Let Go - Let God

I'd like to point people in the direction of few resources on Lumigrate and some that perhaps will be ON Lumigrate in the future, such as a book I just found on Amazon.com which looks REALLY good to me, titled "A Bittersweet Season, Caring for Parents ..... Ourselves."  The link for it on Amazon is provided here and I'm going to order it from my local Barnes and Noble (in the hopes of keeping them alive and in our community, I love bookstores and find it sad they are 'dying').  I understand from Kohava Howard, who writes about YogaDance on Lumigrate, that if you go to the store they will order it in for you and you don't have shipping fees! I enjoy bookstores and would rather pay a little more to have them in my community, when I have time to go shop. 

Beth Patterson has been a contributor to Lumigrate for maybe about a year now, and when the woman who writes as Yenta and I were both going through our respective mother and father's life-ending illnesses, I communicated with Beth as she is a spiritual coach now, and can consult with people from coast to coast, but I knew her background is in health care administration, including many years at the nationally-acclaimed Hospice and Palliative Care of Western Colorado, right here in Grand Junction!  You can find her pieces typically in the spirituality forum, but the ones related to end of life are also in that section/forum, and I'll provide the link for those, below as well.  

And one of our BRAND NEW contributors is so new she's only registered and reviewing a sampling of what Lumigrate has to offer, but her name is Martine Ehrenclou. However, I will email this to her to let her know that I'm talking about her already!  And then we'll get a link for you to find her on Lumigrate once she's 'here' in the forums.  Her formal education is in psychology (M.A.) and her 'street education' came from having health issues crop up which took some time to diagnose and treat, which she did through being the one doing the reading/education and then taking that information forward to team with providers to help her solve the problem successfully.  She has written a book called Critical Conditions,  which is about how to have an increased odds of favorable outcome and lower your risk of problems when going to the hospital or other medical situations.  

Martine has a new book completed which will be out in the spring of 2012 about how to be a proactive patient, which is what my "platform/springboard" was in my OT outpatient days/years here in Grand Junction prior to venturing out to influence more with proactive health care information by creating Lumigrate.  

Martine is my age, which is your daughter's age, I know, Petie, and actually went to school nearby where you live today for some of her formative years! She resides in California today, perhaps somewhere near where you used to reside before moving to Colorado, for which I am eternally GRATE-FULL. For those who haven't read our history elsewhere on Lumigrate,  I first met Petie through her adult son Tom, who has developmental differences/'disabilities', as one of his providers related to the specialty of driving rehabilitation.  

I met Karen Richardson, OTR, CDRS about the same time through the professional organization for driving educators, and now she also writes here at Lumigrate.com about specifically driving rehabilitation and in particular the medically impaired driver.  It is critical to have a resource for drivers, their friends, family and mostly medical providers who might not be aware of what to do and their responsibilities per the AMA and the law.  

As funds become more scarce for the services related to driving, more falls into the hands of 'others' who have a huge learning curve so we have a consultant 'in the house' at Lumigrate! There is much you know, Petie, as do I, related to the process for boosting skill and safety or helping people 'retire' their driving priviledges, but that's been Karen's specialty for at least as long as I've been an OT!  (Which is actually called 'surrendering' in the 'biz', but I like to present it as a choice and found the concept of retirement was easier to present than 'surrendering'.)  This scarcity of funds is across the board and so I hope that much OT information is shared here so people can do their best to figure things out on their own with our assistance, and naturally those of us who consult with people for reasonable fees also are available for individual attention.

So I'm really looking forward to getting Martine involved with Lumigrate at least in one place to refer people to, as I believe what she has to offer is incredibly needed and valuable to so many going through what your/Petie's piece here is about, and this is a perfect example of how one contributor to Lumigrate will not know what I am working on related to new contributors yet 'POOF', something that literally rolls out the purple carpet for them (Lumigrate's got purple not 'red carpet' -  .. GRINS!

It is VERY sad to see the turbulence in families, which if not resolved causes 'fractures' and much pain,  and because in my opinion, that 'home stretch' of life is truly a gift! It makes it more difficult for the therapy/provider team to be as beneficial and therapeutic as they could otherwise as well.  

People drop their guard, really talk about what is on their minds and in their hearts and souls to say, and they can be WONDERFUL times to share! But at another level it 'flushes out and brings to the surface' the real dynamics of families and I can only hope that the legal field begins to embrace the psychology that goes into these situations.  Again, Martine will be able to shed some light on that potentially, and perhaps Beth Patterson as well, due to their professional backgrounds; Martine was going to go into forensic psychology work but then her life took her in the direction of patient education related to medical situations.  

