Sunday, June 14, 2009

The Heart of a caregiver

I recently wrote in my monthly newsletter about my reluctance to begin caregiving my mother in law, Bette. A caregiver wrote this back.
"Your caregiver note really hit the nail on the head for me. I'm glad to know that even you didn't do or say everything right. Many times I too got frustrated no matter how hard I tried to be patient with Jo's mom. As we began the Alzheimer journey, she was my least favorite person. Even when she was well, she telephoned so many times, I threatened to change our phone number. So it was very difficult for me to step in and become her primary caregiver. Now I see that it wasn't easy for her either after living alone for 40 years, she had to accept that she couldn't do things like bathe herself. I took 'baby steps' with her each week in trying to get her to bathe and allow me to wash her. We did it one step at a time. I know we can't go back and change the past. We could have done a lot worse. We can only take comfort in knowing we did our best at the time and cherish the memories of years before."
We can develop the heart of a caregiver when we can step outside ourselves and into the world of the person with Alzheimer's. This caregiver did just that, one step at a time. That is the way I had to do it too.

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