The Caregiver Role

As I have mentioned before, I live with my 75 year old mother, which is a blessing for us both. Shortly before I began blogging, my mother had been hospitalized for 10 days and had developed C. difficile, an infection in her intestines, while in the hospital. Well, the C. diff has returned. This is bad for mom, but also for me. With my multiple illnesses, and especially being on hydrocortisone therapy, I am very vulnerable to catching infections. When mom had this infection the first time, I started to manifest symptoms of the illness and was put on an antibiotics prophylactically because the gastroenterologist was concerned about the possible effect to me due to my inability to tolerate the antibiotics that normally treat this infection, as well as the fact that I take pain medications that slow the movement in my bowel down, making the bug live longer in my system.

The other wonderful thing about C. diff is that the only thing that kills it is bleach. You can't use antibacterial wipes to clean up in the bathroom or Purell on your hands. Since mom and I share a bathroom, that means constant cleaning with bleach, as well as vigorous hand washing with hot water and soap for no less than 30 seconds each time you use the restroom. Well, at home that isn't so hard to do, but try that in a public restroom. Many times you can't even find soap, let alone hot water or something to dry your hands on. Even at home, there is the joy of standing there in the middle of night, trying not to wake up while you wait for the water to get warm and you start to clean and count.

My poor mom has the worst of it of course, but it is another reminder that I cannot ever just be caregiver, I have to always worry about how things affect my own health. I need to try to stay healthy so I can care for mom. She feels guilty exposing me to an infection she didn't cause. I guess the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree in this case!

I am blessed, to still have my mother and to be able to help care for her as she has done for me for my whole life. Still, it doesn't make it easy to handle the extra cleaning and the worry, but given the alternative I am will happily deal with both.

I Have a Post Featured in the October Pain Blog Carnival

For many of us with chronic illness, chronic pain goes hand in hand. I, unfortunately, fall into this category myself. For many years I resisted the idea of pain medication and was able to function without needing it. During the last four years, as I became increasingly ill with more things, especially chronic pancreatitis, it became clear that I had to change my way of thinking on the matter of pain medication. I went through 2005. . . (please go to my full post to read the rest of this article)


It's that time of the month--the October Pain Blog Carnival from How To Cope With Pain is up. Please stop by to read my full post on dealing with the fear of dropping my pain medication dose as well as other terrific posts by other great bloggers.

Wordless Wednesday - Kitty Complains

Maybe if I complain loud enough they will listen??!! Who forgets to put litter out in the box anyway, will these humans NEVER learn? What's a cat to do?

Don't forget to check out these two great links for more Wordless Wednesday fun:

Wordless Wednesday
5 Minutes for Mom

I received The Kreativ Blogger Award Today!!

WOW, imagine my surprise this morning when I opened my e-mail and saw that Connie, from Brainfoggles had made me one of her choices for the Kreativ Blogger Award!! I was so thrilled, touched, happy and surprised. Connie has been such an awesome support to me as I go through learning about blogging. She has freely given to me of her time, talent and knowledge and I wouldn't be able to have done most of things I have on my blog without her. In addition, she has been warm, compassionate and supportive of me as a person as well as a fellow blogger. I am so thankful that she nominated me for this award.

My instructions are to tell 6 things that make me happy and then pass it on to 6 people to make them happy. Isn't that a wonderful idea? So here goes. . .

1. Chocolate - ok, I know it isn't world peace or anything, but it truly makes me happy!!

2. My friends and family, who support and love me for who I am, what a blessing!

3. The ocean - the sight, sound and smell of it instantly relax and renew me. If I can't get there
physically, I will go there in my mind to take a mini-vacation anytime. There is something
so soothing about it to me. I can even look at a photo of waves on the sand and feel myself
relax and unwind.

4. All of the pets I have ever had. I don't currently have any, but each and every one has
enriched my life with their unconditional love and friendship. Animals take you exactly
as you are and love you no matter what.

5. Writing and blogging - I love being able to express myself through the written word. I enjoy
sharing both the real and the fictional and I hope someday to write at least one book.

6. Laughter - my own or anyone else's. Laughter truly is healing. I love the way I feel when I
laugh and I love to see others laugh too. To see that pure joy bubbling forth from someone
is a treasure. When illness or life get me down, laughter is one of the best tools I know for
recovering from any bad situation. To be able to laugh AT myself has been a huge blessing
in my life.

Now here are the 6 people I would like to award:

Kerry, from Lemon-Aide
Kitrona, from Warning: Schematic Inaccurate
Renee, from Renee's Reflections
Jenni, from Harvesting Hope from Heartache
Leslie, from Getting Closer to Myself
Jeanne, from Jeanne's Endo Blog

Endometriosis and 'Dancing With The Stars'

As readers of my blog know, one of my chronic illnesses is endometriosis. In fact, I had a complete hysterectomy at 32 because of it. I had 5 prior laporoscopies and one for adhesions after the hysterectomy. To this day I still suffer from chronic pelvic pain from endometriosis as well as other conditions. I feel qualified to talk about this issue at length because I have lived it since I was 17 years old. I feel for any woman of any age who has endometriosis, but it is especially brutal when you are young because in addition to the pain, it often causes infertility. In my case, I had an ectopic pregnancy and was never able to conceive again.

I am watching 'Dancing With The Stars' right now, and one of the youngest professional dancers, Julianne Hough, has been diagnosed with endometriosis and will be having surgery tomorrow to have her appendix removed as a result of it. My heart breaks for her. I believe she is only 20 years old.

Teens and Safety on the Internet

One of the subscriptions I have via e-mail is with the Federal Citizen Information Center. If you are old enough you probably remember receiving the Consumer Information Catalog with all sorts of free and inexpensive publications put out by the government. There is a lot of good information out there, from health, to recalls, to information on insurance--you name it, they probably have a booklet or pamphlet on it. I got an e-mail today for their publication of the week, which in this case is a free DVD aimed at keeping teens safe on the internet. I have enclosed the body of the e-mail below with the link if you should be interested in ordering:

You are subscribed to Publication of the Week page updates from the Federal Citizen Information Center ( www.pueblo.gsa.gov/puboftheweek.htm ).

How to teach teens about online safety? Order this week's featured publication, the "Cyber Security Toolkit for Teens." It's actually a free, interactive DVD that has lots of tips and is especially designed for classroom use by middle- and high-schoolers.

Place an order for the free DVD

Whether you have a teen at home or not, this is valuable information. I know I have nephews I want to know this, and frankly, I am sure I will learn something from it myself. So many of us are active on the social networking sites (MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, etc. . .) with our blogging and keeping in touch with families, but are we really doing all we can to stay safe? The updates are sent out weekly, they cover a range of topics and they are almost all completely free. I receive the e-mails, and if the item they feature doesn't apply to me, I just delete until the next time. It is free to sign up to receive updates. In these tough economic times, it is nice to have a free resource to go to for many different topics.

Fall Festivals

I love this time of year. I am lucky enough to live where I experience all four seasons, and Fall has always been a favorite--from the changing colors of the leaves on the trees to the crisp autumn days and nights, I really enjoy it. Another thing I enjoy is the Fall festivals that are held everywhere this time of year.

Today I am meeting up with friends to attend a festival held at the Waldorf School. This is my first time going to this particular one, but the friends I am meeting up with have been going for years, and have told me how much they enjoy it. What hooked me for sure is that they have an entire DESSERT room! I heard that and thought, "I'm in!". They have a white elephant sale, vendors, food and lots of other things for all ages. Churches, schools and many other organizations have these type of things and it is a fun way to spend a few hours. The weather here today is supposed to be lousy, so luckily this is all indoors.

Do you enjoy Fall festivals? What is your favorite part of one?