The Cancer Caregiver

How much do you resent being a caregiver right now? Yeah, I know it exists.  I don’t know of a caregiver who hasn’t felt at least a little resentment towards some aspect of caregiving.  So you’re not alone. Listen to this episode to learn how to take the power out of the resentment you carry.  Find the show notes and transcripts at www.loveyourcaregivinglife.com

Do you feel worn out and broken? Don’t know how you can continue caregiving? It isn’t time to give up, is it? Finding the light in the darkness is what all of us need to be able to do. Listen to this episode to be reminded about how much you really matter and how much of a difference you are actually making. Find the transcripts, shownotes and more at www.loveyourcaregivinglife.com

Is it hard for you to be present in the moment at any given time?  Is there too much that you worry about? No time to sit and relax? How hard is it for you to slow down so you don’t miss the small moments you will most likely remember forever? Listen to this episode to learn how to enjoy time with your loved one and slow down while in a season when everyone seems to need to move fast to check all...

Let’s talk about how to survive the holidays.  It doesn’t matter if you’ve been a caregiver for a long time or you’ve just become one this year, it can really put a damper on the holiday spirit. I’m not just talking about the holidays at the end of the year but any cause for celebration with your family and friends. Listen to this episode to learn how to set boundaries, the importance of being abl...

Do you hate it when people try to tell you that you shouldn’t be so sad, angry, stressed out because things could be worse? Does it anger you when people tell you to find the silver lining in this storm of caregiving? Learning how to be grateful can help when life gets really difficult Gratitude should not be Dismissive or used to minimize what you’re going through A way for you to say things coul...

Show Notes A big problem most of us caregivers have is feeling lonely. There are always times of the year when the people we know start to go on trips or have celebrations that we just can’t make it to. We catch those moments as they post them on social media or tell us about it and it hurts doesn’t it. It makes it feel as if the world, our friends and family have moved on and left us behind.  Let...

You’d like to take care of yourself but have no idea what you’d do or how you’d do it?  I have the solution! This is the last of the self-care series for caregivers. In this episode, I go through the process of how to choose your form of self-care and how to incorporate it into your day. Listen today as I take you through the same process I do with clients and learn how to make self-care in your l...

I know why it’s so hard to care for yourself.  You don’t feel you can even if you wanted to and knew what to do. A lot of your inability to care for yourself comes from the fact that the social circles you live in and society, in general, do not value what you do. Listen to today’s episode to hear more on why you’ll have to work harder at learning how to love your caregiving life and how it’s poss...

Do you really not have time to do things for yourself? Or is it because it isn’t important for you to do? Listen to, or read, Episode 84 “Finding Your Caregiving Self-care Style: Part Three” and hear why I think it’s hard for you to do things for yourself (it might surprise you). You’ll also hear about two more self-care tools you can try to use and see if they will be a fit for you. Show Notes Yo...

Show Notes Do you stop yourself from doing things that would make you happy or give you a break from caregiving because it makes you feel guilty to even think about it?  Does it feel selfish to want or to do something for yourself because you aren’t the one that is sick? Do you reconsider taking a break because you worry that if someone finds out they will judge you?  Let’s talk about why it’s in...

I bet your idea of self-care is flawed.  Listen to Episode 82 “Finding Your Caregiving Self Care Style: Part One” to find out if it is and learn two ways you can bring self-care into your day. Show Notes If you have listened to any of my episodes that focus on self-care you know that I believe it is required of all caregivers to care for themselves. When I asked caregivers what they needed the mos...

Find caregiver support and downloads at www.loveyourcaregivinglife.com Show Transcript Time seems to run super slow and then too fast when we are caregiving. All of a sudden we find ourselves looking back at the year and not know where the time went. Maybe we mourn not being able to remember the moments we know we had with the ones we care for and can’t remember them because the stress and overwhe...

Show Notes Find more resources and a PDF download at www.loveyourcaregivinglife.com Learning to Listen to the Person You Care For Caregiving is like that gait belt they put around a patient in a hospital to get them up to walk around. It usually happens unexpectedly, causes way too much attention, and is the wake-up call that life continues no matter how you move forward into it.  If you haven’t h...

