Caregiver Stories and Stress Solutions was honored by AARP’s Social Impact Award as “a simple mind-body-spirit program for seniors, adults and teens of any faith, or no faith.” The book offers ten short stories (five of them about my mother and me ) and dozens of well-researched strategies to help caregivers and their loved ones.
When my mother became sick, I was shocked about how often I stumbled as a family caregiver.
At that time, I thought of myself as a health care “expert” because for ten years I had directed wellness and disease management programs for a large managed care organization. I had just received a national award for improving the quality of care for diabetes and hypertension. Years earlier, I and had authored the American Lung Association’s national program: “Help Patients to Better Breathing.” Those were the three illnesses my mother had: diabetes, hypertension and emphysema.
So, as I stumbled as a family caregiver, (as described in “What I Wish I Knew” on page 7) I remember thinking, “If I’m overwhelmed taking care of Mom, what’s this like for someone with no health care background?” That’s when I started to write eldercare programs to:
- teach myself practical strategies to help my own family and others to solve each piece of our wellness puzzle
- show how the same strategies, that could help a 77 year old senior, could also help her 47 year old daughter or 17 year old grandson.
When I began to write The Friendship Trilogy novels, those stories about my mother and me helped shaped my first draft.
