Caregivers Day Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Caregivers Day. Here they are! All 100 of them:

My grandmother's greatest gift was tolerance. Now, in the old days, Indians used to be forgiving of any kind of eccentricity. In fact, weird people were often celebrated. Epileptics were often shamans because people just assumed that God gave seizure-visions to the lucky ones. Gay people were seen as magical too. I mean, like in many cultures, men were viewed as warriors and women were viewed as caregivers. But gay people, being both male and female, were seen as both warriors and caregivers. Gay people could do anything. They were like Swiss Army knives! My grandmother had no use for all the gay bashing and homophobia in the world, especially among other Indians. "Jeez," she said, Who cares if a man wants to marry another man? All I want to know is who's going to pick up all the dirty socks?
Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian)
The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.
Lao Tzu
But in a home where grief is fresh and patience has long worn thin, making it through another day is often heroic in itself.
Melanie L. Bennett (Learning to Dance in the Rain)
The worst thing about working as a caregiver is not what you might think. IT's not the lifting and cleaning, the medicines and wipes, and the distant but somehow always perceptible smell of disinfectant. IT's not even the fact that most people assume you're only doing it because you really aren't smart enough to do anything else. It's the fact that when you spend all day in proximity to someone, there is no escape from their moods. Or your own.
Jojo Moyes (Me Before You (Me Before You, #1))
Imagine the infant who one day cries and gets fed, and the next day cries and goes hungry. One day smiles and is kissed and hugged. The next day smiles and is ignored. This is what psychologists called 'preoccupied or unresolved attachment' with the primary caregiver--usually the mother. There was love one minute and disdain the next. Affection that was given in abundance for no reason and then taken away without cause. The child has no ability to predict or influence the behavior of the parent. The narcissist loves a child only as an extension of herself at first, and then as a loyal subject. So she will tend to the child only when it makes her feel good.
Wendy Walker (Emma in the Night)
Now, in the old days, Indians used to be forgiving of any kind of eccentricity. In fact, weird people were often celebrated. Epileptics were often shamans because people just assumed that God gave seizure-visions to the lucky ones. Gay people were seen as magical, too. I mean, like in many cultures, men were viewed as warriors and women were viewed as caregivers. But gay people, being both male and female, were seen as both warriors and caregivers. Gay people could do anything. They were like Swiss Army knives!
Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian)
Not a few millions of parents strongly hope that their own children will step in by instantly becoming their own parents’ foster parents, if and when the parents reach their second childhood.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
I was involved in hundreds of projects with tight deadlines that probably could have stretched into a few more days. Would that have made a difference to the project? Most of the time, no. Would that have made a difference to my colleagues’ lives at home, as caregivers or as members of their community? I think the answer is a resounding yes.
Indra Nooyi (My Life in Full: Work, Family and Our Future)
Intensive mothering is the ultimate female Olympics: We are all in powerful competition with each other, in constant danger of being trumped by the mom down the street, or in the magazine we're reading. The competition isn't just over who's a good mother--it's over who's the best. We compete with each other; we compete with ourselves. The best mothers always put their kids' needs before their own, period. The best mothers are the main caregivers. For the best mothers, their kids are the center of the universe. The best mothers always smile. They always understand. They are never tired. They never lose their temper. They never say, "Go to the neighbor's house and play while Mommy has a beer." Their love for their children is boundless, unflagging, flawless, total. Mothers today cannot just respond to their kids' needs, they must predict them--and with the telepathic accuracy of Houdini. They must memorize verbatim the books of all the child-care experts and know which approaches are developmentally appropriate at different ages. They are supposed to treat their two-year-olds with "respect." If mothers screw up and fail to do this on any given day, they should apologize to their kids, because any misstep leads to permanent psychological and/or physical damage. Anyone who questions whether this is the best and the necessary way to raise kids is an insensitive, ignorant brute. This is just common sense, right?
Susan J. Douglas
The bride's getting ready to toss her bouquet, so get me up there! Mom said the day after she turned 96.
June Shaw
There were moments when it hurt so bad you couldn’t breathe, yet somehow you survived the pain. There were days when you could barely put one foot in front of the other, yet somehow you arrived at your destination. There were nights when you cried yourself to sleep, yet somehow you held on until the morning. Your life is nothing less than a miracle.
Eleanor Brownn
Solitude takes time, and caregivers to children have no time. Our children demand attention and need care. They ask questions and parents must answer. The number of decisions that go into a week of parenting astonishes me. Women have known for centuries what I have just discovered: going to work every day is far easier than staying home raising children...thoughtful parenting requires time to think, and parents of young children do not have time to think...One middle-aged female writing student spoke to me of feeling she lacked the freedom to "play hooky in nature"; it is an act of leisure men indulge in while women stay at home, keeping domestic life in order. Men often can justify poking around in the woods as a part of their profession, or as part of an acceptably manly activity like hunting or fishing. Women, for generations circumscribed by conventional values, must purposefully create opportunities for solitude, for exploration of nature or ideas, for writing.
Gary Paul Nabhan (The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places (Concord Library))
I could worry about his health but somehow not about my own. We throw ourselves away a little each day.
Padma Lakshmi (Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir)
I’m in a caregiver's relationship with my body, a perpetual internal gauging of wellness. My spine is Hogarth’s thermometer. I ascend and descend its rungs a hundred times a day, reading the mercury level. The same dis-ease speaks many languages. If you block one mouth, another will speak. The symptoms represent differently, and as I get older, my translation changes. The prescription changes. Must be vigilant. Must be my best nurse.
Jalina Mhyana
But no matter how carefully we schedule our days, master our emotions, and try to wring our best life now from our better selves, we cannot solve the problem of finitude. We will always want more. We need more. We are carrying the weight of caregiving and addiction, chronic pain and uncertain diagnosis, struggling teenagers and kids with learning disabilities, mental illness and abusive relationships.
Kate Bowler (No Cure for Being Human: And Other Truths I Need to Hear)
Parting One is strong, a child now grown The other weak, a parent aged - The strong once feeble The weak once mighty - Time, the infinity has marked them...
Muse (Enigmatic Evolution)
A caregiver is changed by the culture of illness, just as one is changed by the dynamic era in which one lives. For one thing, I don't have as much time in conversation with myself, and I feel the loss. Certainly I worry more about his death, and mine too, since I;m so much a part of the evolving saga of his health, which I have to monitor every day. But I've grown stronger in every aspect of my life. In small ways: speaking more directly with people. In large ways: discovering I can handle adversity and potential loss and yet keep going. I've a better idea of my strength. I feel like I've been tested, like a willow whipped around violently in a hurricane, but still stranding, its roots strong enough to hold. [p. 301]
Diane Ackerman (One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing)
I remember us saying that we liked small houses, that proximity engendered closeness in a family. That nobody should be raised by a nanny or in day care. I remember us saying that time, not money, was the greatest resource. That everything would be all right. That the universe would provide. That belief was a force more powerful than gravity itself.
Jonathan Evison (The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving)
In 2008, the national Coping with Cancer project published a study showing that terminally ill cancer patients who were put on a mechanical ventilator, given electrical defibrillation or chest compressions, or admitted, near death, to intensive care had a substantially worse quality of life in their last week than those who received no such interventions. And, six months after their death, their caregivers were three times as likely to suffer major depression. Spending one’s final days in an I.C.U. because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie on a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said goodbye or “It’s O.K.” or “I’m sorry” or “I love you.” People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys of patients with terminal illness find that their top priorities include, in addition to avoiding suffering, being with family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware, and not becoming a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs, and the cost of this failure is measured in far more than dollars. The hard question we face, then, is not how we can afford this system’s expense. It is how we can build a health-care system that will actually help dying patients achieve what’s most important to them at the end of their lives.
Atul Gawande
This is really weird, but you know that movie Jurassic Park? They saturated the media with ads that were very graphic with dinosaurs eating humans and all kinds of things. Well, Koko saw them, and several days later one of our caregivers reported her acting very strangely towards her toy dinosaurs and alligators. She was acting as though they were real, and was very frightened of them, and didn't want to touch them. She was using tools to get them away from her. I do believe she had a nightmare about them.
