Caregiving: Our Labor of Love
A Memoir
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
To the reader: Introduction My name is John Patterson and this book is about the successful caregiving experience I gained while caregiving for my wife Sue Ann Patterson from March 2007 to September of 2013. I hope you find how a person who is caring for a family member can do the right things to bring about blessings from the Lord as you go down this path that has been given to you. I hope to show you not only better ways but blessed ways through our story. May you see God in our story for He was in our midst and blessings came to us daily. Since, one has to take it day by day in caregiving. There are things in this book that will bless you from day one to the end of the caregiving experience. Caregiving is wrought with hurdles which provide unrelenting pressures from both society and family. Transitioning into caregiving is not smooth to say the least. There are huge mountains and low valleys that both the caring person and the one who is receiving care will have to experience. My daughter Jennifer said to me, “I wished seven years ago someone would have set me down and told me what to expect these last seven years.” Through this painful battle my family and I experienced we hope to provide you with the tools needed to survive that battle. So you know how to care, and combat the hard-hitting time. So you can find the passion for caring that a minority of people will experience in their lifetimes. I did not know what I was getting into when I found myself becoming a caregiver. For caregiving is much like a flood. It begins as a trickle signifying the slow embodied changes of a thriving person. Before realizing it the trickle bursts into a downward spiral leaving you to only ponder what life once was. I wrote this book due to my disheartening realization that I had no reference to turn to. Every day marked a new threshold and chipped away a little more. There was no where I could turn to for information that I so desperately desired. Information is the key to making a difference and lightening a significant load. Far too many of us have gone before you struggling day after day. I hope that you will find that there is so much information in this book that you can have an easier time with caring. Caring is not easy; in fact it is at times seems impossible! I am writing this introduction just three days after Sue passed away. It is an amazingly unbelievable story we lived through and this book comes from my heart and soul. I have peace in my heart and soul for I know I did my best for Sue. I have no regrets for the process molded and shaped me into a better person and a better man of God. I feel we went through the fire and came out purer on the other side of caregiving. In addition to the stresses of caregiving I was at many times shocked by what I found in research. I stumbled upon an article online from the National Center for Biotechnology. The article was written as Advances in Patient Safety. It was a study of patient’s safety in the home. What caught my eye was this sentence, “Home health care is the fastest growing sector in the health care industry, with an anticipated growth of 66 percent over the next 10 years and with over 7 million patients served each year.” 7 million people and their caregivers are going to be in the same situation Sue and I stumbled into. 70 million Soles in 10 years will be in the home caring situation that our family has experienced. For more information, go to http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books.NBK43619/ on the web. I could not put Sue into a nursing home due to our income and yet I could not do much due to the huge expense of caring in the home. I will show you how to transition from a conventional standpoint to a life centered on your caregiving. Regardless of my reasons the most important underlining issue is a bid for change. I write this book praying that a revolution in the healthcare system may one day be enacted. We need change on the Federal, State and County level. I suffered from an astounding $24,000 in tax deductions in 2010. Our lives became controlled by our finances. We lived based on a fixed income of my salary as a Correctional Officer, and Sue’s disability checks. Despite the staggering cost of in home care I was disregarded for any type of assistance from the limited programs established to help persons such as us. I received no assistance from the Federal Government, State of Texas, or County of residence. I reached new resolve that if our government would not help then God would supply my only solace. If you are called into caregiving then God shall provide for you and your needs. Thus let us begin our story that will hopefully bless you in the coming days, months, and years as you take on the revered work of Caregiving.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
Caregiving: Our Labor of Love is the definitive caregiving experience. This experience took almost seven years to live through. This is a detailed account of that experience. In the next ten years, over 70 million souls will enter the caregiving experience for not only them but their families as well. This level of expectation is just within the United States alone. The United States government is pushing for in-home healthcare in these approaching years. For the numbers and figures that I’ve listed, you can go to this website for verification. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK43619/ “Let me just say that you amaze me … what a good writer you are! I really believe that God has anointed you to write this for such a time as this … and is going to use it mightily to help others.” —Mary Ann Gillespie of OurPrayer.org. Look for our company in late 2015 or early 2016 to be online. Google us by our logo. Our Company: We are a small but growing company with big plans for the future. We plan to not only help but empower the families that are going through their caregiving experiences. We have the knowledge, capability, and desire to encourage you to have the best possible caregiving experience you can have. No longer will you have to feel like you are struggling through your caregiving experience alone. We went through our experiences, and we know what is ahead of you in your experience. We know what worked for us and what didn’t. Allow us to share our successes with you so that you and your family can benefit from our knowledge. We hope to bless and touch the lives of millions of families.
About the Author
John Patterson is a changed man. He is more of a man now after having gone through this precious time with Sue. He grew up poor and humbled. The years of marriage with Sue were a blessing beyond measure. He was first person in his family to go to College and graduate with a Bachelor of Arts from Southwest Baptist University. He currently works for the State of Texas. He still attends church regularly and is always willing to help anyone in need that he comes in contact with.
He wrote this book for his daughter Jennifer, his son Travis, those in or entering into the caregiving field, and the Baby Boomer generation and their individually family members and freinds. He hopes all who reads this book discovers a better way to apply caregiving through his experience. He hopes that all who read this book will be able to see God present and among us, no matter the circumstances that we are faced with in this life. He believes that this book has the ability to change lives, and change them for the better.
His life goal is to find a way to change policies within the United States Congress, State regulations, any way to change the view point to the current laws where the $2,000 rule is currently applied. He wants to see an exception to this rule so that your family does not have to pay out thousands of dollars out of your budget like we had to do.