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Caring for Your Parents from a Long Distance – Military Style Part Two – The Checklist
Sometimes a blog inspires new ideas and last week’s Caring for Your Parents from a Long Distance – Military Style brought up the idea of a checklist that might help others. Much of the same information but in a shorter format without personal details. Think of it as a guide and then add your own ideas too! Share your experiences with others too by commenting! 1 – Caring For Senior Family Member While Long Distance: print a copy of this list and put in your glove box. One never plans for an emergency long distance road trip. However, when called to go, arrive armed with a design for success. 2…
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Caring for Your Parents from a Long Distance – Military Style
Praying for Grandpa and Grandma as they travelOne thing that military families know about is long distance communications! We also face long separations from family and find ourselves frequently traveling a long ways to be with family. Sometimes that makes us better at helping others from a long distance too! We know the phone does not always give a clear perspective of what is going on at the other end. So when the phone rang two weeks ago with an almost distraught family member on the other end we knew there was more to come … We have a large extended family but as the military piece of it we…
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Drink More … Feel Better
It was a rough start to our Christmas Break. The night before the final day of school and my first-grader was thinking of a school field trip in the morning and a class-party in the afternoon. What a fun day it was going to be. He had a rough cough for the past week but I just knew it would go away. Eventually. As we were settling into our bedtime routine that Thursday night *C* lost it. Vomit, vomit, vomit. Gross, gross gross. He spiked a fever and I knew he was down for the count. That cough stayed with him for another week. Cough medicine didn’t touch it and I was…
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Back to the Big Metal Tube – Part 2 Cancer Redux
Yep, “call in two days” if you have not heard from us is truly an eternity for the patient and loved ones. Our journey with cancer is always an interesting one! We were visiting a doctor two weeks ago to help with some post surgery issues on my skin. When we mentioned that some of the skin near the surgery location in my heel was similar to what we had seen prior to discovering cancer in that location, he almost ran from the room. Deb and I almost laughed at his patient care style but understood as it is such a unique cancer (1% of 1%, da da da) and…
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Have You Had a Great Shopping Experience Lately?
Good shopping experience? Great shopping experience? Never happen! Hey! I am a guy after all! But recently I had the opportunity to enjoy a shopping experience that was quick, helpful and I walked out with the right products to help me be comfortable! Yep, it was a sports store but it was nevertheless a shopping experience I was not looking forward too. Have you had a great experience lately? Tell us about it in the comments section and share it with others! Read about mine below as I tell our MilitaryAvenue partners how to reach out to you: Sifting through my mail I was shocked to find a post card…
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“Too Sweet a Deal”? You Decide!
The military lifestyle is a tough road! No one can deny that but many civilians do not understand why it is tough either! Long deployments, extensive TDY/TADs, frequent relocations (PCS), and caring for our families despite these conditions are frequently misunderstood. Also largely misunderstood is the impact on the lives of Reserve Forces including the National Guard and Service Reservists. Yep, some civilians may even ignore these situations but I think the major issue is education. How do we tell our fellow citizens that we are stretched as a community and in some cases would like them to “cover our 6 o’clock” for us? Checking 6 is when another aircraft…
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A Life Changing Moment
We never know where our lives are going to take us! Particularly for our service members and their families! Yep, we never knew when the next orders were going to arrive and where we would be heading till the last possible moment it seemed (we had a couple of PCS orders that arrived within 2 weeks of report date for the next assignment). Growing up I had enjoyed seeing airplanes but this northern Indiana farm and steel worker family’s kid had no idea he would be in the Air Force flying aircraft for 30 years defending this wonderful country. So I was enjoying life with a bit more of a…
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A Walk in the Shoes of a Wounded Warrior
Have you ever been confined to a wheel chair? Recently, I had to have surgery on a foot and the doctor prescribed no weight on the foot for a month. Easy enough, let me have those crutches and I will move around I thought! Then came the devastating news! I just didn’t have a lump removed from my foot it was cancer. I visited a couple of doctors for care and one took the cake for lack of patient comfort and bedside manner! Ok, this is an almost exact quote if not the exact words. I have to say I was in a bit of shock but I did have…
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Medical Care in Afghanistan – DoD Roundtable
This DoD Roundtable was perfectly timed for me! We were scheduled to participate and talk with U.S. Air Force Col. Schuyler K. Geller, command surgeon and commander, Medical Training Advisory Group at Camp Eggers, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan/Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan. But earlier in the week I had to have some last minute, unscheduled foot surgery and did not know if I could attend. But the schedule did work out and after my very recent personal experience while being treated, I talked to Col Geller with an up to date appreciation for the wonderful abilities of our medical team in the United States (and medications to help reduce pain as well)!…
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Task Force Kout Men (Helping Hands) in Haiti – DoD Roundtable
With so many things grabbing our attention in this very busy world little notice was made of the recent deployment of forces to continue with the humanitarian assistance programs in Haiti following that country’s devastating earthquake. What is particularly surprising is that the Louisiana National Guard is leading this effort while facing its own disaster at home with the oil spill. Showing our national spirit of supporting those in need once again, the Guard is leading a joint force of responders with components from active, Reserves and Guard forces. Col Michael Borrel, is the Commander of “Task Force Kout Men”, Creole for Helping Hands. Despite an extremely busy schedule he…