Francine Patterson
If David had been diagnosed with diabetes at a young age, members of his family, school, and church would have undoubtedly mobilized support. His caregivers would have communicated his need for dietary changes, exercise, and/or insulin. This was not the case when David exhibited the earliest signs of depression. The myth persists that mental illness is a character flaw. It is my hope that one day disorders of the brain will be treated with as much care, compassion, and tenacity as diseases of any other organs in our bodies.
Sheila Hamilton (All the Things We Never Knew: Chasing the Chaos of Mental Illness)
The worst thing about working as a caregiver is not what you might think. It’s not the lifting and cleaning, the medicines and wipes, and the distant but somehow always perceptible smell of disinfectant. It’s not even the fact that most people assume you’re only doing it because you really aren’t smart enough to do anything else. It’s the fact that when you spend all day in proximity to someone, there is no escape from their moods. Or your own.
Jojo Moyes (Me Before You (Me Before You, #1))
No disease should be allowed to have as its victims both the patient and the caregiver. But that is exactly what is happening every minute of every day. I
Meryl Comer (Slow Dancing with a Stranger: Lost and Found in the Age of Alzheimer's)
Cancer. And every day these women got up and did what they had to do because they were caregivers, wives, friends, mothers. There
Karen McQuestion (Hello Love)
People who have dementia need to have structure and routine every day, in order to get a better day.
Jolene Brackey (Creating Moments of Joy for the Person with Alzheimer's or Dementia: A Journal for Caregivers)
If in answer to your inner voice screaming 'don't do it', you shake your head and do it anyway, I can guarantee your days will be more likely filled with respect and success.
Gregor Collins (The Accidental Caregiver: How I Met, Loved, and Lost Legendary Holocaust Refugee Maria Altmann)
Judith Ferreto, Kahlo’s nurse and long-time care-giver, recalled that the last time she saw the artist, just days before her death, the artist declared: ‘Love is the only reason for living.
Gannit Ankori (Frida Kahlo (Critical Lives))
I love cheetahs. Every moment of every day is spent in fear of dying a terrible death yet they always carry themselves elegantly, remain loyal to their family, and never complain about anything.
Gregor Collins (The Accidental Caregiver: How I Met, Loved, and Lost Legendary Holocaust Refugee Maria Altmann)
I'd estimate that my caregiving in the summer of 2016 took up at least thirty hours a week and likely more. For the first several weeks after Brad's discharge I was on eight to ten phone calls a day related to his care.
Kate Washington (Already Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America)
Diabetes is a disease that separates warriors from the rest. There are no days off from it. At best it is manageable; at worst it’s the greatest weight and discouragement that can be felt. A person with diabetes is born with a special purpose. As someone who has walked this path, I see all the mothers, fathers, caregivers and those who struggle with the disease. I understand your pain and desire to give you hope. This bond connects us and serves as a support for those days I lose hope as well. You will never do it alone.
Janet Hatch (Zandra: My Daughter, Diabetes, and Lessons in Love)
Seven considered the cup B’Elanna held before her. When she still hesitated, B’Elanna added more gently, “I know it must pain you to admit that you are now as frail as the rest of us mortals, but trust me. I know how you feel right now. Infants come into this world knowing how to suck, cry, poop, and deny their caregivers sleep. Five days after Miral was born I hadn’t slept for more than an hour. Then my body simply shut down, and this”—she lifted Seven’s cup—“was the only thing that allowed me to survive it. Grieve the fragile human condition later, hold your nose, and drink.
Kirsten Beyer (The Eternal Tide (Star Trek: Voyager))
When you smile at a two-month-old, it takes her some time to smile back at you. That dance is part of what develops the neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex, the brain center for emotional intelligence. But when a daycare worker smiles at a baby, she can’t wait around for the baby to smile back—she has two or three other babies to tend to. Over and over throughout her day, the baby may miss the attunement she needs. By contrast, a baby in one-to-one care with a responsive caregiver may have her needs met almost as well as by a parent. By the toddler years, a child whose needs have been responsively met will be better prepared for group care. Parents should know, however, that two-year-olds who spend the most time in childcare tend to have the most behavior problems.5 This is understandable, since toddlers who are under stress—and separation from the parent is a stressor for a young child—tend to act out more.
Laura Markham (Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting (The Peaceful Parent Series))
We bear financial responsibilities that men had in the old days while still saddled with traditional caregiving duties. We generally incur this double whammy precisely while hitting peak stress in both our careers and child-raising--in our forties, at an age when most of our mothers and grandmothers were already empty nesters.
Ada Calhoun (Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis)
My love goes out to every woman; the lovers, the doers, the caregivers, the rebels, the leaders, the builders, silent movers, and more! You give being a woman a huge difference. A beautiful meaning. Thank you for becoming all without reserve. Most importantly, thanks for being many layers on many weather, and thanks for refusing to be defined by standards that don't sing your praises enough!
Chinonye J. Chidolue
If at all possible, a boy should stay home with one of his parents or a close relative until about age three. Daycare of the institutional kind does not suit boys’ nature during these very early years. Many studies have shown that boys are more prone than girls to separation anxiety and to becoming emotionally shut down as a result of feeling abandoned. Also, a boy of this age may cope with his anxiety by becoming restless or aggressive. Experienced caregivers talk about the “sad/angry boy syndrome”—a little boy who feels abandoned and anxious and converts that into hitting and hurting behavior. He may carry this behavior into school and later life. Care by a loving relative is far better than an institutional situation for toddlers under three. Children under three need to spend the long days of childhood with people to whom they are very special.
Steve Biddulph (Raising Boys: Why Boys Are Different--and How to Help Them Become Happy and Well-Balanced Men)
In 2008, the national Coping with Cancer project published a study showing that terminally ill cancer patients who were put on a mechanical ventilator, given electrical defibrillation or chest compressions, or admitted, near death, to intensive care had a substantially worse quality of life in their last week than those who received no such interventions. And, six months after their death, their caregivers were three times as likely to suffer major depression. Spending one’s final days in an ICU because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie attached to a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said good-bye or “It’s okay” or “I’m sorry” or “I love you.
Atul Gawande (Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End)
But no matter how carefully we schedule our days, master our emotions, and try to wring our best life now from our better selves, we cannot solve the problem of finitude. We will always want more. We need more. We are carrying the weight of caregiving and addiction, chronic pain and uncertain diagnosis, struggling teenagers and kids with learning disabilities, mental illness and abusive relationships. A grandmother has been sheltering without a visitor for months, and a friend's business closed its doors. Doctors, nurses, and frontline workers are acting as levees, feeling each surge of the disease crash against them. My former students, now serving as pastors and chaplains, are in hospitals giving last rites in hazmat suits. They volunteer to be the last person to hold his hand. To smooth her hair. The truth if the pandemic is the truth of all suffering: that it is unjustly distributed. Who bears the brunt? The homeless and the prisoners. The elderly and the children. The sick and the uninsured. Immigrants and people needing social services. People of color and LGBTQ people. The burdens of ordinary evils— descriminations, brutality, predatory lending, illegal evictions, and medical exploitation— roll back on the vulnerable like a heavy stone. All of us struggle against the constraints places on our bodies, our commitments, our ambitions, and our resources, even as we're saddled with inflated expectations of invincibility. This is the strange cruelty of suffering in America, its insistence that everything is still possible.
Kate Bowler (No Cure for Being Human: And Other Truths I Need to Hear)
There are times when we cannot function and we need to withdraw and regroup. There are situations that we know we cannot handle. In spite of all the pushing and urging of friends and family who insist that we will have a wonderful time, the patient senses that it will lead to his mental devastation. If I do not listen to my body and withdraw from the overstimulation, it takes several days for my intellectual abilities to return. This is very frightening because I can’t help wondering each time this happens if I’ve pushed myself totally over the line of no return.
