On Friday, I had two phone conversations that continue to stay with me. I spoke with a parent of two children with medically-complex care needs who spent eight hours on the phone the day before advocating for help for her children. (I enrolled her in our More or Less Stress Management Coaching Program.)
Before speaking with that family caregiver, I spoke with a patient with cancer who got misdirected to me. I don’t provide the services she needs but I could offer an empathetic ear. She shared her experience in reaching out to multiple organizations, including which organizations that do serve individuals like her were just awful to her. After our 10-minute phone call, she thanked me profusely for listening.
She inspired me to offer gratitude to you. Thank you for:
- All those follow-up phone calls you make to check on program status, availability and eligibility so you and your caree receive the help and support you deserve. Your diligence and tenacity to make the calls day in and day out is incredible.
- Keeping the faith even as all those 19 Caregiving Systems seem to drain you of hope. Because you keep going, taking breaks along the way, you keep hope.
- Enduring all those interactions with burnt-out health care professionals who test your patience in ways you never imagined before caregiving.
- Amassing all the knowledge you do about programs, resources and organizations that could help. You even keep track of those that can’t help you just in case they could help someone else.
- Maintaining detailed records of all your interactions with those 19 Caregiving Systems because you know your paper trail will provide the proof you need whenever a system challenges you.
- Acknowledging what can be difficult to admit — that you find the experience overwhelming and heartbreaking. Because you speak your truth, you can be open to receiving what can help your situation and heal your heartache.
- Sharing honestly that you need help when really you’d love to just figure it out and do it all yourself. It’s hard to let others in to help because you then have to manage their help which can become time consuming.
- Balancing who else could help with how much you can help because you understand this enormous responsibility is too much for one person.
- Doing what you can to give yourself grace, moments for breaks and time for who and what you love.
I’ve listed nine reasons you deserve our gratitude. What would you add as Number 10?
Resources
- We held our Sixth Annual Beginning Retreat yesterday. I’ll share when our workshop archive is available. As a thank-you to attendees, I made my books on Kindle free through Monday, October 27. You can enjoy all my books, including the newly-released third edition of After Caregiving Ends, A Guide to Beginning Again.
- I also offered Retreat attendees a coupon code to save 20% on our training programs that provide a deep dive into the personal caregiving experience. Nurses and social workers in all 50 states, plus health care professionals in Illinois, can earn CEUs by completing the courses. Use coupon code WIN to save 20% on our Caregiving Knowledge Hub programs. Coupon expires October 31.
