Special Reading

There have been many books regarding coping with diseases, deaths, and the aftermath -- especially when it comes to cancer. The New York Times reviewed one such book in "A Quest for Knowledge Inspired by a Devastating Loss": "One in Three" -- which refers to "One in three of us will develop the disease [cancer] in our lifetimes." (This is a frightening statistic).

This book was written as a way for a son to deal with his father's struggle with cancer—which can be said about many other books. (Writing tends to be good therapy for dealing with issues). However, in conducting the research, the author wrote that he would have a "horrifying effect" on people he would casually talk to about cancer --- ie. his "listeners would shiver or quail or walk away." Therefore, he purposely wrote a story that is more "gripping than frightening."

This is a similar effect we want to evoke with caregiving. As Renata (Founder & CEO of CareTALK and a CareTALK Gal) wrote in her previous entries, caregiving was considered toxic. Consumers did not want to identify as caregivers and caregiving was viewed as a burden. More often than not, caregivers would view themselves as "victims" (of circumstance?). We want to change that understanding. We want to make caregiving more "gripping than frightening", more proactive, not reactive with a more "go get 'em" attitude, not a "woe is me" attitude.

There are two choices: you/we can either wallow in self pity or you/we can roll up our sleeves and deal, head on, with circumstances that are beyond our control.

We choose the latter.