Compassionate Caregiving

D. Knutson Lois

Description

Spiritual and Practical Help From a CaregiverMost caregivers today have no training for the role into which they are thrust. Having been the primary caregiver for her mother, Lois Knutson draws on not only her years of experience, but also her professional training to offer encouragement and assistance to caregivers. Because she knows the situations that weigh down caregivers, Knutson gently builds them up as they continue to care for their elderly loved ones. In addition to practical tips, readers will find ways to care for themselves.Subjects addressed in Compassionate Caregiving include: how to balance work and caregiving; when and how to find home healthcare or care facilities; long-distance caregiving; how to provide for the dying; and much more.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441208255
• Langue: English

Extrait

© 2007 by Lois D. Knutson
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan. www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 9781441208255
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. www.zondervan.com
Scripture quotations identified NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations identified KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Cover design by Josh Madison
To My Mother,
Olive Ione (Bolstad) Knutson
It is a pleasure and a blessing
to honor and help you.
You are my inspiration.
I love you, Mom!
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Introduction
Chapter 1: Caregiving Is a Spiritual Calling
Chapter 2: Becoming and Growing As a Caregiver
Chapter 3: Spiritual Nurture for Caregivers
Chapter 4: Psychological Nurture for Caregivers
Chapter 5: Basic Caregiving Tips
Chapter 6: Helpful Equipment and Professional Home Health Care
Chapter 7: Caring for Parents
Chapter 8: Caring for Your Spouse
Chapter 9: Long-Distance Caregiving
Chapter 10: Celebrating Holidays and Birthdays
Chapter 11: Nursing Homes, Assisted-Living Facilities, and Other Care Facilities
Chapter 12: Dealing With Your Loved One’s Dying and Death Process
Chapter 13: Comfort and Support in Your Bereavement
Appendix A: Care Recipient Information Form
Appendix B: Preplanning Your Funeral or Memorial Service Form
Appendix C: Blessing of the New Home Service
Appendix D: Spiritual Journey Exercise for Individuals
Appendix E: More Bible Passages for Caregivers
Appendix F: Caregiving Web Sites
Endnotes
About the Author
Back Cover
Introduction

