A Million Tiny Things
My Experience in Caregiving
"Everything I know, I have learned."
               Renée Norman
About Us

"A Million Tiny Things
My Experience in Caregiving"

     My purpose in writing this book and supplemental website is to help others. For a year and a half, I was the caregiver for my husband, Chris, who sufferred and eventually died from ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. I found that being a caregiver is a very lonely, very difficult position to be in. No one asks to be sick. No one envisions being totally responsible for another individual. There is no easy way to do it, no road map, no shortcuts. All we can do is our best.

     My goal here is to start a discussion, to start an awareness for educating those who are thrust into the role of caregiver. According to "Family Caregiver Alliance", "65.7 million caregivers make up 29% of the adult U.S. population providing care to someone who is ill, disabled or aged." That is almost one out of every three adults in the U.S.

     Until now, terminal illness has been protrayed as somewhat romantic, with a loving family, considerate friends and a good cry together when it is all over. Few are brave enough to address terminal illness in a comprehensive, realistic manner.

     In addition to the awareness this book brings, it includes very specific do's and don'ts to navigate an illness. Included are suggested tools.

We can't control what happens to us.
We can control our response.
Renée Norman

 

Photo taken just after Chris' diagnosis of ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease, October 2007.

Photo taken by Carolyn Evans