Sunday, June 25, 2017

There's an APP for that Caregiver

We all need a helping hand when we are a family caregiver, and now there are a variety of social media applications that can go a long way to helping caregivers. 

Sometimes the hardest part of caregiving (after surfing all the emotions that arise) is managing your time. Today we know that—statistically—the typical caregiver is a woman in her forties, married, with children at home, caring for an elderly family member. Add work and economic challenges and you have a tsunami of worry and logistics. 

While the best help for the worry is likely a caregiver support group or a phone buddy who has been through it too, the help for managing logistics can now be on your phone or tablet.

Those logistics center around tasks: who is driving Mom, who is shopping, doing respite, picking up prescriptions or talking to the doc?

Talking itself consumes a huge amount of time and caregiver energy—so a way to outsource or support communication can be a lifesaver. Delegating a single scribe to handle updates to the family & friend communities saves the primary caregiver from call after call every night or every time there is a new treatment or procedure.

Here are a few helpful tools to make your caregiver life a little easier:

Google Calendar: It’s free and many people can use it at the same time. Use it to share info and appointments and ride scheduling.

Wunderlist: a task managing ap for multiple users. You list the tasks and participants can agree in real, online time to take a task and complete it. It also provides reminders. There is a free version for up to 25 participants.

Lotsa Helping Hands: is specifically for caregiver management. You can post requests for help listing specific needs and tasks. Family and friends log in to say yes and take that off your plate. There is also a blog feature where news can be shared out to the selected community all at once.

CareZone: an app for medication management. You can scan the prescription bottles with your phone’s camera and the app creates a list and schedule of all medications and dosages. It also provides reminders and health updates. Medication lists are in one place when talking to a doc or intake coordinator.

There are many more like these that you can find by searching for “technology for caregivers”. Many were designed for care in an elderly population but work perfectly in a cancer care/cancer caregiver situation.

And with any hospitalization --or at your chemo center --ask for the patient relations coordinator—don’t be shy about this-they have the latest news on services at their location and in their networks.

Saturday, June 17, 2017

Summer is Coming

Today we did a three-mile walk up and down the hills.  We were huffing and puffing but moving along pretty well. As we made the turn to come back home I said to John, “Do you remember the summer after your first surgery; you could not walk from our front door to the car.” He did remember. It’s a shock still, how that cutting into flesh and being sewn back together took away so much strength. He looked the same but could not walk at all.

Now we hike and do hills and push each other on. We went to the movies at the

mall yesterday, ate burgers for dinner, went to the grocery store together. None of that possible in CancerLand days.

That summer chemo changed so many things. No movies, no malls, no grocery stores. Even the tiniest bit of air-conditioned air caused him excruciating pain as his throat closed and froze. He couldn’t even look in the refrigerator. I had to learn to cook. That turned out to be one of the gifts of Cancer Land—I became a cook.


But the summer when it all began was so shocking and crazy. 

I think about this today as we hike and run and dress for a trip to Tanglewood tonight. So many things changed. We grew from them and with them. It isn’t everyone’s path. Cancer sometimes ends relationships. It can be too much. There is no blame for that. It can just be too dam hard sometimes.

But what I feel today is gratitude and grace, and I’m cherishing every day we get.

Sunday, June 4, 2017

So this is Nina Riggs--poet, writer, Mom, wife, friend, dog lover, cancer patient. And gone.

Left for the rest of us is her new and amazing memoir, "The Bright Hour--A Memoir of Living and Dying". This fine and beautiful book is about living with--and dying from--cancer.

Nina Riggs was a poet, and that facility with language and images, and her ability to see through the world ensures power on every single page.

Riggs writes with great humor--much needed here in CancerLand, and her book is about living with cancer--raising kids, adopting a dog, being in a marriage even while getting ready to die.

With this book Riggs raises the bar on how to die, and how to see the world every single day that you are alive. This will be the most uplifting book you read this year.