I was visiting a member of my congregation who was in the Intensive Care Unit at Stanford Medical Center in northern California, when I experienced a feeling of personal dread. Something told me to telephone my mother, who lives alone in a small town in southern Minnesota. With haste I excused myself from my parishioner and his family to make the call.
Mom’s telephone rang and rang and it rang some more. In fact, it rang so long that my connection was cut off. I telephoned a second time and the same thing happened. I was very worried about Mom, who is usually at home. I telephoned a third time; and just when I thought I would be disconnected again, I heard a faint voice struggle to say, “Hello.” It was my mother!
My sense of dread had been accurate. Mom very slowly told me speaking one word at a time with pauses in between words that she was lying on the floor of her small bathroom and was in such excruciating pain that she could not get up. Thankfully, she had just begun to use the cordless telephone that I had given her.
“I can’t hold the phone,” my mother stated weakly.
“Try, Mom you have to try.”
“I I I can’t get up from the floor. I can’t get back to my bedroom.”
“What are your symptoms, Mom? What’s going on? Are you injured?”
“It’s my stomach ooh it hurts. . . .”
“I’m going to get you help, Mom. I love you. I have to hang up now so I can make another phone call. I love you.”
I knew that my mother would not want me to dial 9-1-1 unless it was a life and death situation, but this came close. I immediately telephoned my brother’s workplace, a few miles away from Mom’s house, and told the receptionist, “I’m calling from California. This is an emergency! I need to talk to my brother! Our mother is very ill and needs immediate help! Hurry!”
I could not sleep on that red-eye flight home to Minnesota. All I could think of was the possibility of Mom’s dying. I had spoken with her surgeon before I boarded the plane. He matter-of-factly said, “It’s probably a strangulated hernia. Your mother may not survive. It’s very serious.” In the wee hours of the morning on that airplane, I said to myself, “Oh, how I love my mother. I don’t know how I would survive if she died.” I tried to hide the tears running down my cheeks when the flight attendant periodically walked down the aisle. I prayed without ceasing for Mom. I was soooo sad.
Thankfully, Mom made it through the surgery and is still living twelve years later. This emotionally painful experience was a wake-up call for me, however. As I returned to California, I realized that Mom was growing older and had begun to need help with the activities of daily life. Who would help her? Me . There was no one else. My brother was involved with his own family. I am single. I had a decision to make. Should I move back to Minnesota?
I prayed about my decision, but I had two primary personal concerns. First, I loved the California climate. I had never liked Midwestern winters. Second, I knew that if I relocated I would be leaving a position of employment without having another one to replace it. I also knew that when I found a new job, it would probably be at a reduced income. My love for Mom, however, was greater than these considerations, so I decided to move.
After the decision was made, I was at peace, knowing that I would be more readily available to help Mom, who in years past had also made personal sacrifices caring for her aging mother.
I had a difficult choice to make. Not all caregivers can make the decision I did. Each caregiver’s situation is different.
God blessed me throughout the relocation process. After only three months of living in Minnesota, God called me to a position that was a four-hour drive (eight hours round trip) from Mom’s home. This was the same amount of driving time as had previously been my flight time. Over the course of seven years, I put over 110,000 miles on my car.
Now that I have a job only a seventy-five-minute drive away, I can more easily be Mom’s long-distance primary caregiver. I spend nearly every day off with Mom, accompanying her to appointments, taking her grocery shopping, doing chores around the house, drinking coffee with her, and enjoying her company. Throughout the other days of the week, I help her with paper work (from afar), telephone her every morning and evening, strive to find new ways of making her daily life easier, and pray for her.
Yes, I know what it is to be a family caregiver. While it is always an honor and blessing to care for Mom, who in addition to the somewhat usual challenges of the aging process also suffers from scoliosis (a curvature of the spine) and fibromyalgia (a nearly constant pain condition exacerbated by changes in weather and stress), sometimes it is also disheartening and exhausting.
I also know what it is to be a professional caregiver. As an ordained minister, I have served in six congregations, a large, highly respected medical center, two other large hospitals, and a nursing home. I have also done post-graduate study in geriatric pastoral care. These professional caregiving experiences and advanced study opportunities resulted in my first book, Understanding the Senior Adult: A Tool for Wholistic Ministry (published by The Alban Institute). Based upon additional study and personal and professional experience, I have written this book to encourage you as you care for your loved one because I know how heavily the responsibilities of caregiving weigh upon the heart of the one who provides care.
As you apply the tips in this book, you will be encouraged not to give up or give in to feelings of depression or impatient behavior with your care recipient for three reasons. First, you will view your caregiving role as a spiritual calling from God, based upon Luke 10:27: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” Second, you will help yourself as you follow the spiritual and psychological nurturing suggestions in this book. And third, you will experience less helplessness and confusion as you apply the hands-on caregiving helps to your situation.
Some of the questions I will seek to answer in this book are the following: How do I keep my spirit up when my care recipient makes impossible demands? Are there stages to caregiving? If so, which one am I in? How do I interview a home health care agency and its staff and impress upon them the need for Christian compassion and tenderness? How do we conduct a family conference so that tempers do not flare up? When and how do I approach my loved one about the need to relocate to an assisted-living facility or nursing home? How do we select the appropriate facility? What words do I use when saying my final good-byes to my loved one who is dying and will soon meet our Lord face-to-face?
Don’t rush through Compassionate Caregiving . Read the chapters that apply to you now and scan the rest so that you are aware of how other parts might help you in the future. Carry the book with you if you do not live with your care recipient. Don’t put it on a shelf and think you have finished it. Return to it often for spiritual encouragement and practical tips. The book might even serve as a guide when we ourselves become care recipients .
I pray that my book will lift your spirit and fill you with hope and p