Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence
    Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence
    Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence
    Audiobook12 hours

    Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence

    Written by Gail Sheehy

    Narrated by Gail Sheehy

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    “One of those rare books that can drastically lighten even the heaviest of loads.”
    —Rosalynn Carter

     

    “Trust me: there is no better guide to caregiving.”
     —Bill Moyers

     

    Gail Sheehy, author of the groundbreaking Passages—which was a New York Times bestseller for more than three years—now brings us Passages in Caregiving. In this essential guide, the acclaimed expert on the now aging Baby Boomer generation outlines nine crucial steps for effective, successful family caregiving, turning chaos into confidence during this most crucial of life stages.

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJun 8, 2010
    ISBN9780062005533
    Author

    Gail Sheehy

    Gail Sheehy, Ph.D., as author, journalist, and popular lecturer, has changed the way millions of women and men around the world look at their life stages. In her 50-year career, she has written 17 books, including her revolutionary Passages, named one of the ten most influential books of our times. As a literary journalist, she was one of the original contributors to New York Magazine and to Vanity Fair since 1984. A winner of many awards, three honorary doctorates, a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 by Books for a Better Life, she has regularly commented on political figures, including in her acclaimed biography of Hillary Clinton.

    More audiobooks from Gail Sheehy

    Related to Passages in Caregiving

    Related audiobooks

    Self-Improvement For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The False Euphoria Of Dysphoria

      Apr 28, 2022

      ‘‘JOY”, “AMAZING”, “HAPPINESS”, “wholesome”, “freedom”, “light at the end of the tunnel”, “greatest day of my life”, “euphoria” and “bliss of fairy dust” — what do these words describe? The answer is “top surgery” in a new Snapchat video called “What

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Daniela Diaries

      Oct 20, 2020

      The Daniela Diaries
      4 min read

    • Article

      Dick Gregory Understood the Political Power of Comedy

      Aug 22, 2017

      Dick Gregory died last weekend at age 84 after leading a bunch of lives. He was at various times a stand-up comedian, social critic, political activist, political candidate, nutrition regimen entrepreneur, diet consultant and, increasingly in his lat

      3 min read

    • Article

      Derek owusu

      Dec 22, 2021

      Derek owusu
      8 min read

    • Article

      Miranda’s Rights

      Jun 20, 2023

      Miranda’s Rights
      5 min read

    • Article

      How to Win on 'Shark Tank'

      Oct 1, 2016

      How to Win on 'Shark Tank'
      3 min read

    • Article

      When Capitalism and Christianity Collide in Fiction

      Jul 27, 2017

      According to a recent study, 38 percent of Christians say “capitalism is at odds with Christian values.” Those findings echo a stubborn tension between Christianity and capitalism in American life, an uneasiness that shows up repeatedly in American f

      6 min read

    • Article

      Minyan

      Jan 13, 2022

      Minyan
      2 min read

    • Article

      What’s Your Story?: The psychological power of narrative.

      Nov 5, 2015

      In 2003, author James Frey published a bestselling autobiographical memoir, A Million Little Pieces, purportedly detailing his struggle to overcome addiction. Nearly three years later, during a riveting appearance on Oprah, he admitted that several s

      3 min read

    • Article

      Are You Dreaming Too Big?

      Mar 25, 2021

      Are You Dreaming Too Big?
      5 min read

    • Article

      Narrative Medicine for Doctors

      Oct 9, 2019

      Toby Campbell under-stands that storytelling is good medicine. As an oncologist and associate professor in the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program at UW Health—the academic medical center and health system at the University of Wisconsi

      4 min read

    • Article

      New Books For The Trip

      Jun 2, 2022

      In this electrifying memoir, a prosecutor tells the story of how he brought John Gotti to justice, which took down five major mob families and put him in the crosshairs of organized crime. May 3 Crosley brings her gifts as a humorist to this cracklin

      1 min read

    • Article

      'Splinters' Is A Tribute To The Love Of A Mother For A Daughter

      Feb 20, 2024

      In different variations of her signature, beautifully frank language, Leslie Jamison writes about her fantasy of stability and her uncertainty as to whether it's a dream she actually wants fulfilled.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Leo & Gisele BACK ON!

      Nov 6, 2022

      Leo & Gisele BACK ON!
      1 min read

    • Article

      Submit That Manuscript!

      Jun 13, 2017

      JUST a few days ago I received a rejection letter from the Southern Review. The e-mail read, in part, “Dear Joey Franklin: Thank you for sending us [your essay]. We enjoyed this piece, but we didn’t feel it was right for the Southern Review.” How to

      9 min read

    • Article

      Screenplay Story Structure

      Oct 30, 2019

      Screenplay Story Structure
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Passages in Caregiving

