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What is a Caregiver?For the purpose of this article, a caregiver is a family member, a friend, a neighbor who stands by loved ones that are disabled or chronically ill. You come from all walks of life and share a common bond with each other. The thing that bonds you together is love for your spouse, parents, children, sibling or other loved ones. Pretty much, there are four normal stages that a caregiver goes through as they take care of their loved one. The caregiver will fall in and out of any and all of these stages many times throughout the course of their care giving. These stages are Surviving, Searching, Setting In and Separating. According to Nancy B. Miller, Ph.D., MSW, author of Nobody’s Perfect: Living and Growing with Children Who Have Special Needs. To survive, Ms. Miller states you need to cope with what has to be done at any giving time. Going deep within emotionally simply to get by. Searching on the other hand according to Ms. Miller is a time of moving forward from surviving. You as a caregiver begin to take control of your emotions and your life with new founded energy. Settling Inn is a stage where reality sets in and you see things for what they really are. A sense of balancing the good and bad of what is happening. Your relationship can actually improve with the disabled individual at this point in time. Finally, there is Separating. This is a necessary process especially with children. However, the caregiver in this instance accepts help from others so that they can have time for themselves. Necessary so the caregiver doesn’t get burned out. Remember, for you to be the best that you can be for your loved one, you have to first be the best that you can be for yourself. The initial thing that you should do as a caregiver in my opinion is to learn as much as you can about the medical condition that your loved one has. There are many sites on the Internet that can give you all of the facts that you need. To name some, there is www.WebMD.com, www.DRKoop.Com, and InteliHealth at Johns Hopkins Health Information. Remember knowledge empowers, so learn as much as you can so that you truly understand the condition. It will make life a whole lot easier for you. Secondly, you need to evaluate the whole situation and take charge of it. You simply can not let your loved one’s condition to always be at center stage in your life. This is for both your benefits. You can do this by accepting help when it is offered so you can get out of the house or simply read a book. Don’t be afraid to keep your own dreams alive and be good to yourself. It is a wonderful thing that you are doing for your loved one. Reward yourself once in a while. Also, you have a right to be sick. Make sure that you seek the right professional help for what ails you. Even if you simply need to talk to someone. Thirdly, trust your instincts and be open minded when health professionals talk to you about new advances. A new device or medicine that may benefit your loved one may also benefit you, making your life easier. There is also help on the Internet. I did some research and came up with some Web sites that are geared to the caregiver. Here they are; www.christiancaregivers.com. www.Caregivers.Com. , www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=caring.list. www.webofcare.com. Finally, I just want to commend all of you who are taking care of disabled loved ones. It is truly unselfish and an act of unconditional love.
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