The Lamp Shade

Humor can take the edge off a number of situations, especially when dealing with serious health or care-giving issues.  For those who have followed our blog, you’ll know that we often use humor to get through many difficult days.  Reality is what it is; hard do change, sometimes equally hard to deal with.

Moving can be stressful too, yet in a different way.  Sooner or later, the last box will be unpacked, the last picture will find itself on the wall, everything will find its place!  Even a miss-placed Lamp Shade.

Upon the arrival of the furniture and the mounds of mess and stress that followed,  I was left to ponder about caregivers who are often under stress and burdened by their task at hand.  You see, sometimes in the heat of care-giving,  we can lose sight of the fact that the one who is being cared for is… ill.

When your ‘patient’ says something out-of-turn, don’t blame the ‘patient’… blame the disease.  When your ‘patient’ does not feel like eating, don’t blame the ‘patient’…blame the disease.  When ‘the patient’ is just not feeling up to doing something, don’t blame the ‘patient’…blame the disease.  Caring is a daunting task and the caregiver often loses themselves in the process, and you know, that’s OK because it’s not ‘the patient’s’ fault…it’s the disease.

Just as Lamp Shades protect the bright lights of the bulbs of which they cover, care-givers do the same as they protect and ‘shade’ those for who they care for.  When the light burns out, we don’t blame the shade, we blame the bulb. When illness plays havoc with our loved one, we don’t blame the patient, we blame the disease.

  When we are focused on the task at hand, mindful that it’s the disease, not the patient…every ‘lamp shade’ finds its proper place, with love, tenderness and commitment.

We are blessed by the good health reports we are receiving in Florida and look to continue to bring great ‘shade’ to those around us!