Jolene Brackey (Creating Moments of Joy Along the Alzheimer's Journey: A Guide for Families and Caregivers)
O Lord, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all.… —Psalm 104:24 (NAS) In her intriguing book What’s Your God Language? Dr. Myra Perrine explains how, in our relationship with Jesus, we know Him through our various “spiritual temperaments,” such as intellectual, activist, caregiver, traditionalist, and contemplative. I am drawn to naturalist, described as “loving God through experiencing Him outdoors.” Yesterday, on my bicycle, I passed a tom turkey and his hen in a sprouting cornfield. Suddenly, he fanned his feathers in a beautiful courting display. I thought how Jesus had given me His own show of love in surprising me with that wondrous sight. I walked by this same field one wintry day before dawn and heard an unexpected huff. I had startled a deer. It was glorious to hear that small, secret sound, almost as if we held a shared pleasure in the untouched morning. Visiting my daughter once when she lived well north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska, I can still see the dark silhouettes of the caribou and hear the midnight crunch of their hooves in the snow. I’d watched brilliant green northern lights flash across the sky and was reminded of the emerald rainbow around Christ’s heavenly throne (Revelation 4:3). On another Alaskan visit, a full moon setting appeared to slide into the volcanic slope of Mount Iliamna, crowning the snow-covered peak with a halo of pink in the emerging light. I erupted in praise to the triune God for the grandeur of creation. Traipsing down a dirt road in Minnesota, a bloom of tiny goldfinches lifted off yellow flowers growing there, looking like the petals had taken flight. I stopped, mesmerized, filled with the joy of Jesus. Jesus, today on Earth Day, I rejoice in the language of You. —Carol Knapp Digging Deeper: Pss 24:1, 145:5; Hb 2:14
Guideposts (Daily Guideposts 2014)
You’ve probably heard of the “Romanian orphans.” It is likely that more than five hundred thousand children spent part of their early lives in the state-run institutional orphanages during the Ceauşescu regime in Romania; in 1989, when communism ended in the country, the public and press saw the horrible conditions these children had been subjected to. There were often forty to sixty babies or toddlers in a single large room, each in their own crib all day long, with only one or two caregivers rotating among them over the course of a twelve-hour shift. The children suffered deprivation, malnutrition, abuse, and more. Even after being removed from the institutions, they grew up with a range of deficits. Some had low IQs, others couldn’t walk, most had major problems forming and maintaining relationships. I worked with many children removed from these orphanages. In general, the longer the child was there, the longer the deprivation, the more serious the problems. Ironically, in some overcrowded institutions, children who had to share cribs ultimately did better. The Romanian orphans are now adults; for most of them, problems persist. As a group they are much more likely to be unemployed, have mental and physical health problems, and have difficulties with relationships.
Bruce D. Perry (What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing)
It was exhausting and it took fifteen minutes. Fifteen for a pit stop that should take two! She knew she shouldn't whine; there were so many "bigger" things to deal with. But it was these everyday indignities, these small chunks of lost minutes, that got her the most, made her think how "normal" parents had no idea how good they had it. Oh, sure - moms of infants got a taste of this, but anything was bearable when it was temporary; try doing it day after day, knowing you'd do this until you died, that you'd be fricking squatting in a van peeing into a jar when you were eighty, driving around your fifty-year-old invalid daughter to God knows what therapies they'd have by then, worrying who'd take over when you died.
Angie Kim
I’ll say it: I am lucky enough to not have to work, in the sense that Jesse and I could change how we organize our life to live on one income. I work because I like to. I love my kids! They are amazing. But I wouldn’t be happy staying home with them. I’ve figured out that my happiness-maximizing allocation is something like eight hours of work and three hours of kids a day. It isn’t that I like my job more than my kids overall—if I had to pick, the kids would win every time. But the “marginal value” of time with my kids declines fast. In part, this is because kids are exhausting. The first hour with them is amazing, the second less good, and by hour four I’m ready for a glass of wine or, even better, some time with my research. My job doesn’t have this feature. Yes, the eighth hour is less fun than the seventh, but the highs are not as high and the lows are not as low. The physical and emotional challenges of work pale in comparison to the physical and emotional challenges of being an on-scene parent. The eighth hour at my job is better than the fifth hour with the kids on a typical day. And that is why I have a job. Because I like it. It should be okay to say this. Just like it should be okay to say that you stay home with your kids because that is what you want to do. I’m well aware that many people don’t want to be an economist for eight hours a day. We shouldn’t have to say we’re staying home for children’s optimal development, or at least, that shouldn’t be the only factor in the decision. “This is the lifestyle I prefer” or “This is what works for my family” are both okay reasons to make choices! So before you even get into reading what the evidence says is “best” for your child or thinking about the family budget, you—and your partner, or any other caregiving adults in the house—should think about what you would really like to do.
Emily Oster (Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool (The ParentData Series Book 2))
As we’ll explain in the coming chapters, these everyday parenting challenges result from a lack of integration within your child’s brain. The reason her brain isn’t always capable of integration is simple: it hasn’t had time to develop. In fact, it’s got a long way to go, since a person’s brain isn’t considered fully developed until she reaches her mid-twenties. So that’s the bad news: you have to wait for your child’s brain to develop. That’s right. No matter how brilliant you think your preschooler is, she does not have the brain of a ten-year-old, and won’t for several years. The rate of brain maturation is largely influenced by the genes we inherit. But the degree of integration may be exactly what we can influence in our day-to-day parenting. The good news is that by using everyday moments, you can influence how well your child’s brain grows toward integration. First, you can develop the diverse elements of your child’s brain by offering opportunities to exercise them. Second, you can facilitate integration so that the separate parts become better connected and work together in powerful ways. This isn’t making your children grow up more quickly—it’s simply helping them develop the many parts of themselves and integrate them. We’re also not talking about wearing yourself (and your kids) out by frantically trying to fill every experience with significance and meaning. We’re talking about simply being present with your children so you can help them become better integrated. As a result, they will thrive emotionally, intellectually, and socially. An integrated brain results in improved decision making, better control of body and emotions, fuller self-understanding, stronger relationships, and success in school. And it all begins with the experiences parents and other caregivers provide, which lay the groundwork for integration and mental health.
Daniel J. Siegel (The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind)
It may seem paradoxical to claim that stress, a physiological mechanism vital to life, is a cause of illness. To resolve this apparent contradiction, we must differentiate between acute stress and chronic stress. Acute stress is the immediate, short-term body response to threat. Chronic stress is activation of the stress mechanisms over long periods of time when a person is exposed to stressors that cannot be escaped either because she does not recognize them or because she has no control over them. Discharges of nervous system, hormonal output and immune changes constitute the flight-or-fight reactions that help us survive immediate danger. These biological responses are adaptive in the emergencies for which nature designed them. But the same stress responses, triggered chronically and without resolution, produce harm and even permanent damage. Chronically high cortisol levels destroy tissue. Chronically elevated adrenalin levels raise the blood pressure and damage the heart. There is extensive documentation of the inhibiting effect of chronic stress on the immune system. In one study, the activity of immune cells called natural killer (NK) cells were compared in two groups: spousal caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s disease, and age- and health-matched controls. NK cells are front-line troops in the fight against infections and against cancer, having the capacity to attack invading micro-organisms and to destroy cells with malignant mutations. The NK cell functioning of the caregivers was significantly suppressed, even in those whose spouses had died as long as three years previously. The caregivers who reported lower levels of social support also showed the greatest depression in immune activity — just as the loneliest medical students had the most impaired immune systems under the stress of examinations. Another study of caregivers assessed the efficacy of immunization against influenza. In this study 80 per cent among the non-stressed control group developed immunity against the virus, but only 20 per cent of the Alzheimer caregivers were able to do so. The stress of unremitting caregiving inhibited the immune system and left people susceptible to influenza. Research has also shown stress-related delays in tissue repair. The wounds of Alzheimer caregivers took an average of nine days longer to heal than those of controls. Higher levels of stress cause higher cortisol output via the HPA axis, and cortisol inhibits the activity of the inflammatory cells involved in wound healing. Dental students had a wound deliberately inflicted on their hard palates while they were facing immunology exams and again during vacation. In all of them the wound healed more quickly in the summer. Under stress, their white blood cells produced less of a substance essential to healing. The oft-observed relationship between stress, impaired immunity and illness has given rise to the concept of “diseases of adaptation,” a phrase of Hans Selye’s. The flight-or-fight response, it is argued, was indispensable in an era when early human beings had to confront a natural world of predators and other dangers. In civilized society, however, the flight-fight reaction is triggered in situations where it is neither necessary nor helpful, since we no longer face the same mortal threats to existence. The body’s physiological stress mechanisms are often triggered inappropriately, leading to disease. There is another way to look at it. The flight-or-fight alarm reaction exists today for the same purpose evolution originally assigned to it: to enable us to survive. What has happened is that we have lost touch with the gut feelings designed to be our warning system. The body mounts a stress response, but the mind is unaware of the threat. We keep ourselves in physiologically stressful situations, with only a dim awareness of distress or no awareness at all.
