Honoring my grandmothers – October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

in 1957 my young maternal grandmother, Maurine,  (age 45) was diagnosed with breast cancer. She lived in our home with my parents and me and my siblings for 5 years as she underwent the treatment that was available at the time. Treatment included radical mastectomy, hysterectomy and removal of ovaries, and intensive radiation therapy. In 1960, my 78 year old paternal grandmother, Ada, was also diagnosed with breast cancer.  She opted for no treatment.

Dr. Lerner, a breast cancer historian, and author of the book The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, fear, and the pursuit of a cure in 20^th century America wrote that in the 1950’s there was an enormous amount of very aggressive surgery done for not only breast cancer, but other cancers. The sense was that cancer grew in a very orderly manner, so if you could remove enough tissue in the area that contained the cancer, you could cure women. There was an operation called pelvic exenteration, in which a woman’s pelvic organs were all removed. And in the area of the breast, the doctors began to actually remove part of the rib cage to try to get to these elusive cancer cells. So there was a dramatic degree of disfigurement for these patients.

I, like many young women in the 1960’s and 1970’s lived in fear of getting breast cancer. As a very young woman in the early 1970’s I discovered a lump in my breast, and when I went into surgery for a breast biopsy, the physician told me that I would be going under general anesthesia, and if the tumor was malignant, I would wake up with my breast removed without having a chance to consult with another physician, or prepare myself.  When I awoke from the anesthesia, I had a bandage over an incision. I still had my breast!

Over the years I have seen the improvements in screening, diagnosis and treatment. The awareness brought forth by the American Cancer Society, and Susan G. Koman has saved lives! I got my mammograms regularly and had 12 more benign biopsies in 20 years – which were done in outpatient surgery or in physician offices.

I am grateful for  Maurine and Ada, who are my grandmothers and my heroes. Their journey and the memory of their spirit and bravery made me and my mother and sisters aware.   I am grateful to all of those who have been part of educating us about early detection and prevention. I am grateful to the scientists and researchers, and the fund raising efforts that have been initiated by passionate advocates for women’s health.  I am grateful for the cancer survivors who inspire us with their stories, and the  example of those who have left a legacy of their courage.

Learn more about breast cancer awareness at the National Breast Cancer Association.

“The goal is to live a full, productive life, even with all that ambiguity. No matter what happens; whether the cancer flares up again, or you die – the important thing is that the days you have had – that you will live.”  Gilder Radner

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About the Author:    Jean Garboden is the Director of Education and Innovation at Compass Senior Living  , located in Eugene Oregon. Jean is an Elder Advocate and Eden Alternative Educator with over 30 years experience in not-for-profit and for profit health care organizations. She is honored to lead the mission and values culture development for Compass Senior Living.

Empathy – An expression of non-judgemental love

You never really understand another person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it. –Harper Lee

All we need is love ~ especially working in eldercare.  The basic human need for  love and belonging is an imperative to life!

According to the latest neuroscience research, 98% of people (the exceptions include those with psychopathic tendencies) have the ability to empathize wired into their brains – a capacity for stepping into the shoes of others and understanding their feelings and perspectives.

Empathy is a key ingredient of nurturing relationships and can forge loving and safe connections.

Here are some stories of  empathetic communication break-through moments I have observed working with those living with dementia:

Paul is spending the entire morning walking the halls and calling out his wife’s name. “Dolly, Dolly, Dolly!”  A well-meaning care team member says, “Dolly went shopping, she will be back later.”  Paul begins to wail and scream her name, “Dolly, Dolly, Dolly!”   He is looking for her everywhere and is very upset he can’t find her. Another care team member utilizing empathetic communication says, “Tell me about Dolly.  What color are her eyes?  What do you miss most about her?”   After a few minutes, Paul says, “She has been gone a long time, I really miss her hugs.”      

The first well meaning care team member has sympathy for Paul and told a ‘therapeutic lie‘.  Paul  knows deep inside that Dolly has been gone for 20 years, and he is communicating that he misses her.  He was invited to share and release his deep feelings and heartbreak to  the second care team member who listened with empathy and love.  

Madeline starts pacing at 4:30 every afternoon to go home to her children. “I want to go home! I need to get home to my children!”  A well-meaning care team member  says, “Sit down. Everything’s OK.  Let’s go  have a cookie.” Madeline  gets more and more nervous, agitated, and upset.Another care team member utilizing empathetic communication asks Madeline, “What is the worst thing that will happen if you can’t get home?”  Madeline expresses her vivid memory of having left her children alone. Her fears are expressed to a trusted empathetic listener, and her painful feelings are diminished. 

The first well meaning  care team member has sympathy for Madeline, and she used ‘re-direction‘ to try to calm Madeline’s fears.   Madeline is reliving a vivid memory of leaving her children alone at home.  She needs to express her fears to an empathetic listener who is willing to enter Madeline’s reality to relieve her fears.

Listening with empathy builds trust, reduces anxiety and restores dignity. Painful feelings that are expressed and acknowledged  by an empathetic listener will diminish.

Painful feelings that are ignored or suppressed will gain in strength. The power of empathy to connect and to relieve pain that is pent up inside can bring peace of mind to those living with dementia.  

Empathy is an expression of non-judgemental love and a connection to another human being.  Yes, indeed, love does belong in the workplace! 

If these 8th graders, below, can define and act with empathy, we are all capable of acting with empathy. Listen to the wisdom of these children.

Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes. –Theodore Dreiser

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About the Author: Jean Garboden is the Director of Education and Innovation at Compass Senior Living, located in Eugene Oregon. Jean is an Elder Advocate and Eden Alternative Educator with over 30 years’ experience in not-for-profit and for-profit health care organizations. She is honored to lead the mission and values culture development for Compass Senior Living. Jean lives in Las Vegas, Nevada where she enjoys the weather and volunteers with the Nevadans for the Common Good, advocating for caregivers and elders in southern Nevada

Honoring my grandmothers – October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

in 1957 my young maternal grandmother, Maurine,  (age 45) was diagnosed with breast cancer. She lived in our home with my parents and me and my siblings for 5 years as she underwent the treatment that was available at the time. Treatment included radical mastectomy, hysterectomy and removal of ovaries, and intensive radiation therapy. In 1960, my 78 year old paternal grandmother, Ada, was also diagnosed with breast cancer.  She opted for no treatment.

Dr. Lerner, a breast cancer historian, and author of the book The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, fear, and the pursuit of a cure in 20^th century America wrote that in the 1950’s there was an enormous amount of very aggressive surgery done for not only breast cancer, but other cancers. The sense was that cancer grew in a very orderly manner, so if you could remove enough tissue in the area that contained the cancer, you could cure women. There was an operation called pelvic exenteration, in which a woman’s pelvic organs were all removed. And in the area of the breast, the doctors began to actually remove part of the rib cage to try to get to these elusive cancer cells. So there was a dramatic degree of disfigurement for these patients.

I, like many young women in the 1960’s and 1970’s lived in fear of getting breast cancer. As a very young woman in the early 1970’s I discovered a lump in my breast, and when I went into surgery for a breast biopsy, the physician told me that I would be going under general anesthesia, and if the tumor was malignant, I would wake up with my breast removed without having a chance to consult with another physician, or prepare myself.  When I awoke from the anesthesia, I had a bandage over an incision. I still had my breast!

Over the years I have seen the improvements in screening, diagnosis and treatment. The awareness brought forth by the American Cancer Society, and Susan G. Koman has saved lives! I got my mammograms regularly and had 12 more benign biopsies in 20 years – which were done in outpatient surgery or in physician offices.

I am grateful for  Maurine and Ada, who are my grandmothers and my heroes. Their journey and the memory of their spirit and bravery made me and my mother and sisters aware.   I am grateful to all of those who have been part of educating us about early detection and prevention. I am grateful to the scientists and researchers, and the fund raising efforts that have been initiated by passionate advocates for women’s health.  I am grateful for the cancer survivors who inspire us with their stories, and the  example of those who have left a legacy of their courage.

Learn more about breast cancer awareness at the National Breast Cancer Association.

“The goal is to live a full, productive life, even with all that ambiguity. No matter what happens; whether the cancer flares up again, or you die – the important thing is that the days you have had – that you will live.”  Gilder Radner

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About the Author:    Jean Garboden is the Director of Education and Innovation at Compass Senior Living  , located in Eugene Oregon. Jean is an Elder Advocate and Eden Alternative Educator with over 30 years experience in not-for-profit and for profit health care organizations. She is honored to lead the mission and values culture development for Compass Senior Living.

Speak Up! – We all need an advocate in our lives!

“We can, all of us stand up for care.  We can change how we think, how we talk, how we plan and work and vote.  We can come together as women and men. We can finish the business that our mothers and grandmothers began and begin a new revolution of our own.” Anne-Marie Slaughter, author, Unfinished Business

As a young mom, I advocated for my children’s care.  As a wife, I advocated for my husband’s care.  As a daughter, at the end of my mother’s life, I advocated for her care.  We all need advocates and people in our lives to advocate for us. We need each other!

I have been thinking about the sacred and honorable act of caring for a long time.  My daughter Carol and I have talked about this for years.  My work is in elder care and elder empowerment, and hers is early childhood.

We both feel passionately that caring for others is the most honorable, rewarding and challenging work imaginable.  We recognize the vulnerability of humans at each pole of life – early childhood and elderhood. We value the care required to enter and exit this life. We celebrate the wholeness, dignity and competence of the vulnerable. We talk about burn-out and together we have been seeking to understand self-care and how to glean the joy and nourishment that we believe caring can yield to ourselves, to our profession and to our society.

We dream about how different the world will be as we facilitate a shift in society’s thinking regarding the way our culture views caring for human beings at the beginning of life and the end of life.

Here are the commonalities we discuss:

• In both fields, the important caring types who do the direct work are often under appreciated.
• Relationships are the key to doing this human work well. We look for people who can make connections and form real relationships.
• In both elder care and child care, the caregivers must also be responsive and supportive of the whole family – realizing the individual is part of a family system.
• The very nature of caring rituals: washing others, holding others, feeding others and dressing others – is intimate work and requires being present with goodness, dignity, respect, intelligence and kindness.
• At the beginning of life and the end of life – humans are dependent upon others to care for them. Caring for others comes with a great responsibility and a commitment towards service to others.

Creating a culture of caring is important in our families, in our work, in our cities, our towns, in our country, and in the world.   It starts with us advocating for one another.  Speak up!

 The video above is courtesy of Speak Up! This  information is used for public service announcements, websites, community newsletters, health fairs, closed circuit patient education television, and staff education. The popular animated videos have been downloaded by organizations in more than 70 countries.

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About the Author:    Jean Garboden is the Director of Education and Innovation at Compass Senior Living, located in Eugene Oregon. Jean is an Elder Advocate and Eden Alternative Educator with over 30 years’ experience in not-for-profit and for profit health care organizations. She is honored to lead the mission and values culture development for Compass Senior Living.  Jean lives in Las Vegas, Nevada where she enjoys the weather and volunteers with the Nevadans for the Common Good, advocating for caregivers and elders in southern Nevada.  She spends her leisure time with her husband Art, her dog Max, her cat Molly, and a 50-year-old desert tortoise named Myrtle. Jean is pictured here with her daughter Carol.