My Book Has Arrived!

My eBook is here! Please purchase it for a whopping 99 cents and review it as soon as possible. (15 pages of my best blogposts)

I'm so thankful for you, my faithful readers, these past few years. I know you will be happy to help me spread the word of how God can be found working in even the most difficult circumstances.

Here's the link to make it as easy as possible for you. Also be sure to forward by email, and share with your Facebook friends. I'm not worried about getting rich, but it will enrich my soul to know that my story may help someone else who is struggling.

You can be a part of that by reading and sharing this book. I hope (now that I know how) to have more books in the future.

 http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Faith-Caregiver-Teresa-Thompson-ebook/dp/B00OFBXL4W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413197064&sr=8-1&keywords=Lessons+of+faith+in+the+life+of+a+caregiver

My eBook Coming!

I have a request for my faithful blog readers. In the next day or two, Amazon will be coming out with my first eBook. Please look for it under the title "Lessons of Faith in the Life of a Caregiver" and purchase it if you can. (It's only $.99--due to its length!)

It will be a compilation of my favorite blogposts, so many of you will find the lessons familiar. But I need the immediate sales to increase my availability on Amazon, and it would also be beneficial to get some reviews of my book. So feel free to express your opinions and make comments.

I would be so grateful if you could help me circulate these stories that I pray will bless others in similar places in their life, who are looking for God to reveal Himself during trying times.

Thank you for your attentive reading of this blog, and I know you will help me spread the message of what caregivers and their loved ones face every day.

Perishable Items

Much to my dismay, I've discovered that nothing is safe for disposal in our trash. At least not when my hubby is around. My daughter, unbeknownst to me, threw a desktop calendar, the kind that covers your whole desk, in our outdoor trash bin the other day. Dean rescued it and now has it on our dining room table for doodling purposes. Sigh...

But this behavior doesn't surprise me. I've been "hiding" our trash for some time now. It started with our empty toilet paper rolls. Anything cardboard, if it's dry, is salvageable to him. Then it moved to plastic  containers (any size, shape will do). Including the containers that come every day with his "meal on wheels". These items are taking up the space of a whole cupboard now. And at times I hardly have room in my refrigerator, because of all his bottles which he fills up with water. Making them look useful, I guess.

I've found some devious ways to fight this, because reasoning with him about it always falls on "deaf ears". Gradually removing some of the items secretly, leaving some prominently displayed, so it looks like some of his treasures remain, is my best option. Otherwise I have learned to "bury" trash pretty well. I've even been known to dispose of items in the middle of the night, before the trash company picks it up on the curb.

As I think about Dean's tendency to save things these days, I'm reminded of God, who thankfully also has this problem. God evidently is passionate about saving people. It says in II Peter 3:9 that He is "...not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." I'm sorry, Satan, you can't change this about God either. God consistently is in the business of pulling people out of the garbage so they won't perish. That's just who He is. He doesn't make disposable people.

Pills Again

After a quick search, I see that I've already written nine times about Dean's pills since I began this blog. Our life seems to revolve around these little critters, so here's one more story about a "pill scare".

Last Friday night Dean hollered to me from the kitchen that he'd forgotten to take his pills that morning. He could see that pills were still in their morning slot in the weekly pill organizer he uses.

This happens occasionally, and usually it's nothing to worry about. But seconds later, he reports that he didn't take them the night before either! Now that would be something to worry about, so I dropped what I was doing and raced to the kitchen to verify what he was telling me.

We discovered that he was thinking it was the next night, Saturday night, so naturally there were pills in Saturday morning and Friday night that he hadn't taken yet. Whew, what a relief to see that although we had made a mistake in what day it was, it was not a mistake with great consequences, like not taking his pills would have been.

We've all made multiple mistakes during our lifetimes, but our merciful God races to our rescue to help oversee the situation, just as I raced to the kitchen. We can be sure in His capable Caregiver hands, our lives will make sense in eternity, if we've turned our lives over to Him and simply make the call for His help.

Remembering to Be a Husband

I was rather disgruntled when I woke up to find that Dean had forgotten to take his pills. Today was one of the three weekly days that he goes by medical van to an adult day structure, and normally the only thing I do physically to help him get ready is put on his socks.