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
For women who spend all their hours doing unpaid work, the chores of the day kill the dreams of a lifetime. What do I mean by unpaid work? It’s work performed in the home, like childcare or other forms of caregiving, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and errands, done by a family member who’s not being paid. In many countries, when communities don’t have electricity or running water, unpaid work is also the time and labor women and girls spend collecting water and gathering wood. This is reality for millions of women, especially in poorer countries, where women do a much higher share of the unpaid work that makes a household run. On average, women around the world spend more than twice as many hours as men on unpaid work, but the range of the disparity is wide. In India, women spend 6 hours a day doing unpaid work, while men spend less than 1. In the US, women average more than 4 hours of unpaid work every day; men average just 2.5. In Norway, women spend 3.5 hours a day on unpaid work, while men spend about 3. There is no country where the gap is zero. This means that, on average, women do seven years more of unpaid work than men over their lifetimes. That’s about the time it takes to complete a bachelor’s and a master’s degree.
Melinda Gates (The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World)
In Separation, the second volume of his great trilogy on attachment, John Bowlby described what had been observed when ten small children in residential nurseries were reunited with their mothers after separations lasting from twelve days to twenty-one weeks. The separations were in every case due to family emergencies and the absence of other caregivers, and in no case due to any intent on the parents’ part to abandon the child. In the first few days following the mother's departure the children were anxious, looking everywhere for the missing parent. That phase was followed by apparent resignation, even depression on the part of the child, to be replaced by what seemed like the return of normalcy. The children would begin to play, react to caregivers, accept food and other nurturing. The true emotional cost of the trauma of loss became evident only when the mothers returned. On meeting the mother for the first time after the days or weeks away, every one of the ten children showed significant alienation. Two seemed not to recognize their mothers. The other eight turned away or even walked away from her. Most of them either cried or came close to tears; a number alternated between a tearful and an expressionless face. The withdrawal dynamic has been called “detachment” by John Bowlby. Such detachment has a defensive purpose. It has one meaning: so hurtful was it for me to experience your absence that to avoid such pain again, I will encase myself in a shell of hardened emotion, impervious to love — and therefore to pain. I never want to feel that hurt again. Bowlby also pointed out that the parent may be physically present but emotionally absent owing to stress, anxiety, depression, or preoccupation with other matters. From the point of view of the child, it hardly matters. His encoded reactions will be the same, because for him the real issue is not merely the parent's physical presence but her or his emotional accessibility. A child who suffers much insecurity in his relationship with his parents will adopt the invulnerability of defensive detachment as his primary way of being. When parents are the child's working attachment, their love and sense of responsibility will usually ensure that they do not force the child into adopting such desperate measures. Peers have no such awareness, no such compunctions, and no such responsibility. The threat of abandonment is ever present in peer-oriented interactions, and it is with emotional detachment that children automatically respond. No wonder, then, that cool is the governing ethic in peer culture, the ultimate virtue. Although the word cool has many meanings, it predominately connotes an air of invulnerability. Where peer orientation is intense, there is no sign of vulnerability in the talk, in the walk, in the dress, or in the attitudes.
Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
Job’s wife went with her husband from a comfortable and well-supplied lifestyle to being homeless, bankrupt, and childless. She became a caregiver, as she had been to her entire family while they were alive and for her ill husband, who according to Scripture, was in so much physical pain that he wished for death (Job 2:12-13, Job 3). Perhaps the words that his wife uttered, was merely her way of ending the pain for her husband whom she had to witness suffering day after day. It only mentions Job’s three friends that came to comfort him. Job’s wife probably did not have a support network of other women to help and assist her. If she did, while they were affluent, these fair weather friends would probably not have wanted to get involved now. The saying: ‘Sympathy says “sorry” and runs away; empathy says “I understand” and stays’, rings so true. She probably subdued her own sorrow and pain and first took care of her husband’s pain. Yet, she, together with her husband, trusted in the goodness of God. And God blessed them.
Paddick Van Zyl
Do recall how you behaved as a child: Maybe your child is just like you once were. (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!) Ask yourself what you would have liked to make your childhood easier and more pleasurable. More trips to the playground, free time, or cuddling? Fewer demands? Lower expectations? Try saying, “When I was a kid and life got rough, I liked to climb trees. How about you?” Do respect your child’s needs, even if they seem unusual: “You sure do like a tight tuck-in! There, now you’re as snug as a bug in a rug.” Or, “I’ll stand in front of you while we’re on the escalator. I won’t let you fall.” Do respect your child’s fears, even if they seem senseless: “I see that your ball bounced near those big kids. I’ll go with you. Let’s hold hands.” Your reassurances will help her trust others. Do say “I love you”: Assure your child that you accept and value who she is. You cannot say “I love you” too often! Do follow your instincts: Your instincts will tell you that everyone needs to touch and be touchable, to move and be movable. If your child’s responses seem atypical, ask questions, get information, and follow up with appropriate action. Do listen when others express concerns: When teachers or caregivers suggest that your child’s behavior is unusual, you may react with denial or anger. But remember that they see your child away from home, among many other children. Their perspective is worth considering. Do educate yourself about typical child development: Read. Take parent education classes. Learn about invariable stages of human development, as well as variable temperaments and learning styles. It’s comforting to know that a wide variety of behaviors falls within the normal range. Then, you’ll find it easier to differentiate between typical and atypical behavior. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and a six-year-old is just a six-year-old! Do seek professional help: SPD is a problem that a child can’t overcome alone. Parents and teachers can’t “cure” a child, just as a child can’t cure himself. Early intervention is crucial. Do keep your cool: When your child drives you crazy, collect your thoughts before responding, especially if you are angry, upset, or unpleasantly surprised. A child who is out of control needs the calm reassurance of someone who is in control. She needs a grown-up. Do take care of yourself: When you’re having a hard day, take a break! Hire a babysitter and go for a walk, read a book, take a bath, dine out, make love. Nobody can be expected to give another person undivided attention, and still cope.
Carol Stock Kranowitz (The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder)
At her work, Judy gives her staff a passage from Wendy Lustbader, the mental health counselor and writer, to help them understand the pitfalls of caregiving relationships. Lustbader writes: Receiving is much harder than giving, but this fact is seldom recognized in mainstream American society. Dependent people are often deprived of chances to give, finding that they must endure a state of almost constant relinquishment and passivity. Consequently, the person receiving help accumulates a debt to the other and must bear the weight of feeling beholden day in and day out. There are few means through which the person can pay back a caregiver for rides to the doctor, help with medical bill paperwork, handling loads of laundry, and check-up telephone calls—the list of favors owed can be immense. The dependent person may yearn for something useful to do, only to be admonished, “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of everything.” For family caregivers, Lustbader notes the hidden resentments that arise from the relationship’s asymmetry. Caring is mutual; caregiving can be all one way, a drain on both parties. But acknowledging the underlying dynamic can take away its sting. “The reward for recognizing resentment,” Lustbader writes, “is enjoying the ill person’s company again.
