Coming of Age

Thirteen years ago this week (or, if you'd rather, 113,976 hours, 6,838,560 minutes or 678 weeks ago) on a rainy Fourth of July weekend, I drove a rental truck to a local magazine printer's warehouse to pick up copies of the first issue of Today's Caregiver magazine. I loaded the issues onto the truck and then spent the entire next week delivering the magazines to hospitals and care facilities across my community.

Four months later, we created caregiver.com and our first national subscriptions started flowing in through the new medium, the Internet. Yet, it is this first weekend that will always be indelibly etched in my mind. As I shared the magazines with caregivers in waiting rooms across the region and watched them flip through the pages, it was tremendously gratifying to see the recognition pass across their faces that maybe they weren't so alone after all.

One of my favorite moments happened as I sat down in the main waiting room of a hospital in Fort Lauderdale and watched with great interest as two elderly sisters picked up a copy of the magazine which I had just placed on the table. As they looked through the publication, one lady suddenly brightened up, pointed to an article on diabetic foot care and said: "See, Margaret, I told you that you shouldn't go barefoot." She then proceeded to go tip by tip through the entire article using it to support her contentions about her sister's diabetes care. She was using the article to help her as she cared for her sister.

Countless other such moments have occurred over the past 13 years at the Fearless Caregiver Conferences and as I speak with family caregivers on airplanes, at other events, in hospital waiting rooms and even through emails. I have been blessed by these conversations and the opportunity to share them here with you in this newsletter, on caregiver.com, at the events and in the pages of Today's Caregiver magazine. I look forward to spending the rest of my days doing what I love most: talking to, sharing with, and learning from the real healthcare experts in the world - family caregivers.

Onto our teenage years!

Take care

Gary Barg
Editor-in-Chief
gary@caregiver.com

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Let's Talk About It - July 2008
Do you ever get angry about your caregiving role? If so how do you handle it? To participate in this this month's discussion, click here
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Caregiver Story
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As a child I always wanted a dog. Any pet actually, something of my own to love and play with. ...Continued (Do you have a story? Tell us.)
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Traveling long distances with a person in the early stage of dementia may still be quite enjoyable. ...Continued
Carenotes
I have two older brothers, and they both have wives. They both live near me. I am the caregiver of our mother who is 81. I can't get any of them to understand I need their help. My mother lights up when they come visit. I can't get them to come visit more often. What do I do?   Answer This Week's CareNote: carenotes/2008/index.htm
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