We Are the Sandwich Generation

My generation born between 1946 and 1970 has often been called The Baby Boomer Generation.  There have been some variations on that title including The Me Generation, The Vietnam Generation and even for the sake of a certain comedian, The Al Frankin Generation.  But the title that is most appropriate to where we are now, as we become caregivers for our children, as well as our aging parents, is “The Sandwich Generation”.

This is a painfully appropriate term because those of us in our late 40s to early 60s find ourselves with responsibilities to the two generations before and after us, both of which can be quite needy.  The result is a fair amount of stress on us as moms and dads with all the demands that raising children, teenagers or maybe the children of our children can put on adults in this new century.

At the same time, caring for aging parents can be even more stressful and hard on the Sandwich Generation from an emotional stress point of view.  The stress we realize when our parents begin to age is a new thing for us.  Making ourselves aware of the needs of newborn babies is not hard to get our arms around at all.  When everybody in the generation is having babies, there is plenty of support and help for those who are learning the quirks of what babies need.  

In addition to the great support and “parents training” classes and books, the arrival of a new baby in the house is a source of joy.  There is great hope at the arrival of a new child and taking care of our children carries with it that creative element of doing something for the future.  We see in our children our legacy so seeing them succeed and helping them overcome the difficulty is exciting as we do all we can to “launch” the next generation of our family.

But caring for aging parents carries less support and far less optimism.  While there is some joy in knowing that helping your parents live a happy and productive senior life keeps grandma and grandpa around for the children, the senior years are ones that will have only one outcome.  And as much as we do what we can to make things easy and give our aging parents the comforts and joys of the golden years, all the sugar coating in the world wont cover up the fact that at some point the end will come and we, the Sandwich Generation will have to be there every step of the way to guide them through the end in the same way we guided our new children through babyhood.

The similarities between old age and infancy have been well documented.  But it’s very hard on caregivers to go from being the ones these parents were always strong for who always took care of us to seeing that dynamic completely reverse.  To see daddy who was always the smart one, the strong one and the one you could run to get weak and old and lose his mental sharpness is hard to watch.  Now is the time when he has to turn to you.

It takes mature adults to be the sandwich generation.  But we can take joy in knowing that, in a way, we are giving back to those strong parents who never spared any expense or time for us when we were growing up.  Now when it's you that they need, they deserve no less devotion and dedication to doing all we can for them that they gave to us when we were youngsters.

Give thanks

For simply giving thanks, when you lie down to sleep each night or from time to time, for no reason or rhyme, you'll begin to move with life instead of against it.

You'll be shown that life could not possibly be more beautiful than it already is. You'll see that you are the fountainhead of your experience. You'll remember that you transcend all things time and space, and thus are their very master. And you'll find that you live in a paradise where the only thing that truly seems impossible is how powerful you really are and how much you are loved.

What else would you think about, anyway? I bet many of you don’t think about life in this way. As adults and perhaps when we were children we had thoughts running around in our head.

This is what is called self-talk and it includes not only what people say to themselves out loud or inside our heads. Self-talk is set apart from other inner speech and non-language-based cognition, however, in that it has recognizable syntax and can occur either internally or out loud. When considered this way, self-talk can be defined as an act of syntactically recognizable communication in which the sender of the message is also the intended receiver.

By the time we have reached adulthood, we have heard the word no more than 200,000 times, and that has an effect on us. As some of here the negatives, we begin to use self-talk to reinforce what we hear from others. So the voice in our head starts to tell us we are not good enough, not smart enough, not beautiful or handsome enough and over time we begin to believe the lies we tell ourselves. So, my hope is that you will begin to focus on all the positives you have going for you. You are loved and respected and have friends and family, who see only the good in you. Perhaps it is time for you to start seeing the good within as well.

Female heart attack Signs

I received this on my facebook account, and thought it would be worth sharing. My mother-in-law died of a massive heart attack, and she may have had some minor ones before the one that caused her death. We were unaware of the information below. Hopefully this helps someone.

An ER nurse says this is the best description of a woman having a heart attack that she has ever heard. Please read, pay attention, and SHARE..........

FEMALE HEART ATTACKS
I was aware that female heart attacks are different, but this is the best description I've ever read.

Women rarely have the same dramatic symptoms that men have ... you know, the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat, grabbing the chest & dropping to the floor that we see in movies. Here is the story of one woman's experience with a heart attack.