John Leland (Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old)
As friends or family members and caregivers, we can help a great deal by listening and empathizing with women who are in the thick of it. We can bring them small gifts...and make sure they are invited to get-togethers even if it is unlikely they will make it. When women are homebound caretakers, a daily phone call can be a lifesaver. We can acknowledge both the efforts other women are making and validate the importance of those efforts. ...She cannot help feeling used and bitter. Ardith told me, "I received awards for my art, but nothing for Mom Duty." "I'm buying you a trophy and a dozen roses." I said. Ardith laughed and said, "Just buy me the roses. Yellow please." I brought the roses but, at the same time, I know that Ardith's and all other caregiver' primary validation must be internal. When we do something arduous such as deal with an insurance company all day, we must give ourselves credit for our skill and persistence. At the end of a difficult afternoon, we need to remind ourselves that we perform honorable labor and that there will be better days.
Mary Pipher (Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age)
Block said. “I mean, he’s a professor emeritus. He’s never watched a football game in my conscious memory. The whole picture—it wasn’t the guy I thought I knew.” But the conversation proved critical, because after surgery he developed bleeding in the spinal cord. The surgeons told her that in order to save his life they would need to go back in. But the bleeding had already made him nearly quadriplegic, and he would remain severely disabled for many months and likely forever. What did she want to do? “I had three minutes to make this decision, and I realized, he had already made the decision.” She asked the surgeons whether, if her father survived, he would still be able to eat chocolate ice cream and watch football on TV. Yes, they said. She gave the okay to take him back to the operating room. “If I had not had that conversation with him,” she told me, “my instinct would have been to let him go at that moment because it just seemed so awful. And I would have beaten myself up. Did I let him go too soon?” Or she might have gone ahead and sent him to surgery, only to find—as occurred—that he was faced with a year of “very horrible rehab” and disability. “I would have felt so guilty that I condemned him to that,” she said. “But there was no decision for me to make.” He had decided. During the next two years, he regained the ability to walk short distances. He required caregivers to bathe and dress him. He had difficulty swallowing and eating. But his mind was intact and he had partial use of his hands—enough to write two books and more than a dozen scientific articles. He lived for ten years after the operation. Eventually, however, his difficulties with swallowing advanced to the point where he could not eat without aspirating food particles, and he cycled between hospital and rehabilitation facilities with the pneumonias that resulted. He didn’t want a feeding tube. And it became evident that the battle for the dwindling chance of a miraculous recovery was going to leave him unable ever to go home again. So, just a few months before I’d spoken with Block, her father decided to stop the battle and go home. “We started him on hospice care,” Block said. “We treated his choking and kept him comfortable. Eventually, he stopped eating and drinking. He died about five days later.
Atul Gawande (Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End)
It's one thing to see someone with cognitive trouble for a few days as a guest in your home or at quick, chaotic family celebrations. Actually living with him in his home is a whole other plane of reality check.
Paula Spencer Scott (Surviving Alzheimer's: Practical tips and soul-saving wisdom for caregivers)
Rosa's death would have destroyed her, demolished her life. But she would have had the luxury of finality, of lowering the coffin and saying goodbye. And eventually, she'd have risen and rebuilt her life. This way, she was left standing, but in a purgatory state of descent, being whittled away, bit by bit, day by day. Was that better? "What mother thinks this way?" Teresa said.
Angie Kim
In 2008, the national Coping with Cancer project published a study showing that terminally ill cancer patients who were put on a mechanical ventilator, given electrical defibrillator or chest compressions, or admitted, near death, to intensive care had a substantially worse quality of life in their last week than those who received no such interventions. And, six months after their death, caregivers were three times as likely to suffer major depression. Spending one’s final days in an ICU because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie attached to a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place
Atul Gawande (Being Mortal: Atul Gawande)
How do I connect with my wife and get her to connect with me? This is always a constant desperation on my part especially because she doesn't speak. I am always afraid she will stop connecting with me, especially when I get that blank look, that daze into no man's land. That is the day I am trying to avoid. Everyday, every moment I can, I try to create an opportunity to “connect” to avoid her shutdown.
Sammie Marsalli (Preventing Her Shutdown)
If either of us could have seen the future, we would have known the next day his mother would pay my cruel caregiver and take me away forever, presenting me to Victor as his special gift.
Kiersten White (The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein)
Sorrow and grief become constant companions as we experience losses both big and small. Dementia has been called “the long goodbye” for a reason. Anticipatory grief is also a part of the caregiver’s journey. We know how the story ends from the day we hear a dementia diagnosis. We try not to dwell on our loved one’s demise, but that reality bubbles just below the surface of our everyday lives.
Gail Weatherill (The Caregiver's Guide to Dementia: Practical Advice for Caring for Yourself and Your Loved One (Caregiver's Guides))
There were so many days, so many chapters in my life, and yet when it came down to it, if memories were objects to be saved from a fire, there would be only one or two I’d reach for before leaving the burning house.
Samuel Park (The Caregiver)
Your caregiver can only give of themselves so much, so support them too! Show them your gratitude often and remember that National Caregivers Day is the Third Friday in February!
Mark K. Fry Sr. (Determined: Encouragement for Living Your Best Life with a Chronic Illness)
We'd become volatile, and we were afraid to tell anyone about it, both of us ashamed to admit that all the stress had unleashed monsters in us. We were supposed to be heroes. Or, at least, that's what everyone was calling us.
Karie Fugett (Alive Day: A Memoir)
I was twenty years old, a military spouse, and now a caregiver.
Karie Fugett (Alive Day: A Memoir)
As far as I was concerned, the war they sent him to had ruined his life, and he deserved every penny I could squeeze out of them.
Karie Fugett (Alive Day: A Memoir)
Providing structure and predictability Toddlers are reassured by familiar routines, regardless of their nature. When the environment prior to placement is a healthy one, the use of transition objects that link the former caregiver’s style and schedule to the present provides the sense of structure that is important to the toddler’s developing sense of security in her new home. A consistent schedule is also important to the child who is experiencing separation anxiety. Parents should be absolutely reliable about returning when expected. It is important to help children anticipate their schedules by talking through the day’s routine. Because toddlers cannot tell time, use concrete, regularly scheduled events to help them mark time such as mealtimes or the timing of a favorite television program such as Sesame Street. Parents should make every effort to delay making additional major life changes following a toddler adoption such as moving to a new home, adding another family member, divorce, or marriage until new routines are firm and secure.
Mary Hopkins-Best (Toddler Adoption: The Weaver's Craft Revised Edition)
You were your professional, polite, patient self. Or you were the good parent all day long, tolerating whatever was thrown your way by your children, the broken washing machine, your mother-in-law. By the end of the day, you are spent. Like the horse that begins galloping as soon as he sees the stable, you are in a race for your children’s bedtime. Nothing will deter you: “Just eat your dinner, have your bath, and get in bed! Don’t cross me, because I will surely explode.” Even your caregiver might have had it. She did her job with your children all day just as prescribed by you. She is wiped out too. So, what we have is a convergence of exhausted, burned-out, spent people who live in your house. Of course it is the Piranha Hour! While you have the maturity to know that soon you can relax, the children will be asleep, and the dishes will be done, your child does not. He has no resources left. Without the ability to withstand any more frustration, he collapses into a heap, yielding to a full-blown tantrum. He is neither happy nor comfortable, and he wants just the thing that always makes him feel better: You! How can he get your attention now, when you are so crabby? He’ll act out and misbehave, even tantrum, and like always, he will get your attention. That brings the mommy he knows, even if she is angry. Tips and Scripts for Handling a Tantrum There are many different theories about how tantrums should be handled. What works for one child might not work for yours. Moreover, what worked for your firstborn might not work for your second or third. Keep in mind the goal is not only to end the tantrum but also to support your child when he’s gone to the dark side. Don’t reason with your child when she is having a tantrum. In fact, say as little as possible. Children’s little ear flaps close right up when they are in the midst of a breakdown. Save your energy and your talk
Betsy Brown Braun (Just Tell Me What to Say: Simple Scripts for Perplexed Parents)
Post-placement visits While the conventional wisdom “out of sight, out of mind” may be true for some things, adoptive parents are wise to rethink this saying as they help their toddler make the transition to her new family. Without contacts to assure them that their former caregiver still exists, toddlers may expend unnecessary energy worrying, wondering, and fantasizing about former caregivers rather than directing their energy toward attaching to new parents. Worse yet, some may resist attachment because they may assume these new caregivers will simply disappear one day, too.
