Learning, Growing, Adapting

 I remember playing super Nintendo games as a kid, and every time my character lost points (or size or special powers), I learned some new thing that helped me get farther along the next time around, until eventually I was able to beat the level. It made me understand at a young age that learning and improving is a process that requires you to try, fail, gain knowledge, try again, fail again, gain more knowledge, and try again, each time being a better, stronger, wiser version of yourself. This summer experiment has been like that for me and my friends, as we've steadily learned more and more about what works, what doesn't work, and how to improve in our communication and care for each other. 

My caregiving schedule worked for the most part, and I think it worked really well for my friends to be able to see it laid out week-by-week. However, it also really stressed me out to see gaps, especially for the upcoming shift, and have to figure out how to fill it. Group texts are annoying, texting or calling individuals is inefficient, and group messaging apps assume everyone has compatible phones and app literacy. So the 2.0 idea is to have a Sunday-to-Friday two-week schedule, with a regular commitment and regular rotation of caregivers. Since life happens and there will be times when people will be gone or unable to come, I want to have a short list of substitutes for each shift, who can fill in. And I want to try to have weekends be two shifts - Friday dinner through Saturday lunch, and Saturday dinner through Sunday lunch - and have friends sign up for one or two of those longer shifts quarterly. 

I also have not been good at taking care of my physical self very well this summer, which has affected me more than I thought it would. So I want to implement regular breathing exercises, muscle stretches, and other physical therapy type things into my routine, maybe just a half hour daily. 

These are just a couple of examples of ways I want to grow and adapt to take better care of my body and my relationships. So here we go - let's level up! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Disabled is not synonymous with Unemployable

I recently learned that I was losing my Medicare insurance coverage, and when I asked why, I was told that it is because of a change in my disability. This is very confusing, because I have had the same disability my entire life, and will continue to have the same disability until the end of my life; that's the weird and inconvenient thing about being diagnosed with a rare and incurable gene-based motor-neurological disease. So when I tried to correct that false assumption of a "change in my disability," I was told that my diagnosis didn't matter in this case.  ?? I'm sorry, what?? After feeling like I was in a Lewis Carroll story for a while, or like I was playing "Who's on First" with Abbott and Costello, I finally decoded that when the person was using the words "you are not disabled," what they actually meant was "you are employed." So in that context, they were correct: losing my medical insurance had nothing to do with my
Read more

Guest post: Fear to Friendship

Image
I've asked a few of my caregiving friends to write guest posts to share about their experiences of taking care of me. This week's post is from my dear friend, Mandy Wood: Connie and I have been friends for years. We went to the same church, were in the same small group for a while, and had movie/game nights with our shared friends. When my family and I moved to Maine, she and some friends came out and stayed with us for a week. Upon the two of us moving back to Indiana, where our friendship had started years prior, she had reached out asking if I would consider being a part of her friend-care team. Up to this point, we were great friends but when that question vibrated through my ears, I have to say I was heavy with intimidation and did not want to be a part of it. What would this mean? This was a whole new level of friendship I hadn’t anticipated. I put it off for a little while and eventually forgot about it. It wasn’t until a month later when my grown daughter had mentioned
Read more

"At least I still have..."

Image
 Over the past year I have become good friends with a woman here in Fort Wayne who has multiple sclerosis, and has struggled with some pretty aggressive digressions in her strength and health lately. She is a remarkable human being, and I love so much about her, from her sassy curly haircut, to her Brooklyn, NY accent, to her candid way of being authentic about her thoughts, to her faith in the Lord that keeps getting a daily workout.  We talk a lot about disability and faith, and how to hang on to hope in the dark moments of loss and depression. We've also talked about our "thresholds," as in, the limits we imagine our hope might have. "At least I can still sit up," she might say. "I don't know what I'll do when I have to lay down all the time." Last year around this time, she said something like, "At least I can still use my hands..." only, the thing is, she lost the strength in her hands this year and can no longer feed herself and
Read more