A Caregiver's World

As a caregiver, I'm very interested in learning how to provide the kind of care and assistance that my husband needs in a more effective and efficient way.  I often wonder if the kind of stress and work load that I'm expereicing is due to my lack of knowledge in how to do things right.   So I stumpled upon Red Cross's Training Programs after I did some research.  I would very much like to enroll in this CNA program offered by Red Cross when I finally get the time and the money.

A few hours ago when I was window shopping in the mall (aka: my walking exercise), I suddenly felt a nerve pinch kind of pain from deep in my upper inner left arm, which also immediatedly shot to my heart. The pinch pain level was a 3 on a scale of 10 and it was intermitten at about every 5-6 seconds. After each intermitten pain shot to my heart, I also felt a jump ( a noticable off beat) in my heart.  I at first just put up with it, but after such pinch pain continued for about an hour, I went into panic mode. It's because I suddenly remembered how I read about the symptoms of a heart attack for women were unlike the classical ones for men and that pain on the left arm that raidated to the chest can be a symptom of a heart attack for women.  I felt so panicky, I started to feel dizzy, and shortness of breath and I felt like I was going to pass out in the mall.  The more panic I became, the more I felt the symptoms related  to a heart attack, and then the more panic I became.

The idea of shoppnig grocery online is great, particularly when there is free shipping.  Having grocery delivered to my doors really cuts down the stress and hassle of running grocery errands myself when I get too bogged down in caregiving.  The idea of having pre-boiled eggs that can be ready-to-eat anytime when I need some protein quickly is also fantastic.  So I bought several packages of the above pre-boiled eggs when I orderd my grocery on Amazon.  This was my first time buying pre-boiled eggs and I won't do it again.  These eggs didn't have any taste at all.  I love eggs but these pre-boiled eggs were horrible.  I had boiled eggs many times before and boiled eggs always have a very subtle egg aroma and a delicious taste of egg that I enjoy.  But these pre-boiled eggs made me feel like I was eating "imitation eggs" with the yolk made of mashed up toilet paper and the egg white made of plastic.  I know these were real eggs, but they were so tasteless and thei

I cooked my steak following the instruction on the video below.  It worked!  I don't have access to a frying pan because I have yet to buy one. I also don't want to bother cleaning my very dirty charcoal grill so I am very happy to have found the following video to learn how to cook a steak in my toaster oven.  I don't have any steak seasoning in my pantry so I used 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder, and 1/4 teaspoon of ground black pepper instead to season my steak after coating the meat with olive oil.  I found the steak paired very well with the Greek Salad that I bought from Trader Joe's.  This is my most favorite store bought Greek Salad  (compared to the other salads that I had tried at other grocery stores like Albertsons, Vons, Ralphs), it tasted pretty fresh even though I opened the box too many days after I bought it and it literally passed the "best use by" date on the box.  The steak itself cost $7.99 and the salad added anothe

Before I became the involuntary caregiver, I barely stepped into a grocery store because I always worked long hours and I had no energy after spending 3 hours + commute time on the freeways everyday. So I always ordered  both my grocery and takeout food online.  But since I became a caregiver, I have since enjoyed going to the grocery stores because it's where I can take a brief escape from home.  Today when I was enjoying my little escape to Trader Joe's, I found this new fruit that I had never seen before.  They looked  so delicious and adorable that I just got to try them.  They are called cape gooseberries and  they have an origin in Peru. The box that I bought is supposedly from Columbia.  They remind me of the cherry tomatoes. They turn out to be from the tomatoes and eggplants family.  I tried a couple of them with their skin on, they tasted refreshigly tart and sweet at the beginning, but they became quite bitter to me when I started chewing on their skin.  I didn

Harvard University: When it comes to overall health benefits, it seems that dairy is neither a hero nor a villain.  For years, my chronically sick husband has been on a diet that is heavy on cheese, butter, milk, sweet yogurt, sweet juices, bread, cakes, extremely sweet fruit juices, Haagen-Daz ice cream. He can drink a whole bottle of sweet orange juice from the grocery store in just one day.  I have been unsucessfully trying to make him eat a more balanced diet.  This is why when my husband's rheumatologist asked me if my husband had been eating well, I was dead silent.  I saw an expression of wonder on the doctor's face when I didn't say anything.  I felt like I was being judged and I felt uncomfortable.  But what could I say? In retrospect, my husband has always been very radical on his diet. When I first met him, he was eating nothing but the packaged protein bars, drinking protein shakes made from canned protein powder that tasted awful and he had been eati

I love to sprinkle some finely chopped green onions into my chicken soup whenever I heat up a bowl  in the microwave.  But I often ended up throwing a lot of wilted green onions because I only used a stalk here and there.  Today, I'm keeping my green onions in the plastic container that I got when I bought the Jambalaya from the supermarket deli. I added water to the level where  the white part of the green onions were all submerged and I used the same plastic bag from the grocery store that I used to hold my green onions to cover the plastic container before I put it back into the fridge.  I will see how long this method will keep the green oninons fresh. It does take up space in the fridge though....I learnt about this storage method during my wait at the doctor's office.  One of the old ladies who sat across me in the waiting room told me about this when we were chatting about how we often wasted so much money by cooking at home because we had to throw away wilted vegg

I would like to build a home library that is stocked with inspiring non-fictions. As my small home is cluttered with walker, air filters, wheel chair, therapeutic heating pads and all kinds of ugly medical equipment, I would like to clear up a corner for a little home library that is filled with beautiful and inspirig books.  I desparately need a corner  in my small home that looks uplifting and cheerful so I can keep my sanity when I need to escape from all these depressing chaos that resemble a cluttered hospital ward. Of course, some pretty flowers can always bring some cheers. This is a book that I would like to get after I get rid of this novel that I had already finished reading.

My bathroom mirror is so old that it has black patches of smear from behind the mirror, thus making my reflection not so clear.  I haven't had the time or money to replace the mirror.  When I save up enough money, I would like to get either the mirror above or below.  I just like the silver tone and the decorative details on the borders.

Click here to visit the author's website. I bought this book when I went to the pharmacy to pick up the prescription and saw this book on the book shelf there.   The book cover and the phrase "How far would you go to find happiness?" caught my eye.  After I read the synopsis on the backcover, I was sold.  Even though the book cover design and graphics have absolutely nothing to do with the story of the novel,  I often bought a book by judging the front cover and also the back cover.  Had this book been in another cover that is currently on Amazon, I wouldn't have picked the book up at that moment. I found reading a book provides me an escape from my stress and worries as a caregiver. According to research, reading can reduce stress by up to 68 %, and the University of Minnesota recommends reading a book that I enjoy for 30 minutes everyday.   I had recently finished reading the above book and it's in a relatively new condition. If you are a caregiver your

Today I went to a cafe to get lunch for take out.  May be it's a sunday so the cafe was a lot more crowded than usual.  There were a lot of people standing around waiting to order or waiting for their spouses or family to order.  I personally had never seen a crowd standing in front of the cashier before.  As a caregiver, my mind is always occupied and I often am not mindful at the present as I need to be. Today is just one of those moments when I walked into the cafe, seeing such a big crowd that I had never seen before.  I had no idea where the line ended and I just stood at a spot that I thought was the end of a supposedly queue, waiting.  Suddenly I noticed a guy moved up to my left and he murmured something about the end of a line. I thought he just arrived and asked me if I was standing in line, so I said, "Yes"....  I honestly didn't know exactly what his entire question was about, I just assumed.  My mind was preoccupied with the rest of the errand list of

This is my first time making homemade chicken soup.  I normally bought chicken soup from Chicken Maison or the grocery stores.  But now I don't think I can go back to those takeout soups anymore.  The homemade chicken soup just tastes so much better with a really delicious and fresh taste, without the MSG used by the restaurant and the ton loads of salt used by the grocery stores.  I learnt how to make this delicious homemade chicken soup by watching the Youtube video below. I bought my organic whole chicken and the organic veggies from Trader Joe's. I pulled out the skin from the chicken to reduce the fat content in the soup, except for the wings which were too difficult for me to pull the skin off.  I also added 2 bay leaves and a few sprigs of fresh thyme even though the video doesn't call for them. The chicken alone costs US$17.00.  The veggies and herbs probably add  a few more dollars to the soup.  But it's worth it because the chicken and the soup taste re

It's heart breaking to see someone I love struggling in an incurable disease.  It's also easy for the entire world to not see my own struggle in caring for someone with an incurable disease on a daily basis.  Even I myself have often failed to see that I'm also a victim of this incurable disease  without havinig it, for now. I say for now, because nobody is immuned to this incurable disease, which can inflict anyone at any point in his/her life, randomly. As much as I'm not happy about my own sad situation as a caregiver, I'm grateful that I was able to get out of my bed this morning and make my own breakfast.  I'm grateful that I can still afford a little break to  type here... P.S. All links that I posted on this blog are for my own convenient reference, they are not sponsored links and I don't receive adverstising money for posting them.