How to keep a positive attitude – Three Tips for Caregivers

Madelyn Kubin was a Kansas farm woman who reduced their own health care not to husband after he suffered a debilitating stroke. She shared her experience through writing letters to his daughter. Madelyn developed a number of strategies coping in order to maintain a positive attitude. The following survival tips illustrated with excerpts from his letters.

Separate mentally through practice? Creative indifference?

Routine care can be confining, tedious and tiring. Practice? Creative indifference? can help change your thoughts the monotony of their daily activities and focus their mental energy in a more positive.

Madelyn wrote about this philosophy after having conversation with a friend who was suffering from terminal cancer.

? We talked about how we had changed because of illness. He said he and his wife have developed a greater sense of humor. They see the fun things I suspect most people Wouldn? T. I told him I had developed a distant attitude. He says he calls creative indifference and has also developed. I like that better, as separate seems cold. Whatever you call it, means not allowing yourself to become emotionally devastated by the progression of events.?

Learn Something New

Embrace the learning process. Read to expand your mind, develop a new skill, or even performing a routine task in a different way can be invigorating. Although you may feel physically confined in their caring role, There are no restrictions on how far the mind can go.

Madelyn described it this way:

? I read that we have little things called as root dendrites in our brains. The article stated that people can grow new dendrites to replace some that are lost from a stroke? or even higher. The secret is to develop new habits. It seems that a good way is to exercise, develop a new hobby or to get very interested in something different? something a person enjoys. My Flowers are my new hobby. As I was trying to get all the plants watered this morning, I could not? T help but wonder if learning how to screw in hoses that help grow new dendrites.?

Enjoy Happy Memories

People with chronic or constant pain can be demanding, irritable and depressed. Sometimes it can be hard to remember your loved one was before he or she became ill. Remembering happier times helped a look at her husband Madelyn a little different when he wrote:

? I? Valentine never forget? S Day, 1993, when we were in Port Richy, Florida. We were on the way to meet my sister, her husband and another couple in a very elegant country club.

Along the way, we stopped at a grocery store to see if we could find a floral inexpensive gift for Jean and her friend. We were about to surrender when the clerk showed us an orchid mounted on a small white wicker basket. It two were selected. I have been looking pensive, Quentin, because I asked if she would like to have one. I said I sure would!

It was so beautiful that I do not? I do not want to spoil the bunch with the use of it, so I kept it in the basket. Our food was delicious. There was free champagne and a flower for each lady. As we drove around that day I had an awareness of the happiest of how much I loved my husband of fifty-one years. The flower lasted three weeks. This is another experience I? Ll never be able to repeat, but I am so happy? I have memory.?

Madelyn survived his experience of care, taking care of herself physically, mentally and spiritually. Although there is nothing I can do the job easier to care for, develop an attitude of indifference creative, learning something new, and savoring the memories happy can help reduce stress.

About the Author

Resource box:
Elaine K. Sanchez, author of the tender, gritty, and uproariously funny book, Letters from Madelyn, Chronicles of a Caregiver speaks to audiences across the country about finding hope and humor in aging, illness, and long-term caregiving. For a free Caregiver

Insidermedicine in 60 – February 25, 2008

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