caregiving

Dementia can affect all members of a family...

Remember Geocities and the early web--when people poured their hearts out amidst comic sans and crudely animated gifs? One pioneering blogger was Denise Cooper, who for several years kept a daily online diary about her life, her family, and especially caring for her combative and agitated demented mother in her home. In our opinion its one of the great diaries--a real slice of American life. Our excerpt is naturally somewhat artificial,and edited for space and continuity. The original is well worth surfing for. Ironically, while Ms. Cooper wrote frequently about how difficult it would be for her to deal with her mother's death, she ended up (spoiler alert) blogging about her own fatal lung cancer up until her very last days, and her mother survived her by several years.

So often in life we don’t practice hospitality. Often, we are suspicious, wrapped up in ourselves, and so busy that we don’t jawbone with new people.

I was wondering about stories you hear about these selfless men or woman who tirelessly take care of someone while working three jobs, etc…..these super people type. You only hear of their good deeds done. Did they ever get angry about having been put in these circumstances?

Medicine and the media...our reviewers weigh in on various aspects of a fascinating and at times frustrating combination.