Best-selling author Henny Backus cared for her husband, actor Jim Backus ("Mr. Magoo & "Gilligan's Island"), through his 10 year bout with Parkinson's disease. In CARE FOR THE CARETAKER, Henny shares her experience & guidance with compassion & wit. "Jim {Backus} belongs to a very exclusive club. Its members include people like Fred Allen, Jonathan Winters, Richard Pryor & Robin Williams. Jim's ability to dissect, then comment upon the human condition was unsurpassed." Perry Lafferty, from the Foreword. Sometimes it was almost impossible to get Jimmy out of the car. As he was trying to emerge & was halfway out his muscles would lock & he would start to fall out head first. It was a symptom but a guaranteed laugh getter. I'd have to try to gather him up quickly or we might hear a chorus of, "Oh, look! Here comes Mr. Magoo! Look kids, Mr. Magoo just fell out of his car head first! Isn't Mr. Magoo a funny fellow!" Sometimes being visible isn't much fun.--from the book. To order call Jasper Publications, Inc. at (800) 807-5188 or fax to (818) 340-0991, or write to us 22287 Mulholland Hwy., #337, Calabasas, CA 91302.
What happens when you’ve been betrayed by those closest to you? When ex-con and novelist JA Kingsley loses everything he ever cared about, including his wife and teenage daughter, he abandons his home in order to start anew, write a new book, and most of all, restart his fractured life. Traveling to the Adirondack Mountains, he checks himself into The Loon Lake Inn, a peaceful, lake-side resort. For a brief moment, he feels at peace with himself and a world that has seemingly turned its back on him. But what he doesn’t expect is the lurid attraction that ignites between him and the wife of the owner of the Loon lake Inn, who has connections to some of most dangerous people imaginable. And what begins as a torrid affair turns into something much more sinister when they decide that nothing will stand in the way of their love--including murder. For readers of Michael Connelly, Robert B. Parker, Ace Atkins, Lawrence Block, and more, Thriller Award and Shamus Award-winning New York Times Bestselling author, Vincent Zandri, brings you an unputdownable novel filled with suspense and deadly romance. Scroll up to purchase this tantalizing thriller!
A month after proposing marriage, Diana Denholm''s husband was diagnosed with colon cancer and later congestive heart failure. Following a heart transplant several of her husband''s body systems began failing forcing Diana to become his primary caregiver for more than a decade. The Caregiving Wife''s Handbook is a step-by-step communication guide to help women maintain emotional, physical and financial health in their unique role as caregivers to their dying husbands. Women are suffering physical, emotional and financial burnout as the United States'' leading caregivers. Of the 65 million caregivers in the U.S., 66% are women, and these numbers will only increase as the population ages. And while statistics and resources abound for caregivers in general, very little exists for women in their unique role as caregivers to their dying husbands. Traditionally, caring for a dying husband has been seen as a "wifely duty." Most wives don''t label themselves, and aren''t labeled by others, as caregivers. But advances in medical technology are making this distinction an imperitive since women are under more stress as caregivers than at any other time in history. Although there are generic similarities in caretaking, caregiving for a dying husband is distinctly different, and the longer the dying process, the more complex the problems. When a husband is in the process of dying for many months or years the experience is quite different than a husband''s sudden death. On top of dealing with the tragedy, the wife must figure out how to make life work. Sometimes a woman is married to the love of her life and sometimes not. Some marriages strengthen, while others disintegrate. Some women are in abusive relationships and find the abuse continues, and even increases, during these times, while others find, much to their surprise, that they become the abusers. Still some will start or increase substance abuse and others will have affairs to get by. The Caregiving Wife''s Handbook aims to help women get through their husbands'' illness and death with compassion, emotionally whole and without regret by helping them communicate clearly--and in steps--about issues affecting this unique caregiving relationship. Without specific direction, many women find themselves over the top with stress as their lives change radically. As a board certified medical psychotherapist and primary caregiver, Diana Denholm recognized the need for a step-by-step process to help women communicate with their husbands to avoid irreparable damage and regret. In The Caregiving Wife''s Handbook, you will learn: To ask questions you may not realize you need to ask The issues that bother you and a method for categorizing them What you should and shouldn''t discuss with your husband How to make and prepare for a date to talk about difficult topics What to do if your husband won''t talk To create "understandings" with your husband How to deal with his family You will also learn survival tips from the case histories of Joyce, Fran, Tina, Jean, Susan, and Mary. Their experiences will help you: Choose roles you should take and those you should avoid Understand what is "normal" in what you''re experiencing and feeling Take care of yourself so you can survive and even have fun Implement do''s and avoid don''ts to make your life simpler Balance with greater ease Other topics addressed are: Sex life/intimacy Current and future finances Fatigue Sleep Household duties Job responsibilities Irresponsible behaviors Unrealistic expectations... The challenges of this time are endless and extreme and the reality often isn''t the beautiful and revered journey often portrayed. When a husband is dying of a long-term illness, the gift of time can allow us to prepare and say all the loving things we need to say, but it can also provide a lot of time for severe stressors and problems to develop. These problems and stressors can be debilitating for the caregiver and provide too many opportunities to say and do things we might regret. The Caregiving Wife''s Handbook will give you the tools and support needed to get through your husbands'' illness and death with compassion, emotionally whole and without regret. Let The Caregiving Wife''s Handbook support you amidst the grief--all the way through the Final Chapter.