This morning was one of the few times I was lazy and went back to sleep after putting his socks on, thinking that for once he'd make it out the door on his own alright. But alas, it seems about 90% of the time I don't remind him to take his pills, he forgets. This meant I had to drive all the way to the rec center, a couple of miles away, to give him the pills myself.

Just last night I was marveling though at something Dean always manages to remember. He never neglects to lock the front door of our house at night. I always check, just to make sure, but invariably he gets it done. It must be some manly, protective activity that he has held on to all these years. It's so sweet that he has honed in on that important duty. Well, I guess he does remember to put the trash can out to the curb once a week too. Very seldom does he forget that husbandly chore either.

God appears this way to me sometimes too. When it seems He's forgotten about taking care of me and I'm left in charge of getting it all done, I know in my heart there are some vital protections He still provides, including taking away my sin/trash. Lord, help me accept your never-failing love and mercies, and know that they are of far more value than my mere "busyness" of life.

I've always liked this picture. Is he leaning on me or protecting me? Maybe a bit of both!

"Unplug for a Day" Challenge

This has been the summer of the ice bucket challenge fundraiser for ALS. All month I've seen friends douse themselves with ice water to raise awareness of this neurodegenerative disease that eventually results in total paralysis. The ice water is apparently to remind them of the nerve-shocking effects of ALS. What a successful fundraiser this has been for their organization!

I wonder, what kind of fundraiser would be useful in making others more aware of symptoms of dementia and brain injury? Short term memory loss, in and of itself, doesn't sound too frightening, but I'm sure there must be something that would allow one to experience the life changing event that it is.

Perhaps the activity that would most closely simulate what it's like with dementia would be to "unplug" for a day. No electricity, no technology, for a whole day.

I will attempt to relate this to Dean's present life:

• Without proper lighting, our senses would change...Dean has this challenge with vision in only one eye and with little periphery vision in the other. He falls a lot, just like we might in the dark. His other senses suffer too. Limited hearing in just one ear and having no sense of smell are what he lives with every day.
• No electricity would make our daily tasks more challenging...Dean has difficulty with many chores we take for granted. Taking a shower, for instance, is a major undertaking.
• No technology means no cell phone or computer. For us, this would be very limiting, especially if all our contact info is on our phone...Dean misses every day the enhanced communication and socialization that these gadgets bring into our lives. But not having a cell phone or Blackberry for some might be like having part of their memories erased. Say hello to Dean's world.
• No television or entertainment...Dean's greatest desire is to interact socially with his friends, and this has become more and more difficult as dementia takes over his life. He misses this activity as much as people would miss their television programs.

Yes, Dean misses out on a lot in life: his senses, ability to perform simple tasks, being able to remember what he did just a short time ago, and just interacting normally with others. In a sense, he has become "unplugged".

But God has not left him powerless. Many times angels have kept him from falling. He has a faithful wife caregiver who is able to perform the work he can no longer do, and most of all, he has retained his desire and ability to worship God. Human relationships may have suffered, but his spiritual relationship with God has never been better.

If caregiving for Dean has taught me anything about life, it's the meaning and value of being "plugged" into God.

P.S. Remember to donate to www.biane.org

This Battered Life

A few blogposts ago, I reported my long-due visit to the dentist. Well, this has turned out to be a sinus problem rather than a dental one. I am taking a daily antihistamine and using a sinus rinse quite frequently and the facial pain I have experienced all these months has wondrously disappeared. Being on oxygen for nine years must be very drying on the nasal passages.

But now there's this sore on the bridge of my nose (been there for weeks) and it just keeps getting worse. It couldn't be in a worse place--right where my nasal mask hits. The doctor suggested not using the bi-pap for awhile or changing masks (which I will be able to do this coming week, when Medicare will pay for another type of mask).

But doing without the bi-pap is just not an option for me. I have tried cutting down on its use and napping during the day without it, with just the oxygen feed, and for a couple of hours at night. But it feels like going into a boxing match without gloves or any protection. I wake up feeling pretty battered.

This has reminded me of waking up at the Resurrection when Jesus comes. We won't feel battered then. We'll wake up as refreshed as the day we were born. But even better. For gone will be all our human frailties, our petty health grievances. The Master Physician has a whole new body to give us--one that won't wear out or grow old. No more birth defects (like my scoliosis) or brain injuries from having tractors run over us (like my husband). Now that's one kind of waking up I won't mind a bit!