I need to give blogging a chance and see if sharing my years of care giving experience can be of help to,so many others who right this minute are caring for a loved one and feeling alone and overwhelmed.
I have had some trouble with trolls and that has caused me to delay posting.
I spent just a couple months short of 37 years care giving my daughter Bree. I cared for an end stage Alzheimer's patient during the last 6 months of her life and helped out a PTSD army vet with food shopping, house cleaning and dealing with short term memory loss.
These experiences total 4 decades of my life and it is very easy for me to be the care giver, far too easy.
The last care giving job with the Alzheimer's patient ended just 2 1/2 months ago.
Four decades later and now I need to start over and it is challenging finding my way. I have moved 3 times in the last year for jobs and fulfilling a commitment to my daughter. People tend to know me as a care giver and are recommending me for different care giving jobs. They do not realize that after all this time of being a care giver, that the person I need to care give the most is now myself.
When my daughter Bree was born in 1980 and my whole life as I knew it changed overnight- I had no skills, experience or knowledge of how I was going to raise my challenged /brain injured daughter and keep her healthy and happy in the process. I just loved her and I was so afraid that the doctors were right and she would not live more than 5 years.
I am not different than anyone else. I have the same fears, same anxiety, same self doubts, same dreams as anyone else. Fear of the worse case scenario was what drove me. In retrospect, I have no idea how I did what I did. I keep going back to the two things my parents taught me, which was unconditional love and perseverance.
All I knew to do was read. Just keep reading until I found some answers and in 1980 there was no internet - google or Facebook.
When I first saw my daughter, after a very frightening birth , I will never forget the feeling of love that came over me for this little hurt 4 lb 6 oz baby girl. It was a feeling of somehow I would protect this little one like a mother tiger. I felt myself instantly becoming a protector and care giver. Yet I had no idea how I was going to do this. I think at the same time I began praying intently for guidance, help, healing and generally begging God to help my daughter.
So what do we do when overnight our lives change and we have had no warning whatsoever. Bree was 10 days overdue and I had a very normal pregnancy.
Basic survival and the only thing I knew was that I had to get breast milk to my child, therefore I had to keep myself together to pump milk for my child. I was driven to just do the most basic thing - feed my child. The best milk is mother's milk and I was determined to do that for my child. It gave me a focus and gave my daughter nourishment.
That is how it began and how our bond was sealed.
I have had some trouble with trolls and that has caused me to delay posting.
I spent just a couple months short of 37 years care giving my daughter Bree. I cared for an end stage Alzheimer's patient during the last 6 months of her life and helped out a PTSD army vet with food shopping, house cleaning and dealing with short term memory loss.
These experiences total 4 decades of my life and it is very easy for me to be the care giver, far too easy.
The last care giving job with the Alzheimer's patient ended just 2 1/2 months ago.
Four decades later and now I need to start over and it is challenging finding my way. I have moved 3 times in the last year for jobs and fulfilling a commitment to my daughter. People tend to know me as a care giver and are recommending me for different care giving jobs. They do not realize that after all this time of being a care giver, that the person I need to care give the most is now myself.
When my daughter Bree was born in 1980 and my whole life as I knew it changed overnight- I had no skills, experience or knowledge of how I was going to raise my challenged /brain injured daughter and keep her healthy and happy in the process. I just loved her and I was so afraid that the doctors were right and she would not live more than 5 years.
I am not different than anyone else. I have the same fears, same anxiety, same self doubts, same dreams as anyone else. Fear of the worse case scenario was what drove me. In retrospect, I have no idea how I did what I did. I keep going back to the two things my parents taught me, which was unconditional love and perseverance.
All I knew to do was read. Just keep reading until I found some answers and in 1980 there was no internet - google or Facebook.
When I first saw my daughter, after a very frightening birth , I will never forget the feeling of love that came over me for this little hurt 4 lb 6 oz baby girl. It was a feeling of somehow I would protect this little one like a mother tiger. I felt myself instantly becoming a protector and care giver. Yet I had no idea how I was going to do this. I think at the same time I began praying intently for guidance, help, healing and generally begging God to help my daughter.
So what do we do when overnight our lives change and we have had no warning whatsoever. Bree was 10 days overdue and I had a very normal pregnancy.
Basic survival and the only thing I knew was that I had to get breast milk to my child, therefore I had to keep myself together to pump milk for my child. I was driven to just do the most basic thing - feed my child. The best milk is mother's milk and I was determined to do that for my child. It gave me a focus and gave my daughter nourishment.
That is how it began and how our bond was sealed.
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