Please leave a rating or a review. Download the pdf "Top 5 Tools Every Spousal Caregiver Must Have" now. Show Notes: Episode 79 "How Not to Hate Caregiving" You might have woken up today and thought how crappy it is to have to be a caregiver. It could be a difficult week, month, or year for you. I know how it feels. I get having the feeling that caregiving is suffocating you. If you feel like you...

Show Notes Family caregivers have a lot they have to deal and cope with, but you already know that don’t you? There are all the doctors’ appointments, treatments, therapies, surgeries, special diets, changing your home to accommodate their needs and the list goes on. It leaves us all exhausted, overwhelmed, and on bad days… hopeless.  We give all of ourselves to help a person we love live… but we...

Show Notes Do you understand the power you have to change a person's day? Let’s talk about the ripples we create. My nieces came to visit me and my family this summer and one day we were hanging out by a pool. The girls sat at the edge and put their feet in. They were fascinated by the ripples they were making in the water. They played with kicking their feet fast and then slow to see how it chang...

Last night I was watching Ted Lasso , one of my favorite series to watch, and it ended up being a Christmas episode. Now usually I don’t watch episodes that are holiday-specific but this time I kept it on. It’s one of those shows that make me feel happy to watch and I always look forward to it when there is a new episode.  Now I really like holidays. I’m up to celebrating anything and sometimes we...

Show Notes :45 - Intro 1:05 - Cameron shares stories with us about her parents and family. How she came about moving back home and was able to catch changes she saw in her mom. 2:30 - The signs of Alzheimers Cameron began seeing with her mom. 4:07 Her experiences and how she included her mom's Dr and had her tested for Alzheimers. 4:43 Cameron’s mom had a friend that suggested she get tested for A...

“Help… I need somebody…” Do you remember the Beetle's song?  I read the other day that Lennon wrote the song as an expression of the stress he was feeling due to the group’s quick success as a band. It was a song from his heart. He was overwhelmed and knew his lifestyle, as it was, wasn’t sustainable. John Lennon took a look at his life and knew he needed a change and he couldn’t do it on his own....

When do you know when it’s time for them to start doing things for themselves? That’s a tricky question, isn’t it? We all have different caregiving experiences and the people we care for all have different needs.  No matter how different we all are there are two things that are universal  People should be allowed, supported, and encouraged to do things for themselves. Everyone needs boundaries to...

Do you worry about things all the time? I mean to the point that you can’t stop worrying about them and then feel stuck in that worry? I was there for a while and it wasn’t a good place to be.  Right after my husband was diagnosed with cancer in 2013 I jumped into the deep end of trying to find ways to cope with the loss of control of the things that were happening in my life.  My world wasn’t jus...

Today I am sharing with you a caregiver conversation with Robert Pardi. Robert was the caregiver for his wife who had breast cancer. He is now a certified life coach, adjunct professor, international guest speaker, and the author of Chasing Life - The remarkable true story of love, joy, and achievement against all odds. In this episode Robert shares the important lessons he learned while navigatin...

Have you noticed when you or someone you know buys a new car you start seeing that care everywhere? Or maybe that color care shows up everywhere and even though you know that car or color existed before you never noticed it until then? That’s how it was with cancer after my husband was diagnosed. Once we found out he had cancer everything around us had to do with cancer.  It was as if the universe...

Those that we care for are people and sometimes we lose sight of that. No, I get it… you know they’re a person. But do you always see them for the actual person they are? I’ve talked about turning off the caregiver switch so you can connect with the person you are caring for.  Let’s take that one step further to how we regard that person. How do you think of them now that you’ve been caring for th...

You can do this… I know you feel like you just want to run away… You want to hide from the world…. You want to wake up and have it all be a bad dream. But you realize you’re living it. Like a bad groundhogs day loop where every morning you forget and after stepping out of bed you remember and it brings you to your knees. All you want to do is Cry Yell Lash out Get a second opinion…. But you know d...