Recording Your Senior’s Wishes at the Beginning of a Breast Cancer Journey
The possibility that your aging parent might be suffering from breast cancer can be one of the most intimidating and upsetting thoughts that you can experience during the course of your caregiver journey with them. The care that you give them during this time, however, can be crucial to how they manage their experience with cancer and the quality of your relationship and your caregiver efforts throughout the rest of their aging years.
If your parent is preparing for screening for breast cancer or has just been diagnosed, now is the time to start talking about the rest of the journey ahead of them. Recording their wishes at this time can help to clarify your parent’s thoughts about what they are going through and can give you guidelines for how to make decisions in later stages of the disease.
Start the conversation…
When it comes to recording your parent’s wishes about their cancer journey you should be open and honest with them, and encourage them to do the same for you. Reiterate that this is not a pessimistic or morbid conversation, but rather you are taking steps to help ensure that they will be treated in the way that they desire throughout their experience, and that you are taking stress away from both of you so that you can focus on more meaningful and enjoyable aspects of your time together.
What should you do?
Write down your parent’s thoughts regarding all elements of a cancer journey from what types of treatments they might consider to how they feel about resuscitation and life support to their thoughts regarding hospice care. Now is also a good time to think about issues such as final arrangements and legal considerations. As you are recording these, however, keep in mind that they might change. Recording them now is a means of starting your parent exploring their thoughts and feelings, providing a foundation on which to build their management approach, and helping you to start making decisions for the future.
Can home care help?
Home care can be a fantastic addition to your caregiver journey with your elderly parent. With an in-home senior care services provider, your aging parent will have access to the care, support, and assistance that they need, as well as the added benefit of additional companionship and social interaction.
The personalized services this care provider can give to your parent are tailored to your parent’s individual needs, challenges, and limitations, and designed to help your parent stay healthy, safe, and comfortable while also encouraging greater activity, engagement, fulfillment, and independence. As a family caregiver, this can give you a greater sense of confidence that both when you are able to be with your parent and when you are not, they are getting everything that they need to live their highest quality of life as they age in place.
If you or an aging loved-one are considering hiring senior care in Elba, AL, please contact the caring staff at Wiregrass HomeCare today. Call us at 334-539-5900.
Source:
https://pinkwarrior.com/
http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/breast-cancer-awareness-month
http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/understand_bc/statistics
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