"With a Little Help From My Friends"

I don't have a great singing voice, but what the heck! Two times I have sung these lyrics at Weight Watchers--once maybe five years ago and once in 2012. The karaoke version of it accompanies me and others who sing it with me. Now I am a life time Weight Watcher member, having made my goal maybe 40 years ago when you had to have liver once a week, didn't have to exercise, and couldn't eat fat at all. Weight Watchers has improved so much over the years. I love the newest point system (2012) and the 360 degrees current 2013 emphasis on Tracking, Spaces and Routines. This wise emphasis fits with so much of my life now--the house and the discipline of being a caregiver.

I  reflect that we need support groups and people in our life--a little help from our friends. So without further ado, here are my Weight Watcher lyrics to "With a Little Help From My Friends":

Once upon a time with big belly and hips
I lost some 50 unwanted pounds
Once a week liver for fake diamond chips
To Weight Watchers the first of many rounds
I get by with a little help from my friends.

Jamoca Almond Fudge from a place called Baskins
Can you strand up and look in mirrors?
With 3-D, First Place and thinking of Atkins
Try several diets over the years.
I get by with a little help from my friends
I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends
I’ll get slim with a little help from my friends.

Do I need any diet?
Not really I don’t think so
What I need is a “live it”
To Weight Watchers I go.

Where would you go for some common sense advice
At Weight Watcher’s meeting you’ll be gooving
With point calculator eat beans and rice
Remember to keep those hips movin’

I get by with a little help from my friends
I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends
I’ll get slim with a little help from my friends.

Do I need any diet?
Not really I don’t think so
What I need is a “live it”
To Weight Watchers I go.
I get by with a little help from my friends
I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends
I’ll get slim with a little help from my friends.

So great to be back at Weight Watchers for my 7 am Saturday morning meeting today. I hadn't been there in three weeks. I was down 6/10 of a pound, even though I had stopped tracking well after the holidays and being out of town. I expected to be up 5 pounds, but I guess Weight Watcher habits are rubbing off on me. The meeting was so inspirational and I just rejoiced at the victories of others. My weight loss has been slow, but my health benefits are tremendous--my exercise can improve, but not with my carpal tunnel now. I do want that health to be my husband's caregiver all his days and will continue to plan healthy meals for us.

Now if you follow this blog, you know that I wrote lyrics at the beginning of December to another song. "Southern Wonderland". I sang this song to friends and even strangers in December. For example, the next table at the Tampa Airport (before we departed for Christmas with my husband's son and family) all sang with me when I gave them printed copies of "Southern Wonderland". I talked about this last week and DH said he and Jake just hid when I sang in public at the airport. Now Jake wasn't at the airport restaurant, but Jake is so important to my husband. He is getting by with a little help from Jake, even if Jake isn't there!

I get by with help from Sally as well. Both Sally and I also get by with help from our monthly Alzheimer's Association meetings. DH knows what we go to, but Jake just thinks Sally and I have a Bible study that day.

Certainly New Years is a time to reflect on how we are getting by. Oprah is quoted as saying in new Weight Watcher literature,

Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.

I get by with my Daily Audio Bible study and podcast. For maybe five years I have been going through the whole Bible by listening and often reading the selection. Today on the way to Weight Watchers (a 25 min. drive), I heard on the Daily Audio Bible podcast in my car about Abraham (the start of our current world problems) and the Beatitudes (Christ's example and Way).  Scripture and prayer help me bravely face being a caregiver. The LORD is my help.

This year I hope to add budgeting (especially knocking down credit card balances) to my life, even making gifts and quilts from some of the materials I already have as I cut down on the volume of stuff at the house. See The House That Cleans Itself posts. Not sure who will be my budgeting buddy. Any volunteers?

Check the Manual, Check the Playbook

Several years ago Linda Fisher wrote a post on hearing Coach Broyles and his family. The Coach has a Playbook for Alzheimer's Caregivers.See  http://earlyonset.blogspot.com/2010/04/bring-past-to-presentcoach-broyles.html

That playbook looked like a book I needed to read. Fortunately Karen later sent it to me. Karen's mom passes away from Alzheimer's and this book had helped her. We met when I started writing on her blog and she wrote here.

Playbook. Linda writes that the family treat each repeat question with respect as if it were the first question. Yep, I do that. I let my husband initiate conversations so I don't frustrate him. I prayed last night because it was my turn to pray on even days. Then he asked me to pray again because he forgot that I had. This was my precious time to tell our LORD new praise and requests even though I had prayed several minutes ago. We always hold hands when we pray at night.  I am writing my own playbook on what works with him.

Romans 8:1,9,16,17; Colossians 1:9,24; 2 Corinthians 1:5-7, 9:8; Psalm 41, 31:9-13; Leviticus 19:32; John 14:17, 16:13; Galatians 4:6; 1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19; 2 Timothy 1:14; and Ephesians 1:17 are some of the verses highlighted in this book.

Here is the poem from Coach Broyles Playbook for Alzheimer’s Caregivers (author unknown)

Do not ask me to remember.

Don't try to make me understand.

Let me rest and know you're with me.

Kiss my cheek and hold my hand.

I'm confused beyond your concept.

I am sad and sick and lost.

All I know is that I need you.

To be with me at all cost.

Do not lose your patience with me.

Do not scold or curse or cry.

