Farewell caregivers!
I am sad to say, I am hanging up my blogger hat after 18 months to make way for some fresh perspective for another caregiver.
I have really enjoyed sharing my views and experiences caring for Pops with the HealthTalk audience during these past months, but it’s time to relinquish the forum to some of the other caregiver voices out there. There is a near-infinite variety of caregiver situations and mine and Pops’s is just one, and frankly I have pretty much exhausted what I have to say.
In fact, when I looked back on my 18 months of blog entries, I can’t help notice some of them are remarkably similar. I guess I should...
Source: Caregiver Notes - July 18, 2008 Category: Caregivers Authors: Jeff Muise Tags: Caregiver lifestyle Caregiver's resources Caregiver's role caregiving Caregiving support elderly parent Retirement community Senior Health blogs caregiver blog caregiver community Caregiver Notes father HealthTalk history jef Source Type: blogs
What happens when a caregiver wants to retire?
In June, my wife Deb and I rented a cottage in Maine and enjoyed a short vacation. We took early morning walks on the beach with the dog, ate our fill of steamed clams and lobster, caught up on our reading under the beach umbrella and shopped at LL Bean. I also did a bit of kayaking in the estuaries and along the rocky coast.
As always, we came away with faint suntans (thanks to SPF 30) and our familiar fantasy about moving up to Maine in retirement. Over dinner at the Oarweed restaurant, we even talked about it like it was a real prospect. But the vacation ended, and as always, reality set in, and we knew Maine would rema...
Source: Caregiver Notes - July 3, 2008 Category: Caregivers Authors: Jeff Muise Tags: Caregiver lifestyle Caregiver's role Caregiving support elderly parent Retirement community Senior Health caregiver blog caregiver community Caregiver Notes HealthTalk jeff muise nature outdoors reading retirement plans Source Type: blogs
An early Father’s Day
Because of a scheduled trip out of town next Sunday, we decided to celebrate Father’s Day a week early. So last Sunday my wife Deb and I took Pops down to Ulster Landing Park on the Hudson River where we barbecued spareribs and watched the boats go by. Pops always enjoys an afternoon at the river because that’s where he grew up, and it brings up a lot of old memories.
For Father’s Day, I gave Pops the token gift of a couple of books I bought at a local library fair. One was a paperback of Master and Commander, a famous sea story by Patrick O’Brian, which I took Pops to see when it was in movie theaters a few years...
Source: Caregiver Notes - June 12, 2008 Category: Caregivers Authors: Jeff Muise Tags: Caregiver lifestyle Caregiver's resources Caregiver's role caregiving Senior Health caregiver blog caregiver community Caregiver Notes elderly HealthTalk history jeff muise memory nature outdoors reading stories Source Type: blogs
Another caregiver role: Recording family histories
Over the years, my 91-year-old father has recounted quite a few interesting stories of family history and his life. I thought they were worth preserving, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to remember and recount them accurately – so about 10 years ago, with the help of my daughter Amanda, I set about recording them.
I bought Pops a little cassette recorder, showed him how to use it, and then told him to just sit down and talk into the tape recorder whenever the mood struck him. With Pops, the best stories have always rolled off his tongue without prompting. An interviewer is extraneous, unnecessary and a positive hindrance...
Source: Caregiver Notes - June 3, 2008 Category: Caregivers Authors: Jeff Muise Tags: Caregiver lifestyle Caregiver's role Caregiving support Senior Health Alzheimer's disease blog blogger caregiver blog family history Great Depression jeff muise parents pops recording history storykeeper.org Source Type: blogs
Not another “inspirational” book for caregivers
There’s quite a lot of literature growing up around caregiving these days. One of the latest and best entries is a compilation of caregiving essays titled, for some obscure reason, “An Uncertain Inheritance: Writers on Caring for Family.”
I picked it off the shelf at the local library, and I am not done reading it yet, but I’m going to go ahead and recommend it, particularly to caregivers who may be operating “in a vacuum.” By that, I mean they do not belong to a caregiver support group or know other caregivers or even subscribe to a caregiver listserv, and therefore don’t have anyone with whom to sha...
