Daughterhood Updates
Creating a Resilient Response to Loss: The Special Challenge of Dementia
I’ve said many times that few things are more disorienting than the shift from being cared for by your parents to caring for your parents. The only thing that makes it harder is when your parent (or spouse) has dementia. This is quite possibly the most challenging of...
A Go-To Guide For Understanding Your Aging Parents’ Rehabilitation
I was 30 weeks pregnant with my daughter when a routine doctor’s visit uncovered the fact that a disconnected placenta had cut her off from getting food and water. Essentially, she was starving in utero. Later that same day, my girl was born by emergency C-section...
What to Do When Your Best Efforts Aren’t Good Enough
My neighbor George is not a daughter but he’s certainly part of the daughterhood. You see, until a year ago, he spent most of his time taking care of his parents in the home they shared. Now, from my perspective, he was the best kind of son any parents could hope to...
A Daughter’s Guide to Hiring the Right Aging Care Professional
Recently when I was talking to a friend about daughterhood, she asked me, “Why isn’t there someone I can pay to help me figure out how to get the best care for my mom? You know, someone who can help me navigate the system.” That’s a really good question. There are, in...
Are You Ready to Make Healthcare Decisions for Your Parents? Six Steps to Prepare You Now
A reality of our healthcare system is that it’s really good at keeping people alive way past the point that they’re aware of being alive. As a result, our parents stand a good chance of ending up in either a healthcare crisis or end-of-life situation where they can’t...
The 4 Most Frequently Asked Questions About Medicaid Home Care
I love hearing from readers. Sometimes they write to tell me that a particular blog has helped them and that makes me very happy. But a lot of the time, they tell me about problems that aren’t easily solved and ask questions that aren’t easily answered. Here’s one I...
The 3 Unexpected Stages of Daughterhood
I have spent the last few weeks talking to new Daughterhood Circle leaders. And, even though they live all over the country – from New Jersey to North Carolina to Texas and Minnesota --- it’s AMAZING how many of the things they experience are exactly the same. I mean...
4 Things You Can Do to Make Caregiving Less Tedious
I once had a therapist tell me that I had “the most disordered thinking” of anyone he had ever seen. In light of this diagnosis, I probably deserve a gold medal for getting out of bed most mornings. My secret to staying semi-sane is to keep really, really busy and to...
4 Myths that Increase the Burden of Caregiving
In exactly 10 hours from now, at 5:30 am, I’m going to pull out of my driveway and hit the road for vacation. And yet, at this point, I am still working. And I’m still packing. Two days ago, I woke up in a cold sweat about my many pre-vacation obligations, checked my...
The 5 Most Unexpected Challenges of Caregiving
The 5 Most Unexpected Challenges of Caregiving Every single one of us – because we are alive and we are human – runs the risk that at some point in our lives something will happen to us, making it impossible for us to take care of ourselves. This something can be any...