Recently a friends father was diagnosed with a rare cancer, Someone had told her about this site (caring bridge) one day as she was telling her about just trying to keep up with all the phone calls from concerned family and friends all while helping care for her dad plus all the running from Doc to labs etc. She said this site honestly saved her sanity. She said not only was it hard to deal with everything going on with her dad, kids family etc, but to have to call everyone 20 times a day to update on his condition, she said just wore her out repeating every detail of that days events. With this site she was able to keep friends and family up on the treatments and of course the downfalls of a very fast pace cancer. But it truely freed her up to help in his final weeks and days. I thought I would pass it on. It's free, but donations are excepted. I just thought some may want to keep the site handy for when it's becomes that time in their Lo's journey. Rk
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center promotes a site that is like this, and it MAY BE this one It is a good thing to go to if everyone can get the word on where to go find the info.
Problem I see is that everyone thinks that "they" are reeeely good friends and it's ok "for me" to call. I just avoid asking that question ..and keep the call brief...unless the person on the other end keeps the conversation going.
I remember people calling me and asking "Why haven't you had that baby yet?".........I wanted to scream!!! What a silly question to ask a miserable, fat, hot, frustrated woman who is 9 months pregnant and counting!!!
I have had several friends use CaringBridge recently and I really appreciated it. They just post updates every day (or several times a day if needed) and we can just check on the internet and not bother them with our calls. There is also a guest book where you can leave your notes for them to read when they have time. Just a great way to keep everyone who is interested informed.
My cousin used Caring Bridge when she went to China twice to adopt her two little girls. We were able to see pictures of what was happening all along, and it kept a big network of family in touch. Also, a good friend of mine died recently with a very ugly cancer - she was very well known in the area. She went to Lourdes and did several other things for her cancer. Caring Bridge was a way that her family let us all know what was happening and what they needed and saved them a lot of phone calls and "visits".
This is basically a free blogging site. It looks easy to set up, and focused on people who are doing caregiving of various kinds. I don't know if I want to do this myself, but I could see how it might be really good for some people, especially if you've got a big family/friends situation where you just plain don't want to talk about the same dementia subjects with multiple people over and over and over again.
Nancy, I was in the middle of my 10th month when my doctor induced birth. It is a family thing. My mother was given castor oil in the late 20s for my brother and again in the early 40s for me. And my sister also had a post-mature baby. I remember just rocking, rocking, rocking in the rocking chair I'd put into the kitchen for after the baby was born for weeks, and weeks, and weeks.
With this third child (9 lbs 13 oz), the doctor told me to take castor oil - it might help. He suggested I mix it with something I liked, to make the taste more pleasant. I mixed it with a big glass of ROOT BEER. In addition to the anticipated results from castor oil, I belched castor oil/rootbeer belches for three days, and the baby stayed put right where he wanted to be. To this day, I cannot drink root beer without remembering that terrible experience.
With my 1st baby in 1956 the Doctor had me take Castor Oil from a spoon. I haven't done it since but I can STILL taste it. Glad I didn't mix it into something good.
In 1964, I took Castor Oil, (held my nose and gulped it in lemonade) and two hours later my second child (born 20 months after my first) was born (2 days late). It was the speediest delivery I had out of four. However, numbers 3 and 4 could stay in there forever as far as I was concerned, before I would subject myself to that again! You can't get that taste to go away and when it comes out, it isn't pleasant either! <grin> By the way, number 3 was 8 days late and number 4 was 3 weeks late! LOL