Grief Management & Healing

The journey of a caregiver is a complicated one. It is a demanding role, requiring you to be fully responsible for someone else’s wellbeing. Caring for a person is an act that many of us would have performed at some point in our lives. Caring for a person at the end of his life can be more difficult and demanding than caring for someone in the prime of his life.

Comforting words and actions cannot be offered easily because there is no promise of recovery to sought comfort in. It can be particularly difficult to offer comfort when you find yourself also in need of comfort. The physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and financial demands of a dying family member can take its toll on the caregiver, and make the caregiving process a stressful one. However, caregiving need not be stressful.

Ask For & Accept Help

Being a caregiver is not about shouldering all the responsibilities and difficulties alone. Asking for and receiving help is not wrong. It is important to maintain your own wellbeing so that you can offer the patient maximum care and support. Your family, friends, religious leaders, and the hospice caregiving team are present to help you.

When there is an emergency and you are not sure how to help the patient, the hospice home care service is only a phone call away. The hospice caregiving team is ready to provide the necessary respite care to the patient. As a caregiver, you do not have to feel useless or upset when the patient’s pain goes beyond control. Feel safe in the knowledge that help is at hand.

Get Appropriate Training

Hospices hold regular workshops to teach caregivers about the basics of physical caregiving, with practical hands-on training in moving, feeding, bathing and clothing patients. The knowledge you gain from these trainings will make you confident in your ability to provide the right care for your loved one.

Recognise You Did Your Best

When the patient goes into a stage beyond anyone’s help, and is in the last few moments of his life, keeping a bedside vigil can be a huge emotional drain on the caregiver and loved ones. Watching your loved one passing on will evoke many feelings, and it will be hard to deal with the trauma. Dealing with the loss will have to come slowly as the heart heals, but guilt will eat away at you if you choose to let it do so. Remind yourself that you could not have controlled the arrival of death, but you did your best to make the last leg of your loved one’s life less painful, more pleasant and more fulfilling.

A caregiver is a lifegiver because life before death is not about being alive; it is about living a life of quality.