9 Comments

Can caregiving be a positive experience?

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Lots of wisdom here! Thank you for this.

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This was exactly what I needed to hear today. Thank you, Janice.

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I really needed this today. Both my husband and I have disabilities, particularly with mobility, and we both have limited=time caregivers. Unfortunately one of my husband's disabilities is dementia, which is slowly increasing. Which I do a lot of caregiving that has to do with hos mental/emotional functioning. Neither of us drives, we no longer have a vehicle, and we live in a development that is basically out of town and has limited transportation.

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Thank you, Janice. I'm sharing this newsletter post with a community of families with loved ones in a Memory Care facility managed by Silverado. My mother lived there for nearly eight years where I too learned some of these strategies.

The one thing we did do was band together for support and collaboration building out a Google Group for conversation and support. Community is remarkably important, and yes, it was a positive experience that is still with me.

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What a great idea.. the Google Group!

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Oh yes, collaboration is essential, and most facilities aren’t all that eager to help you set it up. At the same time, it’s important to know that by regulation, in California, anyway, they have to support you with a “family council.” In retrospect, I’d recommend setting up a private Substack instead of Google groups, but that’s stupid simple and works.

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I received your post about Straddling Two Worlds, but it is missing from your online page. Did you "Un-post" it?

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Hi Sharron, you caught me. I was on a plane on my phone and accidentally sent two articles. I tried to unpublish, the one but that didn’t work like I thought. I republished it this morning.

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