The story of one woman’s struggle to care for her seriously ill husband—and a revealing look at the role unpaid family caregivers play in a society that fails to provide them with structural support. Already Toast shows how all-consuming caregiving can be, how difficult it is to find support, and how the social and literary narratives that have long locked women into providing emotional labor also keep them in unpaid caregiving roles. When Kate Washington and her husband, Brad, learned that he had cancer, they were a young couple: professionals with ascending careers, parents to two small children. Brad’s diagnosis stripped those identities away: he became a patient and she his caregiver. Brad’s cancer quickly turned aggressive, necessitating a stem-cell transplant that triggered a massive infection, robbing him of his eyesight and nearly of his life. Kate acted as his full-time aide to keep him alive, coordinating his treatments, making doctors’ appointments, calling insurance companies, filling dozens of prescriptions, cleaning commodes, administering IV drugs. She became so burned out that, when she took an online quiz on caregiver self-care, her result cheerily declared: “You’re already toast!” Through it all, she felt profoundly alone, but, as she later learned, she was in fact one of millions: an invisible army of family caregivers working every day in America, their unpaid labor keeping our troubled healthcare system afloat. Because our culture both romanticizes and erases the realities of care work, few caregivers have shared their stories publicly. As the baby-boom generation ages, the number of family caregivers will continue to grow. Readable, relatable, timely, and often raw, Already Toast—with its clear call for paying and supporting family caregivers—is a crucial intervention in that conversation, bringing together personal experience with deep research to give voice to those tasked with the overlooked, vital work of caring for the seriously ill.
Aaron and Stella Alterra had been married for more than sixty years when Aaron began to notice puzzling lapses in his wife's memory. Innocuous at first, they became more severe and more alarming. After a series of appointments and tests, the Alterras were informed that Stella was one of the more than 4.5 million Americans with Alzheimer's disease. Combining medical research on the disease and often-painful anecdotes of memory loss, deteriorating motor functions, personality shifts, support-group and daycare experiences, and drug trials, Alterra chronicles his transformation from husband to caregiver after his wife's diagnosis. More than a chronology of one family's experience of Alzheimer's disease, The Caregiver is an intelligent, beautifully reflective testimony to how family members turned caregivers become the ultimate advocates for their loved ones in the face of a disease with no cure.
A moving memoir and an extraordinary love story that shows how an expert physician became a family caregiver and learned why care is so central to all our lives and yet is at risk in today's world. When Dr. Arthur Kleinman, an eminent Harvard psychiatrist and social anthropologist, began caring for his wife, Joan, after she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, he found just how far the act of caregiving extended beyond the boundaries of medicine. In The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and a Doctor, Kleinman delivers a deeply humane and inspiring story of his life in medicine and his marriage to Joan, and he describes the practical, emotional and moral aspects of caretaking. He also writes about the problems our society faces as medical technology advances and the cost of health care soars but caring for patients no longer seems important. Caregiving is long, hard, unglamorous work--at moments joyous, more often tedious, sometimes agonizing, but it is always rich in meaning. In the face of our current political indifference and the challenge to the health care system, he emphasizes how we must ask uncomfortable questions of ourselves, and of our doctors. To give care, to be "present" for someone who needs us, and to feel and show kindness are deep emotional and moral experiences, enactments of our core values. The practice of caregiving teaches us what is most important in life, and reveals the very heart of what it is to be human.
There are 65.7 million caregivers in America, making up 29 percent of the U.S. adult population. Where does the caregiver turn when dealing with their own need for encouragement and renewal?
Doctor Haydock, the resident GP of St. Mary Mead, hopes to cheer up Miss Marple as she recovers from the flu with a little story. The tale revolves around the return of the prodigal son of Major Laxton, the devilishly handsome Harry Laxton. Harry, after leading a life of childish indiscretions and falling head over heels for the village tobacconist’s daughter, has made good and returned to lay claim to his tumbling childhood home and introduce the village to his beautiful new wife. But, the villagers are prone to gossip about young Harry’s past, and one person in particular cannot forgive him for tearing down the old house. Will Miss Marple’s acumen be up to the task of solving the story?
