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How to Handle Memories of Trauma

Have you ever experienced a trauma as a caregiver that you can't shake? These techniques from our Caregiving Expert, Dr. Barry Jacobs, can help caregivers cope with what they have witnessed.

 

Read HERE.

 

Share your story with us. What has been a difficult sight or moment that has been particularly difficult to move on from? What has helped you cope? 

AARPJen
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Honored Social Butterfly

I didn't think I really had anything to share, until I browsed that article .. but it brought back a couple of memories of my Mom's final few months. She'd been battling breast cancer for 10 years, until it began to spread into her lungs. I remember being with her in the emergency room once, where she had to lay down, so they could transfer her from a gurney to the bed .. and her lungs immediately filled with fluid. I remember her yelling that she couldn't breath & was drowning .. that was pretty God-awful to witness. Although Mom was only in her late 70s, and mentally 100%, I also remember one afternoon at the nursing home, when she was on an oxygen machine. It was a cloudy day, and when I came to visit, I went to turn the light on in the room .. and Mom freaked out. Although the light switch was nowhere near the controls for the oxygen machine, she wouldn't let me touch anything, lest it shut shut off her supply of oxygen.

 

I grew up in a family where illness wasn't uncommon, and I just accepted it as "that's life", doing my best with the doctors to keep Mom comfortable. When Mom died I "inherited" my elderly aunt .. to I "got over" the horror of Mom's cancer, by being too busy as a caregiver again, to dwell on it.


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