Patient and caregiver hints

Hints for the Patient, Family, and Care-givers

Personal Care

You come first—take care of yourself. This may sound selfish, but it is good advice. The state of crisis constantly changes and places great demands on your energy and talents. To effectively manage crisis, you must conserve your energy and talents.

Sleep and Rest

You need to get adequate sleep and rest. Establish and maintain a regulated eating schedule. Take a break whenever you need one. Get out of the hospital room, leave the hospital, do whatever is necessary to retain your sense of balance. You must actually "make a break" for yourself. Get a doctor's help if you can't sleep or rest.

Screen Calls

Enlist a family member to screen telephone calls or install an answering machine on your telephone at home. You must protect yourself from the constant bombardment of well-wishing friends and those wanting information. Screen your calls and determine those that require immediate response. After a difficult visit or day at the hospital, you need time for yourself. Calls that are not urgent can be returned when you are rested or when your schedule permits.

Resume Daily Routines

Maintain as much routine and normalcy in your life as possible while balancing the demands of the immediate crisis. Any degree of established routine in your life will help. Getting up each morning at a scheduled time, taking a shower, shaving or putting on make-up, eating a regular breakfast, reading the morning paper—these are all important matters of routine!

Not All Crises Are Equal

Keep yourself in shape so that you can distinguish between "small" and "big" crises, problems, and decisions. Each crisis you face will be unique in intensity and importance. Big crises necessitate big changes in your lifestyle and living conditions. As you face each new situation, you experience a degree of uncertainty relative to its outcome. More facts become evident with time. With the facts come clarification and stabilization. Facts about each crisis enable you to determine if it is big or small and enable you to make intelligent decisions. Small crises entail little or no change in your life.

Blow Off Steam

When a crisis lasts more than a few days and becomes, instead, weeks with intense stress, you need to blow off some steam. You need to do something positive for yourself. Try a complete change of environment. Go out to the zoo or to a museum. See a movie or a play. Read an entertaining and fun book unrelated to your personal crisis. "Reading can take you anywhere."

Balance Doing It Yourself and Letting Others Help

Do what you can do for yourself to maintain a sense of independence and control. Let others help you when the need arises and out of a sense of grace. Allow others in your support group to help when they offer. This allows them to also maintain a sense of usefulness, independence, and control at a time of medical crisis. Get help when the need arises and when medical equipment needs attention that you have not been trained to handle. If the quantity or quality of your nursing care is a concern speak to the head nurse in change of your care and inform your doctor. The large majority of nurses take great pride in their work and want to meet your medical care needs and make you as comfortable as possible.

Get Help at Time of Crisis

Share, even delegate, as much of the crisis load as possible among family members and primary caregivers. When the need arises, do not hesitate to use professional advisors and service providers who are within your financial means.

If you are restricted to a chair or bed, you will need the help of others to meet your basic needs. They can provide basic home care needs such as meals, cleaning, and laundry, do the shopping, and supply transportation to doctors and required medical services. Some can pursue sources of help for you such as an attorney, financial counselor, nursing service, or hospice. In short, you can depend on others to keep work going, take care of the home front, and care for your important needs.