Mary Hopkins-Best (Toddler Adoption: The Weaver's Craft Revised Edition)
days are numbered, all we can do is treasure our time.
Mark J. Asher (All That Ails You: The Adventures of a Canine Caregiver)
Jesus, the gospel should be all the motivation I need for living as a compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, and patient man—especially when I consider this is how you relate to me 24/7, in full view of my ill-deserving ways. I’ll never experience you as insensitive, unkind, proud, harsh, or impatient. Indeed, through the gospel, I’ve become a member of God’s chosen, holy, dearly loved people. Yet it does take more: sometimes it takes pain. Today is just such a day. As I pray, I’m hurting big-time. Today it will be easier for me to clothe myself with compassion than with cotton. Yesterday afternoon I forgot that exercising at the gym doesn’t qualify me to be a refrigerator mover. But as I hurt, I’m moved to pray today for chronic sufferers—those who cry, “How long, O Lord?” for better reasons and with more tears than I have. Jesus, I pray for people with unrelenting pain in their bodies—those who no longer get any relief from physical therapy or medication. I pray for people with emotional and mental diseases, who live in the cruel world of delusional thinking and sabotaging emotions. I pray for their families and caregivers. I pray for the unconscionable number of children in the world who are suffering from hunger and malnutrition and for their parents who feel both shame and helplessness. Lord, these and many more stories of great suffering I bring before you. I also pray for the worst chronic suffering of all: for those who are “separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12 NIV). Come, Holy Spirit, come, and apply the saving benefits of Jesus to the religious and the nonreligious alike—to those who may be in the church or in the culture but who are not in Christ. Jesus, I anticipate getting over this back pain pretty soon, but I don’t want to get over compassionate praying and compassionate living. I pray in your kind and caring name. Amen.
Scotty Smith (Everyday Prayers: 365 Days to a Gospel-Centered Faith)
So began a kind of magic in Dementialand that took place most nights after the day’s sun went down.
Suzka (Wonders in Dementialand: An Artist's Intimate and Whimsical Account of Dementia, Memory Loss, Caregiving and Dancing Gypsies)
clear enough. I asked Birenbaum what he was ultimately trying to preserve by keeping Walden technology free. Was it the land, the cabins, and the lake, and leaving those spaces undisturbed by the outside world? Or were his efforts to keep the digital barbarians at the gate driven by a desire to preserve something deeper, that universal truth that not only made Walden what it was, but drove the Revenge of Analog in all its various forms? Birenbaum didn’t hesitate to answer. “We look at the heart of what we do, and it is interpersonal relationships,” he said. Any debate about technology’s use came down to a simple binary question: will it impact interpersonal relationships or not? “This camp could be wiped out by a meteor tomorrow, and we could rebuild across the road and we’d still be Walden,” he said. What mattered were the relationships and the uniquely analog recipe that enabled their formation. First, you place lots of people together, and have them relate to one another with the guidance of caregivers, who encourage and enforce mutual respect. Next, you mix in a program that creates various stresses, frustrations, and challenges that campers need to confront. This ranges from the simplest task of getting to breakfast on time to ten-day canoe trips in the harsh Canadian wilderness where twelve-year-olds might be expected to carry a 60-pound canoe on their head for a mile or more in the pouring rain, as blackflies gnaw at their ankles. These situations eventually lead to individual perseverance and self-respect . . . what most people call character. And that character is the glue that allows the relationships built at camp to last a lifetime, as my own friendships formed at Walden have. “You go a bit out of your comfort zone, endure a little hardship, people push you and help you to succeed, and you end up with friendships, confidence, and an inner fortitude that ends in a sense of belonging to a greater, interdependent community,” Birenbaum said. “This is one of the most basic aspects of the human condition.
David Sax (The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter)
The day the roles reverse is foreign. It’s a clumsy dance of love and responsibility, not wanting to cross any lines of respect. It’s honoring this person who gave their life to you—not to mention literally gave you life—and taking their fragile body in your hands like a newborn, tending to their every need.
Lisa Goich
Screen foster families carefully, monitor them closely and train them well. Too many vulnerable foster children suffer physical, emotional and sexual abuse, neglect and even death at the hands of those charged with protecting us. Maltreatment by caregivers damages our emotional stability, creating trust issues and other psychological problems that fester deep inside, negatively affecting our behaviors and outlook on life, often . . . too often . . . translating into adjustment problems that handicap our potential to adapt and succeed in childhood and beyond. Monitor our progress carefully, being sensitive to sudden or dramatic changes that may symbolize our unsophisticated “cry for help.” Advocate on our behalf and safeguard us as you would your own children and we will flourish. Fail to do so, and as surely as day becomes night, we will suffer the consequences both during and after we leave the system.
Waln K. Brown (Growing Up in the Care of Strangers: The Experiences, Insights and Recommendations of Eleven Former Foster Kids (Foster Care Book 1))
The worst thing about working as a caregiver is not what you might think. It’s not the lifting and cleaning, the medicines and wipes, and the distant but somehow always perceptible smell of disinfectant. It’s not even the fact that most people assume you’re only doing it because you really aren’t smart enough to do anything else. It’s the fact that when you spend all day in proximity to someone, there is no escape from their moods. Or your own. Will
Jojo Moyes (Me Before You (Me Before You, #1))
But now I also understand, firsthand, the meaning of what the caregivers who work in that system do every day. They do achieve amazing things, and when it’s your life or your child’s life or your mother’s life on the receiving end of those amazing things, there is no such thing as a runaway cost. You’ll pay anything, and if you don’t have the money, you’ll borrow at any mortgage rate or from any payday lender to come up with the cash. Which is why 60 percent of the nearly one million personal bankruptcies filed in the United States last year resulted from medical bills.
Steven Brill (America's Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System)
One day she asked, 'Why do you treat me so well?' 'Because you're my mother and you deserve to be treated like a queen.' After finishing her tea she burped. 'But queens don't do that." She smiled and said, 'How do you know?
Mark Steven Porro (A Cup of Tea on the Commode: My Multi-Tasking Adventures of Caring for Mom. And How I Survived to Tell the Tale)
One day she asked, 'Why do you treat me so well?' 'Because you're my mother and you deserve to be treated like a queen.' After finishing her tea she burped. 'But queens don't do that.' She smiled and said, 'How do you know?
Mark Steven Porro (A Cup of Tea on the Commode: My Multi-Tasking Adventures of Caring for Mom. And How I Survived to Tell the Tale)
I was involved in hundreds of projects with tight deadlines that probably could have stretched into a few more days. Would that have made a difference to the project? Most of the time, no. Would that have made a difference to my colleagues’ lives at home, as caregivers or as members of their community? I think the answer is a resounding yes.
Indra Nooyi (My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future)
But it’s more than an absence of spouses that complicates caregiving and companionship later in life. People are having fewer children, if they have children at all. This, in combination with marriage trends, has increased the number of older adults with no close family ties—a group of people whom sociologists call “elder orphans,” “solo agers,” or “kinless.” Researchers estimate that one in five older adults is an “elder orphan” or at risk of becoming one, a figure that is likely to grow in coming years. Like marriage, having children isn’t a surefire insurance policy for caregiving. Adult children might not live close to their parents, or their kids might not have the capacity to help. Daughters, historically the country’s default caregivers of aging parents, can’t be taken for granted as a source of uncompensated caregiving these days. Far more women are in the paid labor force and would jeopardize their economic security or their family’s if they quit their jobs to take care of their parents. (Nevertheless, on average, daughters spend far more time caring for their aging parents than sons do.) Because Americans are having kids later in life, it’s common for children with aging parents to be raising children of their own at the same time; these are members of the so-called sandwich generation. Unable to manage both forms of care, these adults may focus on their kids and outsource care for their parents.