But just as having fibromyalgia or learning disabilities has made me a better therapist, so has this, and it literally changed the direction I was taking Lumigrate, as I heard it over and over again that people were concerned about this type of experience or had it occur and did not understand why. 

I've had the privilege of working with many teams 'on the home stretch' in my career as an OT, which was not nearly as long as you got to enjoy due to the changes with insurance and paperwork, ethics and treatment that has driven many of us from the ranks of insurance-based medicine. (Though we are both 'second career' OTs.) By working with the patient and sometimes their family and friend support system and performing functional activities such as cooking, in particular, but also shaving and bathing and dressing, or preparing to grocery shop in a different way once home and out of rehabilitation at a skilled nursing facility, rehab floor/facility, or outpatient clinic, I'd often be the one they would open up.

It's so much easier to walk in and meet someone you've never worked with as an OT or knew before and now you're seeing them again in their new state of mind/body/spirit, than it is to see something with your own family member, I learned.  And then you layer onto it all the dynamics of siblings and then layer on top of that 'stress' and everyone's acting in their 'stressed state', most importantly the patient, and it was incredibly difficult and I commiserate with anyone going through anything like it.  

Thank you for the inspiration, Petie.  And for your "wisdom of the aged" - although you are a VERY young 'senior citizen' in spirit, body and mind, in my opinion.  You're an inspiration to me and I thank you for being here to be that to others potentially, at Lumigrate.  I believe your openly talking about your own life in this way is going to help many today and forever in the future of Lumigrate. ~~ Mardy  

• Link to the section of Lumigrate Forums for 'if you become medically impaired', which includes our growing information about end of life issues: www.lumigrate.com/forums/be-prepared-thing-know-if-medically-impaired
• Within that section is a Forum which has both pieces I refer to above by Beth Patterson that apply to end of life issues as well as the book by Martine and that is at this link: www.lumigrate.com/forums/be-prepared-thing-know-if-medically-impaired/dealing-home-stretch-life-and-death
• Link to the Spirituality Forum where Yenta got her start, and Beth Patterson's work is typically posted with MUCH more currently and I'm sure in the future will only grow better with time and more attention from GRATE providers of content at Lumigrate: www.lumigrate.com/forums/integrative-medicine-parts-make-whole/spirituality . I cannot underscore how much spirituality is at play when it comes to medical impairment, end of life issues, and families being involved in a crisis or hospice situation.  I speak from years of experience and my personal situation as I am not of the same spiritual beliefs as my mother or my father (one was agnostic/atheist the other Catholic) or my sibling and their spouse, who has a different belief from the rest of that family.  I think it's the 'crux' of a lot of problems in these cases with dysfunction in the process.  
• Bittersweet Season/link at Amazon for you to go look if you're inclined (and perhaps purchase) is: www.amazon.com/Bittersweet-Season-Caring-Parents---Ourselves/dp/030727182X/ref=sr_1_1

Mardy, thank you for all of the information you provide us with.  You are SO appreciated.  I feel blessed to know you and admire you for all of your knowledge that you share.  You have truly given back.............and help people ALL of the time through Lumigrate and 1:1/directly when you are asked to advise.

Thanks, Petie -- And sometimes when I'm NOT asked.   

Mardy

 Petie,

Thank you so much for posting this. It truly put many things into perspective in my life. I am only 24 years old and have had to deal with way too many deaths. Ranging from my dad's whole side of the family, to a few friends my age.

It never gets easier on us dealing with death, but I never thought about it from the perspective you pointed out. It is, in a way, very selfish of us not to want our loved ones to leave us, and we almost never take into consideration their feelings, especially if they are ill and suffering, it would truly be best for God to take control and accept what cannot be changed.

Recently, I have been going through many things in my life and find that the Serenity Prayer deeply helps me get and keep things into perspective. Just in case you do not know what it is, or others who are reading this are interested, it goes as follows: 

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

The courage to change the things I can;

And the wisdom to know the difference.  

Thanks again, Petie, for posting this, and for Mardy for her wonderful information! 

Faith, thank you for your 20-something response to our 70-something Petie; I'll let her know you've benefitted from her piece and have added how the Serenity Prayer helps you.  When I was in my 30s and was in OT school and struggling with fibromyalgia (which was not yet diagnosed, it was just a big ? I was trying to find providers and information to figure out together), I found the following at the University bookstore and thought I'd take a photo of it and share here: 

I also had a photo I'd just taken of a sunset from this weekend; I got out most evenings and use the time to relax, get in touch with the Earth and 'source', and watch the clouds. I remember as a child, being raised in an atheistic/agnostic and science-driven household, I'd lie in the yard and look out into the sky and think about 'infinity'. In case people don't have easy access in their 'reality', I'm sharing mine from this weekend ~~ Mardy