Source: Caregiver Notes - May 22, 2008 Category: Caregivers Authors: Jeff Muise Tags: Caregiver lifestyle Caregiver's resources Caregiver's role Caregiving support Senior Health Alzheimer's disease blog blogger book caregiver blog caregiving community jeff muise Uncertain Inheritance William Morrow Company Source Type: blogs
Caregivers: Shortchanged around the world
Recently, I rented Michael Moore’s film “Sicko” about the sad state of the U.S. healthcare system. The film was thought provoking, and I was particularly impressed by how some other countries handle healthcare for their people.
Personally, I’ve always thought healthcare should fall into the same category as road building and electric power generation. These are things people cannot afford to do for themselves individually and so we provide these services communally through government and utilities.
It should be the same with healthcare. If you have a serious illness, your expenses can quickly mount beyond y...
Source: Caregiver Notes - May 13, 2008 Category: Caregivers Authors: Jeff Muise Tags: Caregiver lifestyle Caregiver's resources Caregiving legislation Caregiving support Senior Health Alzheimer's disease blog blogger caregiver blog Caregiver Respite Act Carers jeff muise Source Type: blogs
Pops turns 91 and we go golfing
My father had his 91st birthday on Saturday, and I took him to the driving range as a kind of birthday outing. I was a little anxious about how he would do (he has a bad left knee), but he used to be an avid golfer, and it’s something he had mentioned that he wanted to do, so if he was game, I was too.
When I picked him up at The Mill, the senior residence where he lives, Pops had on a new pink T-shirt that his friends there had given him the night before at a small birthday party.
“You’re only as old as you remember you are,” the T-shirt read.
So in that spirit, Pops and I went to a nearby driving range and each g...
Source: Caregiver Notes - May 2, 2008 Category: Caregivers Authors: Jeff Muise Tags: Caregiver lifestyle Caregiving support Geriatric Retirement community Senior Health Alzheimer's disease birthday blog blogger caregiver blog golfing jeff muise parents Source Type: blogs
Dropping the ball on glucose testing
I guess one of the things I haven’t been particularly good at in my caregiver duties for Pops is making sure he tests his blood glucose regularly. Whenever I ask if he’s testing, he says he tests “once a week or so”, and – because his blood sugar has been under control for so long – I’ve been letting it go at that.
Pops was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes a number of years ago, long before 2005 when I became so involved in monitoring his healthcare. Back in the beginning, I know he was pretty diligent about checking his blood glucose daily (as recommended) and, with the help of medication and some diet changes...
Source: Caregiver Notes - April 24, 2008 Category: Caregivers Authors: Jeff Muise Tags: Caregiver lifestyle Caregiving support Senior Health Alzheimer's disease blog blogger caregiver blog diabetes diabetes type II glucose testing jeff muise parents Source Type: blogs
Living to 100
My father turns 91 later this month, which is really getting up there. And despite a couple of strokes in 2005 and 2006 and a handful of other asymptomatic chronic conditions, he is, to all appearances, doing pretty well. The only thing that gives him any real trouble is a bad knee that he has to favor.
So I was wondering the other day just how far Pops might make it past 91. (After all, he still has an older brother, Bill , who’s 94 or so.)
The question led me to a recent HealthTalk Live program on living long. The program consisted of an interview with Dr. Thomas T. Perls, a geriatrician who is director of Boston Unive...
Source: Caregiver Notes - April 8, 2008 Category: Caregivers Authors: Jeff Muise Tags: Caregiver lifestyle Caregiving support Geriatric Senior Health 100 Alzheimer's disease blog blogger caregiver blog centenarians founder effect jeff muise longevity parents Source Type: blogs
The grim numbers around Alzheimer’s disease and caregiving
You may have noted the 2008 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures report that was released last week by the Alzheimer’s Association. Most of the news organizations that covered the report focused in on the shocking statistic on the cover: “10 million U.S. baby boomers will develop Alzheimer’s disease.”
So, as usual, the Baby Boomers were the center of the story in the Boomer-dominated media, but I was more interested in some of the facts buried inside the report related to caregiving for someone with Alzheimer’s.
I’ve always thought that in many ways Alzheimer’s disease is the worst-case scenario of caregiv...
Source: Caregiver Notes - April 3, 2008 Category: Caregivers Authors: Jeff Muise Tags: Alzheimer's disease Caregiver lifestyle Caregiver's resources Caregiver's role Caregiving support Dementia Senior Health baby-boomers blog blogger caregiver blog Crohn's disease healthcare jeff muise statistics Source Type: blogs