Rhaina Cohen (The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center)
I'm particularly grateful for those neighbors and friends who listened to me without probing for details, judging the situation, or giving too much advice about what they would do in a similar circumstance. I simply wasn't yet ready for anything beyond just trying to cope with each new day.
Dianne G. Allen
As discussed in Chapter One, the main factor in a child developing an anxious attachment pattern is inconsistent attunement from their primary caregiver—there is love, but it is unreliable. In CNM, as people begin to go on more dates, enter into additional relationships or experience new relationship energy with someone else, they can start to become less available, responsive or attuned to their pre-existing partners. The person experiencing an increase in their number of partners or a deepening in a specific relationship may not intend to give less to their other partners (often they think they can manage all their relationships to a high degree), but due to the limits of how many hours there are in a day, how many date nights there are in a week or how many people you can text with at once, splitting time among more and more people can create insecure conditions for their other partners. The person with a new partner has now become (intentionally or not) more inconsistent, unpredictable and inaccessible to their attachment-based relationships than they were previously.
Jessica Fern (Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy)
How do I connect with my wife and get her to connect with me? This is always a constant desperation on my part especially because she doesn't speak. I am always afraid she will stop connecting with me, especially when I get that blank look, that "daze into no man's land."That is the day I am trying to avoid. There are different things I do, depending on the moment and situation we are in, always taking every opportunity I can to promote interaction with her.
Sammie Marsalli (Preventing Her Shutdown)
If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. —Chinese proverb
Barry J. Jacobs (AARP Meditations for Caregivers: Practical, Emotional, and Spiritual Support for You and Your Family)
lifelong psychobiological well-being is established during the first 1,000 days of our lives. Dr. Allan Schore, world leader in attachment theory, stresses the importance of the first 1,000 days, which encompass conception to age two. He calls these first days “the origin of the early forming subjective implicit self.”12 Neuroscience informs us that the brain doesn’t differentiate emotional pain from physical pain. The body can’t tell the difference between a broken bone and a broken heart. An infant who is hungry or lonely feels pain. When there isn’t a close caregiver to relieve her, the pain intensifies. Her brain can’t inform her body about why she’s in pain. If maternal care is compromised during the first three years, this lack of nurturance is heartbreaking for a baby.
Kelly McDaniel (Mother Hunger: How Adult Daughters Can Understand and Heal from Lost Nurturance, Protection, and Guidance)
Again, in my marriage, I felt that I needed permission, authorization, to clock out, log off, hand the work to someone else for a few days. “Can you cover for me?” suggests it is your work to do, not a shared responsibility. I could quote my friend Jen, who says the work she does makes her husband’s life possible. I could talk about invisible labor—how there are gears turning inside the machine that no one sees, but if they stop turning the whole thing grinds to a smoking halt. I could talk about the expectation of how I would spend my time: caregiving was my primary work and my career was secondary, whereas for him it was the opposite. I could say that we both built that, we’d done that together, but it was working for one of us, so only one of us wanted to dismantle it—
Maggie Smith (You Could Make This Place Beautiful)
Unlocking the Benefits of Continuous Glucose Monitors: A Comprehensive Guide Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs) have revolutionized diabetes management, offering real-time insights into blood sugar levels like never before. As the prevalence of diabetes continues to rise globally, understanding the significance of CGMs becomes paramount. Let's delve into the world of CGMs, exploring their benefits, functionality, and impact on diabetes care. What are Continuous Glucose Monitors? Continuous Glucose Monitors are wearable devices that continuously track glucose levels throughout the day and night. Unlike traditional glucose meters, CGMs provide real-time data, offering a comprehensive view of glucose fluctuations and trends. Benefits of Continuous Glucose Monitors Continuous Monitoring CGMs provide a continuous stream of glucose data, empowering individuals to make informed decisions about their diet, exercise, and medication. Early Detection CGMs can detect both hypo- and hyperglycemic episodes before they become severe, enabling prompt intervention. Improved Diabetes Management By providing insights into how different factors affect blood sugar levels, CGMs facilitate personalized diabetes management strategies. Enhanced Quality of Life CGMs reduce the need for frequent fingerstick testing, minimizing discomfort and improving overall quality of life for individuals with diabetes. Remote Monitoring CGMs can be integrated with smartphone apps, allowing caregivers and healthcare providers to remotely monitor glucose levels and provide timely assistance. How do Continuous Glucose Monitors Work? CGMs consist of three main components: a sensor, transmitter, and receiver/display device. Measurement of glucose levels in the interstitial fluid is performed by the sensor, which is commonly inserted beneath the skin. The transmitter sends this data to the receiver/display device, where users can view real-time glucose readings and trends. Conclusion Continuous Glucose Monitors represent a significant advancement in diabetes management, offering unparalleled insights and convenience. With their ability to provide continuous glucose monitoring, early detection of fluctuations, and personalized insights, CGMs are transforming the lives of individuals with diabetes worldwide. Embracing this technology can lead to better diabetes management, improved quality of life, and reduced risk of diabetes-related complications.
medsupplyus
The Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitoring System Living with diabetes requires constant vigilance over blood sugar levels. For decades, individuals with diabetes relied on periodic finger pricks to monitor glucose levels, but this method offered only snapshots of a dynamic condition. However, with the advent of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems like Dexcom, managing diabetes has entered a new era of convenience and precision. The Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitoring system is a game-changer for people with diabetes, offering real-time insights into glucose levels without the need for multiple finger pricks throughout the day. The system consists of a small sensor that is inserted just beneath the skin, typically on the abdomen, and continuously measures glucose levels in the interstitial fluid. This sensor communicates wirelessly with a receiver or compatible smart device, providing users with real-time glucose readings every few minutes. One of the key advantages of the Dexcom CGM system is its ability to track glucose trends over time. By providing continuous data, users can see how their glucose levels respond to food, exercise, medication, and other factors, empowering them to make informed decisions about their diabetes management. Additionally, the system includes customizable alerts for high and low glucose levels, helping users proactively manage their condition and avoid dangerous fluctuations. The Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitoring system is not only beneficial for individuals with diabetes but also for their caregivers and healthcare providers. Caregivers can remotely monitor the glucose levels of loved ones, offering peace of mind and the ability to intervene quickly in case of emergencies. Healthcare providers can access detailed reports of a patient's glucose data, enabling more personalized treatment plans and adjustments to medication regimens. Furthermore, Dexcom has been at the forefront of innovation in CGM technology, continuously improving the accuracy, reliability, and usability of its systems. Recent advancements include longer sensor wear time, smaller and more comfortable sensors, and integration with insulin pumps and artificial pancreas systems for automated insulin delivery. In conclusion, the Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitoring system has revolutionized diabetes management by providing real-time insights, customizable alerts, and greater convenience for users. With continuous advancements in technology, Dexcom continues to empower individuals with diabetes to live healthier, more active lives while effectively managing their condition.
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Here’s a routine you can try this week. Write down the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. For each sense, name two things you love. You now have a list of 10 delights. At the end of each day, look at your list. How many delights did you give yourself that day? Make a goal of not letting a day pass without indulging a minimum of two senses with something you love.
Gail Weatherill (The Caregiver's Guide to Dementia: Practical Advice for Caring for Yourself and Your Loved One (Caregiver's Guides))
The day I found out I was pregnant was one of the happiest days of my life. Lots of women complained about having to stay at home and take care of their kids or how much they missed their jobs and old life, but I never did even when it was hard. I cherished being the most important caregiver in my children’s lives and couldn’t imagine giving them to someone else to raise while I went to work.
Lucinda Berry (Saving Noah)
Sip a cup of tea slowly and slide into a sleep that carries you back to those softer days when I cradled you in the curves of my consistency.
Jenny Noble Anderson (But Still She Flies: Poems and Paintings)
Each day do something to make others smile and your heart sing.
