It is so nice to share Mindful Dementia Care: Lost and Found in the Alzheimer’s Forest, a very important book by Ruth Dennis, Velma Arellano, and Luke Nachtrab, with my Choices readers while it's on WOW! Women on Writing's virtual book tour. I've written a review, shown below. But first I'll post a little information about the book, which we all should know about no matter what stage of life we're in. Mindful Dementia Care is a book of stories and a book of love. It is a book without denial, without any papering over of the challenges that can be involved with being a caregiver, and the sadness, anger, and frustration they may bring. It is also a life-changing source of information that can revolutionize relationships with one of the most vulnerable populations in our midst. In her decades as a caregiver, Ruth Dennis witnessed the tragic results of the medicalized and institutionalized way of caring for people with dementia. And equally clearly, she saw a better way. Mindful … [Read more...]
I’m still taking hormones – are you?
I feel so vindicated after reading this article that I have to post it here verbatim. I started taking hormone replacement therapy in the mid 1990s while I was in my mid fifties, and I refused to go off of them as many of my friends did when the 2002 Women's Health Initiative final report came out. I cited my gorgeous and youthful aunt who then in her seventies said she still took hormones and had no intension of stopping. Fortunately I had a doctor who agreed with me. From the literature she read she felt there were some of the flaws in the findings of the WHI - especially the composition of the sample of women tested for its study. So here I am age seventy-eight, still taking hormones and feeling and looking more youthful than my age suggests. I had a checkup yesterday with my gynecologist who said all was perfect - especially my blood pressure - 112 over 61 (and I do not take any blood pressure medication and never have). She was happy to renew my hormone replacement therapy … [Read more...]
Why eating healthy matters
Francie Healey, my WOW! Women on Writing guest today, has recently published Eat to Beat Alzheimer's, a guide for people concerned with memory loss and the effects of dementia. Her topic is of special interest to me. I have for most of my life eaten healthy, and I continue to reap its benefits. At age seventy-six, I am still trim and fit, and feel as strong mentally as I did twenty years ago. I thank my father for introducing me to a healthful lifestyle. Even in the 1940s he shopped at health food stores and followed the advice of Gayelord Hauser, a nutritionist and self-help author. I am pleased to welcome Francie Healey and her thoughts on why eating healthy matters. Why Eating Healthy Matters to Me by Francie Healey Nurturance has always been something I've looked for. I think I have traveled along a path that many would be familiar with. I looked for nurturance in other people to give me the love and kindness I craved. I looked for nurturance in fad diets to get the results … [Read more...]
Review of Adventures in Mother-Sitting by Doreen Cox
Adventures in Mother-Sitting by Doreen Cox is truly a love story. No, not a love story in the boy-girl romantic sense but a story about the love between a mother and a daughter. Author Doreen Cox shares her experience as a "care bear" during the last three years of her mother's life and how she learned to live with her mother's slow progression from a viable, interesting, lovable, and happy woman to a woman overcome by dementia unable to handle even her most basic bodily needs. And Ms. Cox doesn't shirk away from those details. She repeatedly quotes her mother's mantra: "You just do what you have to do." Ms. Cox starts out this story as her mother's daughter and friend and roommate. She gradually becomes her care bear and then her "mommy." Though her mother always could articulate a thank you and big toothless smile for everything Ms. Cox did for her, she became like a child thanking her mommy. Ms. Cox gave up her as a career group counselor at an alternative school for … [Read more...]