I can't help the way I'm acting.

Can't be different 'though I try.

Just remember that I need you.

That the best of me is gone.

Please don't fail to stand beside me.

Love me 'til my life is done.

I will be there, sweetheart!

Book Review: The Peacemaker

It has been said that Alzheimer's brings out the best and the worst in people. Often I read on Alzheimer's blogs about conflict between family members about care for elderly parents. People in many caregiving situations read this blog and so this issue may come up in families who are seeing both the best and the worst in one another.

I am in my final classes for a seminary counseling degree and one of the required reading books, The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict by Ken Sande, had a very insightful story. Now this scenario in the book I am quoting in no way parallels my situation, but is illustrative of both the best and worst in people and how Scripture and wise counsel can help the Christians who face such caregiving decisions. Ken Sande writes:

When a person earnestly pursues the conciliation responses to conflict, there is a greater likelihood that he or she will eventually see reconciliation. . . . The different responses to conflict and their association dynamics were dramatically revealed in the first family conflict I conciliated. I was asked to help seven adult brothers and sisters settle a guardianship dispute over whether they should keep their elderly mother in her home or place her in a retirement center. Five of the siblings were doing all they could to escape from the situation, either  by pretending that a conflict did not exist or by refusing to meet with the others to talk about it. The other two attacked each other intensely and frequently, slandering one another to family and friends and fighting in court to obtain control through legal guardianship.

The first step in resolving the dispute was to help the parties change the way they had been responding to the situation. The five siblings who had been trying to escape from the problem quickly saw the benefits of mediation and agreed to meet together. The other two sisters grudgingly consented to mediation, but they continued to attack each other during our meetings, accusing each other of improper motives and demanding opposing solutions. Our investment of time and energy was producing no results, and relationships were suffering further damage.

I finally asked to talk with the two sisters in private to help them discuss the personal offenses that were obviously fueling their quarrel. Putting the guardianship issue aside for a moment, I helped them to examine their attitudes and behavior toward each other. As we studied a few relevant Bible passages, the Lord began to work in their hearts. After about thirty minutes, the real cause of the conflict finally came to the surface.  Almost twenty years earlier, one of the women had said something that deeply hurt the other one. The offended sister had tried to pretend that she was not hurt, but she could not help brooding over the insult and their relationship was steadily poisoned. Consequently, they opposed each other in everything, even if it involved their mother’s care. 

As we continued to talk about their relationship, they began to deal honestly with their feelings and actions. They saw how they had been dishonoring God and hurting other people. As God opened their hearts, they confessed their sins and forgave each other. With tears in their eyes, they embraced each other for the first time in twenty years. They soon joined their brothers and sister and explained what had happened. Within five minutes, all seven children agreed that their mother would be happier in her own home, and in another fifteen minutes they negotiated a schedule for her care.  As you can imagine, when they told her the news that evening, the reconciliation of her children brought her even more joy than the  decision about her living arrangement (pp. 23, 24).

Now mediation with someone else might be needed with placement of an Alzheimer's loved one. We can grow in grace and in the knowledge of our faith in the process. The LORD doesn't waste any of our trials, and unless we choose to become bitter and discouraged, He will be there and turn our sorrows into joy and perhaps through mediation and of course through meditation on His Word.

I have loved the process of taking my seminary counseling classes since 2006 and can see the light at the end of the tunnel. One project was my book, Getting Off the Niceness Treadmill. Other papers have been on a topic related to Alzheimer's. I will be starting the dissertation some time in 2013, LORD willing. It has been suggested that I write my dissertation on being an Alzheimer's caregiver. 150 pages! Oh no! More stress on top of being a caregiver and on top of reorganizing the home for caregiving! However, with reading such wonderful resources as The Peacemaker there will be much to share in that dissertation.

Get the book, folks. Such help for all kinds of thorny issues.

For Dolores, Special Plant City Friend from Texas

My blogging friend from Texas who has written on Plant City Lady and Friends, is going through rough times now with her David in a nursing home and not recognizing her. She is lonely.

I have been a widow and grieve with her as she begins the process of grieving while her husband is still alive. She likes large letters so here is what I wrote in a comment on her blog and am reposting here:

Dolores,

Your blog is such good therapy for you and for all of us grieving with you. "Bear one another's burdens," the Scripture says.

I reflect on my grief with my late husband's death twenty some years ago. It was so hard and a counselor helped me through. "Why are you so anxious to replace your husband?" he once asked me when I started dating another widower only four months after my late husband's death. I did heal and learn. It took eight years to remarry a godly, attentive husband, who is still godly and attentive despite his Alhzeimer's.


One session those many years ago, after working through much grief, the counselor said to me, "Get up each morning and pretend you are happy." Pretend? I'm thinking, but I didn't feel happy. Crying out to God and emersing myself in Scripture I did get through that stage and the years to follow. I repainted rooms in the house and forged a new life without a husband. I learned to live singlely.

Years later when the Alzheimer's diagnosis came to my current husband, I thought about the hard times of facing widowhood again.

Enter one lovely DOLORES who taught me to treasure every day with my husband with your comments on my blog. I do treasure every day now, as I pray earnestly for you to be given a "spot of joy" (husband's recent term) each day.

I am so grately for you and your blog, dear Internet blogging friend. I am one of the WHYS for what you are going through.

Hugs and prayers,


Carol