#siblingcare

[prishmultispecialityhospital]

"May the bond of protection and care always surround you, just like the warm embrace of family. Wishing you a joyful and healthy Rakshabandhan from Prish Multi Speciality Hospital & Center for Urology!"

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Book your Appointments Today!

Visit us:- www.prishhospital.com

#HealthyWishes#CaringBonds#RakhiWithPrish#WellnessCelebration

[subodhurology]

"Happy Rakshabandhan! Just as a sibling bond remains unbreakable, my unwavering care for your health will always be by your side."

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Book your Appointments Today!

Visit at- https://subodh-urology.com/

Visit at- https://www.facebook.com/subodhurology/

[littlehazel87]

Sibling Carers - Unsung Heroes of Life

Sibling Carers – Unsung Heroes of Life

This week is known as ‘carers week’. These are the people who dedicate their everyday lives to ensure the most vulnerable receive a decent, independent life.

Some of these people choose to work in an industry which is grossly underpaid and often unappreciated. Some of those people are adults looking after their aged or sick parents. Some of these people are children looking after their…

[jon-price]

Sibling coopers #minicoopers #mini #clubsman #siblingcars

[moonshinemanchild]

She was

...pretty upset.

In a strange smaller bed, she was unsettled and calling out for her people.

She wouldn’t settle with Mum’s help and I was pretty useless in making a change (quite common).

So we let ride out for a while.

As we were away they had to share a room. And then it happened, one of those beautiful first time occurrences.

StarShine started to sing a lullaby. Twinkle Twinkle little star. MoonBeam stopped crying and listened. All was quiet. 

Within 15 minutes they were both asleep. 

When battling to get a kid to sleep, you remember how bad it could be. Up for hours, are they sick, are they evil etc.....so when the actually sleep it is exquisite.

The fact that her older sister and took it upon herself to help out, nailed it and all in the act of caring for her upset sibling was beautiful in my eyes. I was immensely proud of her.

Then she got up at 5am after we got in bed at about 12. It was a long day....long, but an immensely proud one 

[fuelgrannieinthefamily]

Monday, January 12, 2015: Ain’t This the Limit?

O darlings, it’s been a long time. Since last week, I’ve been helping my family with a legal issue while also wrassling with my clogged sinuses then apparently bombing on a job interview at a place where it has been since and thusly confirmed to be in fact no place I’d like to be working. During the interview process, I sat alone in a conference room, perhaps even being watched, trying not to bust out of my best grey suit, my supportwear potentially visible in horrible corners. I heard a voice outside, in the hallway: “She’s how old?” The word “how” spat particularly loud and high by the speaker. When I got home, I went on Facebook and locked my birth year. But I did not lock either the refrigerator or the bathroom scale. I interviewed first with three women for this job, the primary round was an afternoon right before Christmas. I interviewed this past Wednesday, the second round, with three more women. They reported back to my recruiter the next day that they wanted someone with more proficiency in Outlook calendar; an odd claim, potentially just an exit, a way of saying no without saying "she doesn't fit into her suit and she is clearly 'how' old and we don't really do 'how' old in here, you must understand." And of course the bottom line is that they have every right to reject me for whatever reason, Outlook, old-look or otherwise. “She’s how old?” They have every right to say goodbye if they do not feel that click with me as an employee. And I do not begrudge them that: fit is everything with job placement: it has to feel right. When it does, it’s the same feeling of when you move into the right home or spend time with the right romantic partner: you’re in love. It’s the rightness of it all that confirms it: it just feels right. So they didn't feel right with me, the six young ladies: I wasn’t a right fit with the six. I don’t want to I feel like I have to hide what my true self is, my true age included,as if I were some extraterrestrial dame in a noir-y science fiction story where I need to keep it a secret that I am the worst of the worst, the trolliest of the trolls, possessing the awfulliest offense of all: old age. And busting out of my suit: bursting busting out of it. I kept adjusting the snap closures at my waist which flew open fifteen minutes into my last interview on Wednesday, at a moment when I laughed. You fool, I thought. You fat clownyclown poserpants fool. I knew I had to gracefully re-button, readjust, not rip anything; keep my bra hidden, try to seem unruffled. But all I was, was ruffled. Large potato chip ruffled: crispy oily, breaking into big pieces. “She’s how old?” Not a fit. My godmother might be dying. She’s 88 pounds, in her early 80s, very frail. I love her. I am glad I saw her yesterday; she’s going into the hospital tomorrow so a feeding tube can be inserted down her throat. You’re in bad shape when you need a feeding tube. You’re in bad shape when you actually want to go into the hospital, like my godmother presently wants to. She wants the feeding tube. She’s so weak. My mom is no longer in denial after I shake the truth through the phone to her: “Prepare yourself,” I say. My mother and godmother have been friends their whole lives. My mom just lost her best friend last year and then another very close work buddy a few months after that. Death is a frequent visitor, a frequent topic of conversation with the elderly in my life. Yesterday, propped up on pillows with her eyes closed, my godmother says to me, “I’ve lived a good life.” “Yes, you have,” I say. “No one can say I didn’t,” she continues. “No,” I say, my voice is soft; I think about her saying this statement, how she’s now seeing her life behind her, and how people get to that very moment. It’s both a blessing and a sadness to get to that point where you're old enough that when you look back, you say it’s been a good run, you realize you have very limited time left. Maybe like my godmother, you can’t eat that well, you have no energy. Maybe you’re tired. Maybe giving up isn’t the worst thing. My godmother can barely keep her eyes open, she tries a little and when she does, we lock eyes, we take each other in. We know this might be goodbye. We know what this moment might be. I do what I always do during such a profound moment: I try to memorize everything I see and feel around me right now. The way her thumb feels in my hand as I hold it, as I gently squeeze it. How beautiful her face still is, her white skin, her white hair, her fine nose, her clear eyes. Her nephew bought her a stuffed blue bunny which sits next to her on her coral-hued bed. The lamp by her bed, on a nightstand, clicks to dim every five minutes then hums to bright five minutes later. I absently think, next to my memorizing, maybe that lamp’s connected to another electrical connection, why does it keep doing that? Because everything has to have an answer, especially everything like why does this lamp go bright then go dull every few minutes? My thoughts stack, like white writing paper, one on top of each other and sit next to me in my head like the stufffed blue bunny, silent and answer-less. My godmother and I hold our locked eyes. “Ain’t this the limit?” She asks. She closes her eyes. “Ain’t this the limit,” she repeats, but this time it is a sad sentence, not a question. She says it like the black and white movie star she looks like, like Carole Lombard, like a long-dead beauty, newly in focus on a screen, chewing on the end of a cigarette, lolling her head, unseen Cagney, stage right: ain’t this just the limit, kid? I hold my godmother's hand, her skin is warm, her eyes are closed. Just the limit. “You saw Lisa yesterday,” Christopher says to me tonight, during our daily phone call. “And she’s doing fine,” he decides. “Well, not exactly, sweetie.” I say to my brother. “She’s very frail.” I tell him the truth: she’s had cancer in the mouth, it’s hard for her to eat. Then she just had a heart attack on New Year’s Day. “I’m sad about it,” he says. He hates death; he never wants to face it but he obsesses over it, our father's death especially. “Me, too.” I say. She’s been like a godparent to him, too, sending him checks for his birthday and for Christmas. My mom doesn’t really understand what an incredible gesture it is for this woman to have taken this additional godchild, this developmentally disabled man under her wing, to take his calls, his correspondence, give him gifts. None of my mom’s other friends have ever done anything like this, not even close, for my brother. My brother is adorable, especially to those who share his blood, but he can be exhausting; it’s not always easy to deal with Christopher. My mom doesn’t always see this; she thinks her disabled son is so easy to love, like there’s nothing awkward, nothing a little strained, a little tough to negotiate when he’s in the room. The conversation has to be about him if it involves him, the way it does when you’re talking to a very little kid. Christopher is sweet, he’s engaging but he’s not going deep. You can’t tell him stuff he’ll easily retain. You’ll get no advice from him, you won’t really even be heard. It’s not that kind of interaction even if he makes you smile, even if he touches your heart, which he very likely will do. If he does touch your heart, I’ll be indebted. But my mom doesn’t feel that indebtedness: she expects people to fall in love with Christopher, with no effort. As his little sister, I know well the population who never fell in love with him, who mock him, who are repelled by him. I am so thankful to all those people who don’t treat him like that, like my godmother who has always treated him like he was her own nephew. My mother doesn’t always respect my godmother for what she’s done and who she’s been to my brother.