Judith Allen Shone (Is There Any Ice Cream?: Surviving the Challenges of Caregiving for a Loved One with Alzheimer's, Anxiety, and COPD)
The drawing depicted what he had seen the day before: an airplane slamming into the tower, a ball of fire, firefighters, and people jumping from the tower’s windows. But at the bottom of the picture he had drawn something else: a black circle at the foot of the buildings. I had no idea what it was, so I asked him. “A trampoline,” he replied. What was a trampoline doing there? Noam explained, “So that the next time when people have to jump they will be safe.” I was stunned: This five-year-old boy, a witness to unspeakable mayhem and disaster just twenty-four hours before he made that drawing, had used his imagination to process what he had seen and begin to go on with his life. Noam was fortunate. His entire family was unharmed, he had grown up surrounded by love, and he was able to grasp that the tragedy they had witnessed had come to an end. During disasters young children usually take their cues from their parents. As long as their caregivers remain calm and responsive to their needs, they often survive terrible incidents without serious psychological scars.
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
Every American should be able to expect certain standards, freedoms, benefits, and opportunities form a twenty-first-century health system. If they are willing to participate and be responsible, they will gain: •Improved health; •Longer lives with a much better quality of life; •A more convenient, understandable and personalized experience -- all at a lower cost; •Access to the best course of treatment for their particular illness and their unique characteristics; •A system that fosters and encourages innovation, competition, and better outcomes for patients; •A system that truly values the impact that medical innovation has on patients and their caregivers as well as on society as a whole; •A government that facilitates and accelerates extraordinary opportunities to improve health and health care; •Continuous but unobtrusive 24/7 monitoring of their general health, chronic conditions, and acute health problems; •Access to the most modern medical knowledge and breakthroughs, including the most advanced technologies, therapies and drugs, unimpeded by government-imposed price controls or rationing; •The chance to increase their personal knowledge by learning from a transparent system of information about their diagnosis, costs and alternative solutions; •A continuously improving, competitive, patient-focused medical world in which new therapies, new technologies, and new drugs are introduced as rapidly and safely as possible -- and not a day later; •Greater price and market competition, innovation and smarter health care spending; •A system of financing that includes insurance, government, charities, and self-funding that ensures access to health and health care for every American at the lowest possible cost without allowing financing and short-term budgetary considerations to distort and weaken the delivery of care; •Genuine insurance to facilitate access to dramatically better care, rather than the current system, which is myopically focused on monthly or annual payments; •A health system in which third parties and government bureaucrats do not impede the best course of treatment that doctors and their patients decide on; •A health system in which seniors, veterans, or others under government health programs receive the same quality of care as their children in private markt systems. Big reforms are required to transform today’s expensive, obsolete health bureaucracy into a system that conforms to these principles.
Newt Gingrich (Understanding Trump)
Unconsciously and pervasively, the caregiver ascribes a mental state to the child with her behavior, treating the child as a mental agent. This is ultimately perceived by the child and used in the elaboration of teleological models and permits the development of a core sense of selfhood organized along mentalistic lines. We assume that this, by and large, is a mundane process, in the sense of happening every day throughout early life, and that it is a process that is preconscious to both infant and caregiver, inaccessible to reflection or modification.
Peter Fonagy (Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self [eBook])
Therapies we can purchase and caregivers we can consult, whether available through conventional or unconventional medicine, are still far more impressive to us than our own hearts and minds, lungs and hopes, muscles and beliefs, even though they sustain us day in and day out.
Herbert Benson (The Relaxation Response)
He places her second Bloody Mary on a square napkin in front of her as one might provide mush to a moron at an asylum. In watching his gesture it dawns on Sigrid that she might never—not metaphorically but for real—ever have sex again. The thought makes her both terrified and strangely relieved. “If there’s anything else you need,” he says, “just ask.” Sigrid smiles at him gently, knowing that he is, at that moment, her primary caregiver.
Derek B. Miller (American by Day (Sigrid Ødegård #2))
Now take the child from that mother, and place him somewhere else. Not in another home, among different people who love him—and who will be sources of mystery to him, too. Not with his Aunt Violet or with his grandmother, nor even with the kind old lady next door. Place him with—here is the crucial word—a professional. Place him in the context of a money-making—here is another crucial word—industry. Take him to those functional places with tellingly abstract and impersonal names, like the Early Learning Center, or the Tiny Tots Academy. Place him among professional caregivers, rather like people who will walk and feed your dog at the kennel, only much nicer. They will feed the child, will parcel out the child's day with appropriate Learning Activities, will enforce the scheduled Naptime, and will send him home clean, well-fed, generally contented, runny-nosed, patted, played with, and unloved. Thus will his natural hunger for love be filled instead with the pleasantly functional. He will have no complaints about the Choo-Choo Child Connection. It may, in fact, be the only time in his day that he will run into other children. And he will be all the readier for school. Not only because he will be able to say his ABC’s. He will be ready to see himself and everyone else in the school as ciphers in an institution built to serve a certain function. Charles
Anthony Esolen (Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child)
The roots of many of the thought and behaviour patterns which characterize us as adults reach back to our childhood days. What is important to recognize, however, is that the patterns that prove harmful in our later years, often served an adaptive function when we first adopted them, helping us to cope with the less than ideal situations of our youth. In other words, very often our current problems are the solutions we devised to previous life problems. This phenomenon of solutions becoming problems or, as Sigmund Freud characterized it, as self-defensive patterns becoming self-handicapping, is extremely pervasive and can help explain why we adopt behaviours and personality traits which, over time, greatly inhibit our ability to flourish. For example, an inability to assert our self, or a crippling degree of shyness, may have been an adaptive trait in our childhood helping us to avoid confrontations with abusive caregivers. This trait only becomes maladaptive if we hold onto it into adulthood and generalize its application to situations where the potential for abuse is absent. It is often the case, therefore, that those who suffer most from neurotic, or even some forms of psychotic functioning, are not so much flawed in any innate sense, but rather are the victims of unfortunate circumstances over which they had little control.
Academy of Ideas
Take, for instance the Efe, a group of hunter-gatherers who have lived in the rainforest of central Africa for thousands of years. Right after a mom gives birth, other women come over to her house and form a baby SWAT team, ready to respond to every whimper and cry the baby has. They hold, snuggle, rock, and even feed the newborn. As the anthropologist Mel Konner writes: “Dealing with a fussing baby is a group effort.” After a few days, the mom can return to work and leave the baby with an allomother. In the first few weeks of a new baby’s life, an infant will move from one caregiver to the next, on average, every fifteen minutes. By the time the baby is three weeks old, allomoms account for 40 percent of the newborn’s physical care. By sixteen weeks, allomoms account for a whopping 60 percent. Skip ahead two years, and the child spends more time with others than with their own mother. All these snuggles, cuddles, and moments of comfort from allomoms have lasting benefits for babies and children. These women know the little dumpling just as well as the mother. And the dumpling feels just as safe and comfortable with these alloparents as they do with mom. As a result, babies attach and bond to many adults, perhaps as many as five or six.
Michaeleen Doucleff (Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans)
Originally, co-regulation was a term used to describe the back-and-forth between a caregiver and infant to support a baby’s stress regulation. Beginning in the earliest days of life, an infant’s socioemotional circuitry is molded by adults. A caregiver who reliably provides physical and verbal comfort and reassures the infant teaches it that emotional distress is manageable. A caregiver who does not provide such support teaches the infant that he or she may be at the mercy of their emotions. In this way, co-regulation is the precursor to healthy self-regulation.
Marc Brackett (Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive)
She overcame her heartbreak and published her book anyway. Instead of exonerating homeopathy, the book condemned it as little more than a compelling story delivered by attentive, skilled caregivers. The day it was published, she closed her practice and turned her back on homeopathy forever.
Erik Vance (Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain's Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal)
He came home in late May badly weakened and visibly ill, with high treatment needs at home. He'd lost more weight and color in the hospital and he moved slowly. He also came home on oxygen and ultra-strong IV antibiotics-- his lungs was still filled with a thick fluid and was at high risk of serious infection. I was floored when I learned that I was expected to administer these antibiotics three times a day, through his PICC line. In addition he came home with complex regimen of well over a dozen medications, and it fell on me to fill his extra-large pill box and refill his prescriptions.
Kate Washington (Already Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America)