What Happens When The Caregiver Gets Sick?

February 1, 2009 By 1 Comment

I’ve been feeling so crappy these last several days, and I know this will continue into next week because this is the way I get sick.

But, I was able to lounge in my chair, nap frequently, read a little bit, and today I knitted for about a half hour.

What can a caregiver do when she gets sick? She doesn’t have the freedom to do what I’v e done, she just has to plod along no matter how miserable she feels. And believe me I’ve been pretty miserable.

You can do something. If you are part of a community that hears things about his neighbors, and you hear about someone who has just become a caregiver, do something about it. Give the gift that lasts forever and costs nothing. Adopt A Caregiver, and tell them your friend Helene sent you. Just send an email and offer to be their friend, to listen without judging and to let them vent.

If you’ve never stood in a new caregivers shoes, read my book, Behind The Mask. My secret journal that I published after they changed my husband’s diagnosis. I poured my thoughts and emotions into that secret journal, and maybeimy story will help others.

Keep love and kisses in your life. Helene

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

Caregivers: A Few Ways To Reduce Stress

January 25, 2009 By 1 Comment

I read an article the other day that included a list to help reduce stress. I’m not going to repeat all of them, but these few are worth reading about:

Give you care-receiver a hug every day.

Remember to breathe deeply.

Choose one or two people you can depend on, to whom you can be honest, and able to vent to. This is one of the most important ones I read. So many times caregivers have family and friends who mean well, but they don’t listen well, and they do not understand what you are going through. They don’t know how to stand in your shoes.

That is another reason I published my book, Behind The Mask, so more people who are willing to help, will know what it’s like to stand in a caregivers shoes for a few hours.

My secret journal was the beginning of my new journey, Adopt A Caregiver. People do want to help, and they can, they just don’t know how. That’s why I say Adopt A Caregiver starts in the community. Your community. You hear about those folks who are new caregivers.

Email them, offfer to be their friend. Do not judge them, but do encourage them to vent. To write in a journal. To list three things each day they are grateful for.Even very small things count.

Smile as much as you can, and the last one is to try some aromatherapy. Spritz some lavender on your pillow at night.

Give the gift that lasts forever and costs nothing. Adopt A Caregiver and tell them your friend Helene sent you.

Keep love and kisses in your life. Helene

I read this list from www.Home-and_Family/Elder-Care. Thank you for printing this list. It will help someone.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

Everyone Has A Story

January 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Everyone has a story, everyone has their own burdens. We are not alone, we just think we are. I urge seniors to start writing bits and pieces of their lives to leave for children and grandchildren. Imagine their faces, when they read things you did at their age. They only see you as you are now, not as you were then.

Our aging population is growing. Caregivers are being abused. There are stories every day in the newspapers about telephone scams, break-ins, and other types of scams.

Caregivers have enough on their plates, they don’t need this. What they need is a friend.

Give the gift that lasts forever and costs nothing. Adopt A Caregiver and tell them your friend Helene sent you. It all starts in the community. Your community!

You don’t know how a caregiver feels, read Behind The Mask, my secret journal that follows me for seven years of my husbands dianosis. We were the lucky ones, they changed his diagnosis, everyone else isn’t that lucky.

I am grateful! We are blessed.

Lets help wipe away some of the caregivers tears. One by one we can do this. All it takes is an email.

Keep love and kisses in your life. Helene

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Decisions

January 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Every day a new set of decisions to make or think about. One set of decisions is about the story I’m writing. Should it be a short story, or a book?  It’s a very emotional story, so keeping it short should make it more powerful, yet it deserves more details, why the characters are the way they are, and why they are reacting that way. Silly kinds of decisions, but decisions to make.

Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue, Brain Fog, Restless Legs, and not enough sleep. No matter how much sleep I  get, I wake up exhausted, and by the time I’ve finished breakfast, I want to just sit in my lounge chair and sleep. That means every day I need to make a decision on how much I can try to do, and how to catch up on a good day. Like everything else, unless you stand in my shoes, you have no idea what this feels like. I have so many ‘lost’ days.

Caregivers feel that way too. Only they don’t have the luxury of being able to make the decision not to do too much. What a joke that would be. They have to do what they have to do.

We have to help them. We can help them. That’s why I published my secret journal, Behind The Mask, so you could learn what if feels like to stand in a new caregivers shoes.