[fuelgrannieinthefamily]

January 3, 2015: I Know Who You Are

I talk to my autistic brother Christopher every day. He’s going to have his 55th birthday this year but in a lot of ways, he’s like a little kid. Even though we have three older siblings and our mom is still alive and kicking at age 86, I am the only one who checks in with him every day. Christopher lives by himself in Connecticut and I live down here, in fabulous Queens. We grew up in Manhattan. Christopher and I love New York City. He’s an artist; he draws the buildings of New York, precise skyscrapers with scores of windows, low brownstones with every brick depicted and outlined. He is a careful person, a deliberate artist, a sweet boy with blond hair and thick red lips, who speaks in a husky voice. Christopher just visited for the holidays. As is our habit with any of his NYC visits to our mom's, he stays on my couch in Long Island City the night before he heads back up to Connecticut, back to his one bedroom apartment in a building that houses mostly seniors and the disabled. He is minimally supported in his life, however; a counselor sees him once a week to take him to the therapist; our mother phones him once a week. It’s not enough. That’s why I call Christopher every day. Somebody has to, somebody has to touch base with him every day, not just the people at his part-time job or his neighbors whom he barely sees. No one else in the family contacts him daily. But I do. My mother thinks it makes him more of an independent man if she only speaks with him once a week. Meanwhile she speaks to my brother Tommy, her firstborn, three times a day. When I confront her about this, she can get a little huffy. “It’s different,” she says. “How?” I ask. She sighs. “Mom, you talk to Tommy more than once a day, sometimes more than twice. How can you only talk to Chris once a week?” She has no answer. I talk to Christopher every day. A lot of the time, he beats me to it, like tonight, leaving his voicemail: “Uh, hi Cornish, it’s me, Chris. Hope you had a good day, my day was fine, call me back, it’s Chris, I love you.” Cornish is one of many nicknames my family has dreamt up for me; it’s Christopher’s favorite. Sometimes he called me Rock Cornish Game Hen but he says it slightly wrong: he says Gain Hen instead of Game Hen. He cracks me up. Rock Cornish Gain Hen. Tonight I say to him: “I know you, Goober.” That’s my favorite nickname for him. “I know you, Goob,” I repeat. I know he needs to be called every day. I know how important he needs to connect. I know he needs to talk about our dead father, the boy who bullied him years ago; he knows I don’t cut him off, I don’t tell him to stop thinking about those things, like our mom does. He doesn’t talk for long about these things, maybe just a couple of sentences. I let him. He knows he can do this with me. “I know you,” he says back to me. He knows no one, not even his own mother, knows him and accepts him the way I do. I’m like his twin in a way: we were born four years and two days apart. “I know you.”