Alzheimer’s and Caregiver’s Month (both recognized in November) have come to an end, but not the disease nor the need for caregiving.  Caregivers need something to sustain them as they go through the coming months.
I came across an interesting post at Nurture Your Own, The ABC’s of Caregiving, an acrostic poem written as a wrap-up for National Caregiver’s Month.
The author explains: I had compiled our own journey over the last 2 years, more from a caregiver’s view point and arranged in an Acrostic Form to end the Caregiver’s Month 2007. Many who went through the same journey may be able to identify the …read more

“Mary, we have to do something about your mother.  She nearly broke the aide’s wrist when we tried to get her into the shower,” remaked the administrator of a nursing home when I picked Mother up after a weekend stay.  (At this point in Mother’s journey through Alzheimer’s, she lived with me but stayed at a nursing home weekends when I was away.)
I realized Mother was living in an era before she’d had a shower in her home.  She probably didn’t realize what this thing was that poured water onto her. Or perhaps she thought she was outdoors in the rain.  Most recently, Mother …read more

“Mary, she nearly broke the aide’s arm when we tried to get her under the shower,” the nurse at the nursing home related.  “Your mother doesn’t want to go near the shower.”
 I thought about it, then explained to the nurse that Mother didn’t have a shower in her home, had never had one wherever she lived.  She might have used one the few times she stayed at a motel, but she used a tub or “sponge bathed” most of her life.
Then I realized Mother may have been living, in her mind, her life before a tub.  When she was growing up, …read more