Adopt A Caregiver was born when Behind The Mask was published. I am so grateful for this opportunity to give back. It’s such a simple plan, based on the community you live in, work in, or play in, or even go to school in. If you find out there is a caregiver in your midst, by all means, try to contact them, be their friend. Let them vent, talk, explain, and encourage them to educate you. Encourage them to journal, to email friends, to do small things, like write three things they are grateful for. Some days they won’t be able to come up with anything, but maybe other days they can come up with more than three things.

Today, I am grateful that I was able to meet my 85 year old dear friend for lunch. I am grateful that my husband wrote me a love note this morning and that he supports all my efforts in my Adopt A Caregiver program. Today, I am grateful that I am alive, the sun was shining and I have a family I can be proud of, as well as true friends.

Give the gift that lasts forever and costs nothing. Adopt A Caregive and tell them your friend Helene sent you.

Keep love and kisses in your life. Helene

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Life Is Never Boring

January 20, 2009 By 1 Comment

My life is never boring. My problem is me; I want to do everything. I have been especially creative these past few days. Thinking about my story and how to fix it. Someone suggested I put up my writing here, so it could be critiqued. I would do that, except for one thing. If it’s a long story, or a book, and I put up the first page or pages, you might think the story is going in one direction when in truth, it’s going in a different direction. Not sure how to address that, so when I understand how, I will start putting some of my writing here. In the meantime, our Sun City Anthem Authors is up and running. It’s still in it’s beginning stage, so there isn’t much on there .. yet. In the coming weeks, I should have two or three short stories or poems up on the site — www.AnthemAuthors.com

The other half of me works on Adopt A Caregiver. A wonderful job that makes me smile. If only I could get everyone to Adopt A Caregiver. They are all around us, everywhere in our community. Seek them out, they need a friend. Tell them your friend Helene sent you.

Keep love and kisses in your life. Helene

If you don’t know what it’s like to stand in a caregivers shoes, read my book, Behind The Mask

Tomorrow I’ll put another excerpt from my book here. Look for it.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

Sunday: Balance

January 19, 2009 By 2 Comments

My Sundays have always been my catch up day, even to just catch up on a nap. Filing papers away, reading, knitting and sometimes writing. Notice I didn’t mention cleaning or cooking.

Yesterday at RWA (Romance Writers of America) I was inspired to come home and look over an old story I started in 2002. I think parts of it are good, some of my scenes are very emotional, but too short. My heroine is angry, too angry. So yesterday I found out that a book can be about ‘man facing man’. Or in my case my heroine facing herself. I find this kind of writing exhausting; maybe I’m just old, but I want to convey her story  by making her a whole human being.

I rewrote the first page today. An excerpt she wrote into her diary. I have to run it by my writing group and see what they say.

You can go to www.AnthemAuthors.com.  Our Sun City Anthem website is finally up, and is just starting to receive our stories. You can go there any time if you want to read some of them. I know a lot of seniors, caregivers who can’t get out, and the t.v. and the computer are their only friends.

That why I started an Adopt A Caregiver program. Everyone in a community knows a caregiver. Just send an email, offer to be their friend. Sometimes they have no one else to talk to. If you want to know what it feels like to stand in a new caregivers shoes, read my book, Behind The Mask. This was written in secret because we were strongly advised not to tell anyone when my husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 1993. Thank God, seven years later, they changed the diagnosis and took him off all the drugs, and I finally showed him my secret journal, and he said, “Publish it, it might help someone else.”

That is how Adopt A Caregiver started. I want to give back.I want to wipe away the caregivers tears.

I call it; give the gift that lasts forever and costs nothing. Adopt A Caregiver and tell them your friend Helene sent you.

Keep love and kisses in your life. Helene

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Writing Workshop Today

January 18, 2009 By 2 Comments

A different kind of day for me, an all day writing workshop. I loved it. So much to learn, no matter how much I think I know, there is always more to learn.Thank you guys, it was great.

Several of my adopted caregivers wrote to me, telling me how happy they are to be adopted by someone willing to listen. Someone to share things with, since most caregiver’s families are far away. It’s the little things that count, and an email to someone shut in because they are caring for a loved one 24/7 is a blessing. Actually, it’s a blessing for both. I know because I do it and I’m rewarded by the replies saying, “You have helped me more than you can imagine.” Thank you.

My cause is a good cause, we just need to get my words out to people who can help plant the seeds. Adopt A Caregiver is a unique program that starts in your community. I will spend as much time as possible working to help people across these United States Adopt A Caregiver. It all starts in the community, where you live, where you work, go to school, your church, synagogue, poker club, golf club, anywhere you spend time with the same people.

