Missing too long

I can't believe it's been two months since I blogged. At StilMee we've been busy with presentations, trainings (there is one in Tiverton Rhode Island on June 11), and welcoming a new coach for Plymouth and Cape Cod. I'm also re-entering the psychiatric nursing field in an effort to regain patient contact. My first love is psychiatry; I learned so much about behavior management psychiatric nursing. I plan to work with elders with mental health issues and dementia. I can practice and perfect my skills in working with this population. My goal; to empower each to be in control of his or her own life to the greatest safest extent possible.
We coaches are working on a 'memory' handout which I'll add to the blog. It discusses the types of memory (working, episodic, semantic and procedural), their normal function, the impaired function and the appropriate approaches/interventions that will help the person function better. To whet your appetite for new knowledge, the working memory and episodic memory are impaired in memory loss, the procedural and semantic can be tapped with cues both visual and auditory. I'll share more as I get the handout edited and checked for accuracy and readability. I promise I will blog before another 2 weeks has gone by. I'll share my new journey into psyciatric nursing; what I am learning and what the patients are teaching me about what they need.
Good to be back.. I just returned from eight days bare boating (the boat is bare, not the sailor and first mate!) It was a restful and exciting time to relax before the next leg of my journey into caregiving...Bev

Vacation Lessons

My husband and I took a week's vacation which turned out very different from what was planned. The plan was to sail for 6 days in our 30 foot Nonesuch named So Far So Good (appropriate name for 2 people who make one whole sailor). Then business had to be attended to. Then Hurrican Earl was predicted and then fizzled out, making us unhappy we hadn't sailed anyway. We have friends who need a time, a destination and their expectations met every step of the way. They are not sailors; sailors cannot control the wind direction, the current, wave height or the weather. Sailors get up, find out if the wind will take them to their planned destination, and if not, they change direction.
A colleague has a training business in Alzheimer care. Her motto is: You can't change the wind, but you can adjust your sails. So true. Often the change brings unexpected joys. It made me think how often plans get changed when you are a caregiver for someone with Alzheimer's. Often you can't plan easily, as so much can interrupt well laid plans when you're a caregiver. Many unexpected 'happenings' can alter plans. How do you handle the uncertainty? I think the successful caregiver is flexible and kind of loosey-goosey, not rattled by change, able to switch gears easily.
Our vacation took a new twist. We were not on the water. We took day trips;one to Norman Rockwell's Museum in Stockbridge (a delightful trip), one to Maine to LL Bean and favorite haunts for good seafood (clam cakes), and on the last day we toured our own city Quincy in a trolley to visit the Adams Mansion and John and John Quincy's birthplaces. It was reminiscent of our dating days, driving, easily chatting and having good meals together. It turned out to be a restful vacation after all; not what we'd planned, but delightful nontheless. Can you approach your caregiving experience like that? It would help to learn to.