Four Things I Learned Through Caregiving

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Alzheimer's ...for caregivers

Four Things I Learned Through Caregiving

I learned many things taking care of Tom and that included his incontinence care and perhaps the most outstanding were these:

* The one constant Tom needed most was to feel safe and loved.

As I travel and speak around the country as an advocate for caregivers and their family members I have begun to hear professionals finally talking about the commonality that exists between newborns and those in the late stages of dementia, and the needs of both for touch and assurance that they are loved. After everything else goes, that is all they have left to experience. Tom’s inability to communicate only increased his needs for nurturing. He was never diminished by the ravages of his illness because I refused to let that happen. By the time he was bed-ridden there was nothing left to do but love him the way one loves a child.

* Nothing was ever as bad as I thought it was going to be.

It was fear of the unknown, fear of change that was my greatest enemy. Fear was dissipated as I learned about care choices, developed habilitation techniques that allowed Tom to function on his terms instead of society’s, found tools and equipment that aided in his care, and met others who had ‘made it through’ a particular phase of symptoms.

* Every change faced, every decision made, was colored by how I handled my grieving.

I came to view each and every loss that Tom experienced as a ‘little death’ that had to be mourned separately and completely before I could move on. Being able to accurately name the process was the first step to finding the means to continue.

* I was far more resilient and resourceful than I knew.

As Tom’s care needs increased my confidence increased as well. I found myself creatively applying skills that were learned for other purposes to Tom’s needs, and my sense of myself increased in spite of it all, and maybe because of it all.

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