I had a heart attack at about 10:30 PM with NO prior exertion, NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect might have brought it on. I was sitting all snugly & warm on a cold evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an interesting story my friend had sent me, and actually thinking, 'A-A-h, this is the life, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy Lazy Boy with my feet propped up.

A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you've been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel like you've swallowed a golf ball going down the esophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. You realize you shouldn't have gulped it down so fast and needed to chew it more thoroughly and this time drink a glass of water to hasten its progress down to the stomach. This was my initial sensation--the only trouble was that I hadn't taken a bite of anything since about 5:00 p.m.

After it seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my SPINE (hind-sight, it was probably my aorta spasms), gaining speed as they continued racing up and under my sternum (breast bone, where one presses rhythmically when administering CPR).

This fascinating process continued on into my throat and branched out into both jaws. 'AHA!! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was happening -- we all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of an MI happening, haven't we? I said aloud to myself and the cat, Dear God, I think I'm having a heart attack!

I lowered the foot rest dumping the cat from my lap, started to take a step and fell on the floor instead. I thought to myself, If this is a heart attack, I shouldn't be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else... but, on the other hand, if I don't, nobody will know that I need help, and if I wait any longer I may not be able to get up in a moment.

I pulled myself up with the arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and dialed the Paramedics... I told her I thought I was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into my jaws. I didn't feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts. She said she was sending the Paramedics over immediately, asked if the front door was near to me, and if so, to un-bolt the door and then lie down on the floor where they could see me when they came in.

I unlocked the door and then laid down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I don't remember the medics coming in, their examination, lifting me onto a gurney or getting me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to St. Jude ER on the way, but I did briefly awaken when we arrived and saw that the radiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap, helping the medics pull my stretcher out of the ambulance. He was bending over me asking questions (probably something like 'Have you taken any medications?') but I couldn't make my mind interpret what he was saying, or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking up until the Cardiologist and partner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into my heart where they installed 2 side by side stints to hold open my right coronary artery.

I know it sounds like all my thinking and actions at home must have taken at least 20-30 minutes before calling the paramedics, but actually it took perhaps 4-5 minutes before the call, and both the fire station and St Jude are only minutes away from my home, and my Cardiologist was already to go to the OR in his scrubs and get going on restarting my heart (which had stopped somewhere between my arrival and the procedure) and installing the stents.
Why have I written all of this to you with so much detail? Because I want all of you who are so important in my life to know what I learned first hand.

1. Be aware that something very different is happening in your body, not the usual men's symptoms but inexplicable things happening (until my sternum and jaws got into the act). It is said that many more women than men die of their first (and last) MI because they didn't know they were having one and commonly mistake it as indigestion, take some Maalox or other anti-heartburn preparation and go to bed, hoping they'll feel better in the morning when they wake up... which doesn't happen. My female friends, your symptoms might not be exactly like mine, so I advise you to call the Paramedics if ANYTHING is unpleasantly happening that you've not felt before. It is better to have a 'false alarm' visitation than to risk your life guessing what it might be!

2. Note that I said 'Call the Paramedics.' And if you can take an aspirin. Ladies, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!

Do NOT try to drive yourself to the ER - you are a hazard to others on the road.

Do NOT have your panicked husband who will be speeding and looking anxiously at what's happening with you instead of the road.

Do NOT call your doctor -- he doesn't know where you live and if it's at night you won't reach him anyway, and if it's daytime, his assistants (or answering service) will tell you to call the Paramedics. He doesn't carry the equipment in his car that you need to be saved! The Paramedics do, principally OXYGEN that you need ASAP. Your Dr. will be notified later.

3. Don't assume it couldn't be a heart attack because you have a normal cholesterol count. Research has discovered that a cholesterol elevated reading is rarely the cause of an MI (unless it's unbelievably high and/or accompanied by high blood pressure). MIs are usually caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the body, which dumps all sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge things up in there. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know the better chance we could survive.

A cardiologist says if everyone who sees this post would Share or re-post, you can be sure that we'll save at least one life.

*Please be a true friend and SHARE this article to all your friends, women & men too. Most men have female loved ones and could greatly benefit from know this information too!

A philosophical journey from here to there...

Do you think that if $10,000,000 were to be suddenly deposited into your checking account, that over the following months and years you'd have fewer and fewer challenges? Or do you think, perhaps, that your challenges would simply evolve and change?

Right, evolve and change.

And do you think that with your extra $10 million, you'd gradually be presented with more and more opportunities to be happy? Or do you think, perhaps, that your opportunities would simply evolve and change?

Right, evolve and change.

Now doesn't that give you something to think about?