I will speak to groups, churches, teachers, anyone who will listen. And together we will make my vision become more than a dream.

If you don’t understand what caregivers are living with, stand in my shoes,, read my secret journal Behind The Mask. It is available on this website and on Amazon.

Give the gift that lasts forever and costs nothing. Adopt A Caregiver, and tell them your friend Helene sent you.

Keep love and kisses in your life. Helene

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Apology To A Caregiver

January 17, 2009 By 1 Comment

Please forgive me for not following up on my own advice to Adopt A Caregiver. There you were far from home stuck in a hotel room while your wife lay in the hospital in critical condition. I imagine you were frustrated, lonely, worried and alone.

Please forgive me for not following my own advice to Adopt A Caregiver. I’m going to try to contact you this week, and find out how you really felt. I hope you will open up to me and vent, and tell it like it was for you during those very long weeks, or maybe it was more than a month, I’m not sure.

I published Behind The Mask, so everyone would know what it feels like to stand in a caregivers shoes, hoping then they would go out and Adopt A Caregiver in their own community.

Remember, community is where you live, work, play, and go to school, church or synagogue. It’s all a community. I will be talking to high school kids soon, and I will let you know how that works out too. I know there are kids in school who are caregivers, and my heart goes out to them. They think no one understand what they are going through, and they can’t come out to play with ther friends. How alone and lonely they must feel.

We have to change that. Caregivers are to be admired, not shunned.

Give the gift that lasts forever and costs nothing. Adopt A Caregiver, and tell them your friend Helene sent you.

Keep love and kisses in your life. Helene

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Busy Day

January 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Busy, busy day. Computer guy here, tv. guy here and our closed circuit tv. station did a shoot in my house today for Valentine’s Day. We have a beautiful kissing couple collection.

So, hopefully both internet and email is fixed, along with the T.V.

I am grateful today for the sunshine, warmer weather, the ability to make people smile, to feel okay. Just to be alive and know that somewhere out there I am making a difference.

I hope I am making a difference in someone’s life. Adopt A Caregiver is a wonderful plan, a simple plan that works. Every community has caregivers, and you who live in that community probably know these people, so wouldn’t it be just great if you emailed them and became their friend. They need someone to talk to, to vent to, to hear what they are going through without judging them.

If you don’t know what it’s like to stand in a caregivers shoes, my book, Behind The Mask is perfect reading. Available on this website and Amazon. I let all my thoughts and emotions loose in my secret journal.

Please help me spread my word. Give the gift that lasts forever and costs nothing. Tell them your friend Helene sent you.

Keep love and kisses in your life. Helene

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Anne Frank Said

January 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Anne Frank said, “I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried in my heart.”

Wow, when I was her age, I thought maybe I’d like to be a writer, but who was I to dream that big? No teacher, no parent ever encouraged me, or asked me what I wanted. I was just goody two shoes.

Twenty years ago, while living in New York, a friend of a friend called me and said she would like to see our kissing art collection. I said okay. When she left she said that a book was bubbling in my heart and I should get it out on paper.

Boy, was that food for thought. I had a computer and around Thanksgiving time I thought about writing. I fooled with it, but didn’t know the craft or how to construct the story.

It wasn’t until we moved to California in 1990 that I decided for real that I wanted to learn how to write. So I joined the Orange County Romance Writers Of America and I tried to learn.  I admit it came hard to me, but I had several friends who helped me, and I am still in touch with two of them.

When we moved to Las Vegas, I started Sun City Anthem Authors in February, 2000. That was the best thing that happened to me. I blossomed, I learned and I found that writing from the heart is the only way I can write.

Behind The Mask, my secret journal written when my husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 1993 was published this year. You see, in 2000, they changed his diagnosis, and I finally showed him my journal which no one had ever seen. He said to publish it, it might help someone else.

I think this was the most Bershert (‘meant to be) thing that ever happened in my life. Because what lies buried in my heart is all the caregivers going through their grief. I started a new journey, Adopt A Caregiver, and this year I will devote my passion, and my vision to making my dream of wiping away some of the caregivers tears, a reality.

With a little bit of help, I can do it. Give the gift that lasts forever and costs nothing. Adopt A Caregiver and tell them your friend Helene sent you.

Keep love and kisses in your life. Helene

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »