Meeting of 6/18/12 – Mt. Airy

Meeting of 6/18/12 – Mt. Airy

Dear Heroes,

Our meeting was wonderfully informative and engaging.  We had one speaker originally scheduled, Clymer Bardsley of Good Shepherd Mediation Group who offered some interesting information for conflict resolution and mediation techniques to solve some issues you may face with family while in the caregiver situation.  His group offers courses to training in mediation techniques.  Good Shepherd is here to help you when your family has a problem agreeing on the best way to take care of your parents’ healthcare issues and care options.  Thank you, Clymer for coming out to address a very important issue.

Marilyn Dyson who has involvement with over 200 Alzheimer’s Disease caregiver support groups was kind enough to attend our meeting and fielded questions and concerns during our group session.  She was able to clear up some misconceptions and advise how to best handle some of the situations they’ve encountered with dementia/AD patients.  The advice was timely and effective.   Thank you, Marilyn for stepping up and helping our group with some tough issues.

There were 4 new attendees that night including a couple who are taking care of the wife’s 89 y.o. mother w/dementia.  Her daughter initially contacted Boomers and I followed up with a call to Lisa and let her talk about what’s going on and encouraged her to attend the meeting.  It was great that she came out and brought her husband as it was good to get his take on what’s happening, too.  Bonita bought a friend, Serena, with her to this session and she was personally vocal during the meeting and shared some ideas with Lisa in handling her mom’s behavior.   Beth Monahan of Assisted Transition Sr. Living & Care Finders was also in attendance and brought us her heartfelt story of the loss of her beloved pet dog.  She shared her pain and a discussion was carried on giving her support in her loss.  Our pets are our family, too.

My core support, my best friends Kathy, Chucky and Estelle were all present, ready to support me and Boomers efforts to reach the community. I cannot ever thank them enough for the love and support they’ve given me since launching Boomers.  I love you guys.