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******************** This is a one hundred percent opt-in newsletter with a two hundred percent anti-spam policy. You or someone using your name and email address signed up to receive this newsletter. We publish twice monthly and welcome all opinions, critiques, and topical articles. Subscription link: http://www.senior2senior.org/newsletter.html Content: 1. Publisher’s Comments
Thank you to everyone who suggested improvements to the format of this newsletter. I feel like an idiot for not remembering to include a subscribe address. I mean, if I want you to recommend it to a friend, they should be directed to a subscribe address, right? I’ll write it off as a “senior moment.” <LOL> I added a graphic of the Senior Pride ribbon to the home page so visitors will know what it looks like. Thank you to everyone who made a donation. Your magnet(s) will be in the mail (hopefully) next week. If you want to have lunch with God, visit: http://www.senior2senior.org/lunchwithgod.html I will attempt to keep adding tidbits like this so we can all smile. From some of the emails I receive, people are looking for help with Internet/computer related problems/questions/information. Boy-oh-boy can I ever relate. A friend of mine in Great Britain happens to own a site that is ready made for people like us. His name is Joe Robson and the site is: http://www.newbieclub.com/?sandalwood The sandalwood after the question mark means you will meet him through me. I have been a newbieclub.com member since he started the site. I’ve been a member that long because Joe is as honest as the day is long and his free newsletter is always topical. I hope this answers some of the questions. The article section today is a letter I received after the first issue was mailed. Margaret said I could leave her name listed at the end of her letter. I removed her email address for obvious reasons. Margaret, by the way, also lives in Great Britain. I mention her home country only because health is health and care is care no matter where you live. You’d agree wouldn’t you? Her letter is today’s article because it knocked me off my chair. It had such an impact, Margaret and I plan a book based on the substance of her letter. I hold the firm belief one can never have too much information. Unfortunately for those of us who are visited by the caregiver angel, information is one of those things we should have had yesterday. This book will be yesterday’s information today. If I can get it in front of Oprah or Imus, millions will have it on their book shelf. If you know anyone who can help us, write me. 2. Article Dear Tom, Thank you for your inaugural issue. I live in London, England, but am an experienced carer. Both your articles applied to me. My husband died six weeks ago, age 91. He had his first stroke 9 years ago and for two years, made a reasonable recovery. After that, it was downhill all the way. His needs increased to the point where, for the last 20 months of his life, I could no longer nurse him at home. He was blind, deaf, completely helpless, needing two people and a hoist for every movement, his swallowing mechanism became so bad that all food had to be blended and all drinks thickened and he had vascular dementia. This was a bitter, sharp I beg your readers to make living wills while they are physically and mentally able to make the choices they would want in their most extreme circumstances. We had done so in 1996 and I saw that Richard's living will was implemented every step of the way. He had wanted to die for about five years because he knew how he was deteriorating. I couldn't hasten his death but I could see that his life was not prolonged, and I did. Right up to the end. I could write for a very long time about this but will leave that now. The stress of a carer is unimaginable. I went five years without an unbroken night's sleep and I don't just mean getting up once a night. If Richard only needed help 3 times during the night I considered it a good night. Six or seven times was much more usual. Carers have this idea that they should be invincible. Actually, they are human, like everyone else. I beg them to seek and accept all available help. If only I had done so earlier, I would have been so much less exhausted. When you can no longer manage, accept that fact and that you have done your best up to that point. I kept Richard at home until he had to be lifted. I could not do this. I am too small and it was dangerous for both of us. I had to work my way through huge feelings of guilt that I had let him down because he was no longer at home. This lasted for months but I now know that I did everything I could for as long as I could. Accepting it was Carers of patients with mental problems are in a dire situation because information on the various stages of their particular form of dementia is often not offered. I wish I had been told what MIGHT happen. I would have been so much better prepared. Good luck with your venture, Margaret End of article - - - Until next issue, Tom Koziol Write to: Senior Outreach Ministries | |||
