s apartment and mid afternoon when we ambled out to the car to begin our errands. In the interim, we’d…
Donna Thomson
The Film ‘Boyhood’: Reflections on Holding On and Letting Go
A date night with my husband Jim doesn’t happen often. We have fallen into our habits of cooking dinner together, followed by reading or watching a British television drama. Sometimes,…
Caring for Someone with Meningioma (Brain Tumor)
A friend of our family passed away from meningioma, so I was pleased to host a guest post about caring for a loved one with this type of brain tumour.…
What to Look for in a Nursing Home for Your Ageing Parents
When your parents get to an age that you believe they would be better off living away from their (or your) home in order to receive the care they need,…
Survival Skills for Stressed Out Caregivers
I’ve just come from our family cottage in the north woods of Quebec. It’s peaceful there – a place for reflecting and remembering. My Nana built our cottage in the…
Memoir of Mourning: Journey Through Grief and Loss to Renewal (Book Review)
Perhaps you fear losing the parent you care for. Or maybe, you fear your own death as you care for your dying relative. Maybe you just don’t know who you…
Advice for New Caregivers
Today’s guest post is by Derek Hobson, BA. Derek is the editor for ConciergeCareAdvisors.com, a senior care referral agency. He developed a passion for elder care when he became the…
Setting Roles, Boundaries and Limits in Mothering a Complex Child
One day a few months ago, fellow disability Mom and writer Jennifer Johannesen sat down with me for a chat. (I highly recommend Jennifer’s book and her blog– they are…
My Best Caregiving Tip
After twenty-five years of intensive caregiving, the most important thing I’ve learned is that giving good care over time requires a team. Trying to manage alone and without the help…
Making Friends With Solitude
I used to hate being alone. I remember as a teenager, aching for the phone to ring, rifling through my closet for something ‘cool’ to wear, wandering the halls of…
No Saints Around Here (Book Review): Do I Hate It or Do I Love It?
About 20 pages into Susan Allen Toth’s caregiving memoir, “No Saints Around Here”, I decided I didn’t like the author. Not one bit. “How can a wife sigh loudly in…
Enabling Meaning and Purpose in the Lives of Our Loved Ones
How can we help our loved ones experience meaning and purpose in their lives? Does having a disability, getting older, or losing cognitive skills automatically exclude the possibility of purpose…
Coming to Terms with Disability in My Family, Across Generations
After my Dad passed away in 1975 following his third stroke, I was angry. Really, really angry. I would sit in church, look at Christ on the cross and fume,…
An Interview With Me About Caregiving and Writing About Family Life & Ideas
Recently, I gave an interview to Kris Bone, a writer with the Puritan Magazine (a Canadian literary journal). Here’s his article about my book, “The Four Walls of My Freedom:…
Blog Challenge Week One: My Connection to Disability
This summer, I’m participating in a blog hop. The first topic of discussion is ‘My Connection to Disability’. It was 1972 and I was seventeen. I remember it was hot…
Sharing the Care Online – Can It Really Help?
When my son Nicholas was born with severe disabilities in 1988, my husband and I struggled to care for him on our own. Nick turns 25 at the end of…
Father’s Day 2014 – What Have We Learned From Dads?
This is my father, James “Babe” Thomson. I miss him so much – he passed away after a series of strokes in 1975. From my Dad, I learned to feel…
The Language of Care – Have We Lost It?
Recently, a friend and colleague railed at our collective lack of empathy for homeless people living on the street. “What kind of a society do we live in where we…
Innovating for Caregivers at the SIX Summer School – Powerful Lessons Learned
“Experimenting with Enemies and Strangers” was the provocative title of a workshop I attended as part of the SIX Social Innovation Exchange Summer School in Vancouver last week. Three seasoned…
Innovating for Caregivers at The SIX Vancouver Summer School
I’m on a plane now, reading over the notes I’ve made from the last four days. I’ve just come from a week of listening, sharing and thinking about how society…