The Whole Person Needs Primary Care

When someone you care for or about has medical challenges, you wish there was more you could do.

We visit, call, write and often feel our hands are tied as we wait.

Some of us serve as direct caregivers and walk alongside wondering where we're headed and when we'll get there. The same questions we always ask when we embark on a journey and don't know the distance or the path.

The closer the person is to us, the more challenging our vigil is.

What's needed is insight and overview from more than a "medical" perspective. Training, experience and knowledge can provide insight and possibilities but it's the individual that will determine the outcome.

What's missing or what's not seen is often where the person is and how to come alongside.

Medications and treatments are aids; finding ways to bring quality of life to illness is as important as bringing quality of life to everyday life only with adjustments.

Understand that this time is special. It will not come again in the same way. 

To be beside this person is a gift only you can provide.

Vigilance is part of keeping vigil. 
Watching the person and watching all that surrounds them.

There can be some who come alongside, who proport to bring assistance, relief, comfort bringing instead their own needs and wants above all else.

Remember, too, the person you serve is there beneath the challenge, inside the difficulties and wanting out as much as you want them to be.

Measure the road ahead with a ruler and the road traveled with a yardstick.

Weigh the hour in ounces and the days shared in tons.

Simply be there. Simply let them know you are there. 

Listen to what others say with kindness but listen to the person who's being talked about through their life and their time with you.

Lives aren't written in stone until they become epitaphs. Change can always happen.

See the flicker of light in deepest darkness;know tomorrow will surely follow today.

Above all, know the person who you keep vigil over values what you do.