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One Afternoon at Teatime

Marilyn Hammick July 8, 2016 3 Comments

Marilyn Hammick

Arthur stops close to where we sit waiting
for the person you call the activities lady
to serve us drinks and biscuits.
He moves his wheelchair with slippered feet,
so we become another group.
You introduce me, This is my sister,
I nod to Arthur and watch his mouth form words
that seem reluctant to reach me, hang
in the air unsteady, diminished.

He continues to speak, I continue to nod,
I think he’s asking about my name,
you seem to understand, or do you guess?
I’m trying to work out if there’s a knack
I’ve yet to grasp, a way to hear
the hush and lisp of

Meditating with My Stepdaughter

Avis Begoun June 23, 2016 3 Comments

It was a Friday afternoon in May, a week before my stepdaughter died. I was holding a solo vigil on the couch next to her bed, while she slept peacefully.

Her hair had started growing back, soft and thick and gray. I loved to rub my hand across her head.

A 3:00 a.m. Phone Call

Roz Levine June 13, 2016 1 Comment

When the phone rang at 3:00 a.m., as I reached out my hand to answer it I knew the call was bringing bad news. On the other end of the line, I heard my dad’s croaky, Parkinsonian voice stammer,”Rozzie, I’m so cold. Come here and help me; I can’t reach the blanket to cover myself.” It seemed like forever before he was able to squeeze out the additional information that he’d called the front desk at the assisted-care facility where he lived, but Jose, the night attendant, had said he was alone and couldn’t leave the desk, even for a few minutes.

I told my dad I’d take care of the problem, dialed the front desk number, and listened to Jose explain that the

Homecoming

Ronna L. Edelstein July 31, 2015 22 Comments

Ronna L. Edelstein

For years, and especially as he entered his nineties, my father kept begging me not to “dump” him into a nursing home. He had seen too many of his cronies abandoned in this way by family members; his visits with these friends left him feeling depressed and hopeless for days. I assured Dad that I’d never put him in a facility.

It was an easy promise to make. I didn’t want him in a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest setting with a Nurse Ratched supervising his care. I didn’t want him waking up at night disoriented and lonely. Because he was inching closer to death, the greatest unknown, I didn’t want a facility, with all of its unknowns, to

My Father’s Girl

Maureen Hirthler March 20, 2015 23 Comments

I’m walking very slowly with my dad down the produce aisle at the local supermarket, past the colorful waxed apples, Mexican mangoes and Rainier cherries, and imagining my life’s blood trickling onto the floor from an invisible wound.

As I pass by the misting system spraying the bins of green, red, yellow and orange peppers, past the lady reaching for carrots, past the stock guy balancing the heirloom tomatoes into a precarious stack, I want to scream. The sense of loss is overpowering.

(Not So) Golden Years

Madge Kaplan March 7, 2014 24 Comments

Madge Kaplan

When I read news articles about caring for elderly parents at a distance, I sometimes shake my head. There’s a tendency to put the best spin on the experience: as long as you contact the right people, get the right information and treat the ups and downs as just part of life’s challenges, you’ll be fine. You can do this!

I find myself wondering when the author last talked to a caregiver at her wits’ end–emotions and finances drained, logistics spiraling out of control.

I was a long-distance caregiver for twelve years. I believe it’s best to resist a formulaic approach in favor of one informed by the details–and always, always, humbled by the truth.

Eleventh Hour

K.D. Hayes January 3, 2014 16 Comments

K.D. Hayes

Uncle Walt died this morning. Finally.

I say “finally” because I believed this day would come four months ago, when he had emergency bypass surgery.

At the time, I didn’t believe Walt would live; he was an ailing, seventy-seven-year-old man with severe pulmonary disease. When his heart started to hurt one Friday, his doctors told him, “With bypass surgery, you might live. Without it, you’ll be dead before the weekend is over.”

Walt’s oldest daughter and my parents, who were with him, told me about the doctors’ recommendations.

As a retired paramedic, I’d seen this scenario before–often enough to have a strong opinion, and my own advance directives.

In Sickness and in Health

Larry Zaroff August 16, 2013 1 Comment

Larry Zaroff

Four months after having a knee replacement, I stumbled into the bathroom at three AM, not fully awake, hoping to urinate.

Losing my balance, I fell. The result was a compound fracture of my left leg–the one with the prosthetic knee.

Gazing at my shiny white kneecap, I lost all logic, all control. I simply cried.

At eighty, I was unprepared for this unexpected anatomy lesson: my twenty-nine years as a surgeon had simply not prepared me for viewing the inside of my own knee.

It felt like my life was over.

Fortunately my wife, Carolyn, a painter, four years younger than I, and without any orthopedic experience, took one look, said little, but acted.

She wrapped my naked bones in a clean

The One She Calls Milk

Amy Haddad November 23, 2012 No Comments

Amy Haddad

Is for pain but has a longer name
she can’t pronounce. It’s for when he shakes.
She is not sure if the shakes
mean pain since these days
he often cannot say.

Earlier when he could say,
he would mimic the circle faces
on the pain chart the nurses held up to him.
He would try on expressions
until he found one that fit his pain.
He would set his lips into a thin straight line
or deeply furrow his brow. “That one.
That’s how it feels,” he’d say
with just a small note of pride for
getting it right.

Now getting it right is her job.

An Orphan’s Tale

Peter Ferrarone July 27, 2012 No Comments

Peter Ferrarone

At the outset, I confess that I have no experience in the medical field. I’m not a doctor or a nurse; I’m a recent college graduate, a writer and someone who’s interested in the world. And, all last summer, I was a volunteer in Uganda.

I’d met a Ugandan priest who was visiting the States on a lecture tour. He described his work overseeing an orphanage located in Western Uganda, a day’s bus ride from Rwanda and Kenya. When he invited me to go and help out there, I accepted.

Upon arriving, I discovered that the orphanage was a small, broken-down concrete house perched on a hill

What You Were Wearing

Theta Pavis March 16, 2012 No Comments

Theta Pavis

They handed me your clothes
the winter boots,
the dark, folded jeans in their
impossible size 5.

I put them in my trunk,
then drove around
orbiting your hospital like a
satellite sister.

Closing up the Cabin

Robin Schoenthaler February 10, 2012 1 Comment

Robin Schoenthaler

I met Burt the Monday before Labor Day. As I walked into the room, he stood up–a sturdy, fifty-three-year-old guy with a direct, sky-blue gaze. Although he was a little etched around the eyes, he mostly looked the picture of health.

Two years before, he’d had a cancer. It was treated and thought to be gone. But for several weeks now, he’d been having excruciating low-back pain; he rated it a ten out of ten. The day before, a new CT scan had revealed that his original tumor had spread to his liver and bones. A spiderweb of tumor damage in his spine was the cause of

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: caregiver stories

One Afternoon at Teatime

Meditating with My Stepdaughter

A 3:00 a.m. Phone Call

Homecoming

My Father’s Girl

(Not So) Golden Years

Eleventh Hour

In Sickness and in Health

The One She Calls Milk

What You Were Wearing

Closing up the Cabin

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fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: caregiver stories

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