    4/5

    16 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      HELP WANTED! Untrained family member or friend to act as advocate, researcher, care manager,and emotional support for a parent or spouse,sibling or friend,who has been diagnosed with a serious illness or chronic disability. Duties: Make medical decisions, negotiate with insurance companies or Medicare; pay bills; legal work; personal care and entertainment in hospital and rehab. Aftercare at home: Substitute for skilled nurse if injections, IV, oxygen, wound care or tube feedings are required. Long-term care: Medication management, showering, toileting, lifting, transporting, etc. Hours: On demand. Salary and benefits: 0.This appears on the second page of Chapter 1 of Gail Sheehy's PASSAGES IN CAREGIVING. She spend the remainder of the book into fulfilling the second part of the title: TURNING CHAOS INTO CONFIDENCE. Based on her personal experiences while caring for her husband for seventeen years, she describes eight turnings that people in caregiving situations experience: Shock and Mobilization (Advocate with Authority); The New Normal (Turn Illness into Opportunity), Boomerang (Summon a Family Meeting), Playing God (Accept What You Cannot Change), "I Can't Do This Anymore!" (Create a Circle of Care), Coming Back (Replenish Your Lifelines), The In-Between Stage (Prepare Your Own Path to Comeback), and The Long Good-Bye (Love is Letting Go, Together). Each section provides not only a description of the stage and a diary of what she and her husband experienced, she talks about other people's experiences and provides very helpful strategies, including resources, for getting through them.This book is written for the lay person who is trying to find their way through a difficult situation. It lets readers know they are not alone and gives them the tools the easy their burden. While not everyone will have all the experiences or go through all the stages, sometimes the end comes too quickly), there are suggestions that can help whatever stage you and the person for whom you are caring at currently dealing with. My only suggestion would be to change the last part of the job description. There are immense benefits in being able to care for someone during the difficult periods of caring for them. This book makes the journey less difficult.
    • 4/5
      Having five years’ experience caregiving to my spouse, I appreciate what Gail Sheehy has set out to do in this book, outline the various phases of the caregiver experience, or “turnings” as she calls them. It’s a comfort to know that others feel what you feel and it’s valuable to know of the resources that Sheehy lists. The generalized trajectory of caregiving is interspersed with Sheehy’s own years-long care for her husband and with the stories of other caregivers, so the lessons are real and heartfelt. I thought several times while I was reading, “I wish someone had told me that before I experienced it!”That being said, I’m afraid the book is considerably undercut by the rarified social circle lived in by Sheehy and her late husband, magazine editor/publisher Clay Felker. I couldn’t help thinking as I read, “Gee, maybe Tom Wolfe will come read his new essay to my wife, or I could call up Diane Sawyer for her advice, and maybe I’ll get the country’s best surgeons to give us a second opinion.” Mind you, I feel that we have our own wonderful resources for aid, medical and otherwise. How otherworldly Sheehy’s life must seem to so many poor and isolated caregivers who might read this book. I’m afraid that to many, the underlying message of the book will be undercut by the penthouse, the home in the Hamptons, and unwinding at a Mexican health spa.It was Sheehy’s life, it was her experience, and I can make the argument that it wouldn’t have been honest for her to write it in any other way. And she is a gifted writer, so if you can put these considerations to one side while you read, the book will provide valuable insights, particularly at the outset of the caregiving journey.
    • 4/5
      In Passages in Caregiving, Gail Sheehy chronicles the psychological, emotional, and logistical stages involved in providing care to chronically ill and dying loved ones.Part self-help, part resource guide, and part memoir, it’s okay in each part and good in the overall aggregate. The self-help aspect is probably strongest, where readers will recognize themselves in the caregiver stories Sheehy shares to illustrate her continuum of eight caregiver “passages” -- from the initial shock of illness and life’s new normal, through the accumulation of events than can lead to control issues and despair, to acceptance and letting go. The resource-guide aspect is probably weakest -- resources are buried throughout the text rather than collected in an easy-reference appendix, and they’re mostly useful to people who are already rich in resources (time, energy, connections, money).And Sheehy’s personal experience of giving care during her husband’s 17-year illness is somewhere in between. Whereas the stories about other caregivers are easy to read -- illustrative and objective -- her own memoir-ish passages are illustrative but close-in personal. That felt presumptuous, and I felt resentful and then insensitive when I didn't want to keep diving into Sheehy's deep waters. Those passages are all in italics, and eventually I skipped them and came back, after I finished the book, and read them all together.It’s eye-opening about how few caregiving resources there are, and how difficult they can be to access. A good companion book to show caregivers they’re not alone, but not suitable as a sole source.(Review based on a finished copy of the book provided by the publisher.)
    • 3/5
      I have extremely mixed feeling about this book. On the plus side, Sheehy is an excellent writer. Her personal accounts, based on the journals she kept during 17 years of caregiving for her husband, are rich and emotionally spot on. She includes laser-sharp analyses of the financial incentives that keep the current healthcare system doing what it's doing for the chronically or terminally ill, most of which give no advantage whatsoever to the caregiver at home, the family, or--all too often--the patient. It really helped me understand what's going on with care for my husband. On the down side, so many of her practical suggestions are staggeringly useless unless you are in as high an income bracket as she. Take care of yourself by taking a week to go to a spa every year. Yeah, in my dreams. Hire your own round-the-clock staff. Right. Let's see, divide my income by 24/7--oops, that's a little short of the $15-$20/hr she suggests you pay them. Move your residence to wherever doctor du jour happens to be, but still maintain your other two homes. My goodness, why didn't I think of that?Tell me, what do the simple folk do?