Author: Sherry L. Blake

Publisher:

Published: 2020-11-30

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 9781735931005

Dr. Sherry Blake, a prominent, licensed clinical psychologist who serves a clientele that includes some of America's top professionals and entertainers, discovers through a series of subtle and harrowing incidents that her mother and father are no longer able to live independently. Her mother suffers from an unexpected onset of Alzheimer's, while her father battles dementia. Dr. Sherry, as she is better known, compares her caregiving experience to that of an emotional roller coaster ride with gravity-defying twists and turns, uphill climbs and downhill slides that leave her terrified and off-balance. She enlists all of her resources, skills and talents to step up to the challenge of meeting the many needs of her parents and their care. As the ride reaches maximum velocity, Dr. Sherry finds herself in a head-on crash with a pair of willful parents, especially her mother, and a set of siblings stuck in what she calls the "denial zone." Over the course of 10 years, Dr. Sherry executes a series of solutions for her parents' care--from an extended stay at an assisted living home, to placement at a residential care home when they become too frail, to a final return home to live out their last days. Dr. Sherry's goal in "Care for the Caregiver" is to provide useful and needed information that will reduce emotional stress and provide readers with critical tools for their respective journeys. After analyzing her own journey and the experiences of many other caregivers, she concluded that there are three distinct "Rs" or phases in caregiving: Recognition--Pre-Caregiving; Reality--Caregiving; and Release--Post-Caregiving, with specific aspects of each phase, including: recognizing, adjusting to and understanding the physical and/or emotional changes of your loved ones; identifying and providing what is needed at any given time; and coping with and accepting the ongoing multiple changes without losing control emotionally, while preparing to let them go. While readers may not be able to get out of their caregiver coasters, "Care for the Caregiver" will definitely make the ride less frightening and stressful and a great deal more manageable.