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Kids grieve differently than adults. What that looks like for us and things that help.

Waivers looked optional to me at first — until I realized they were the key to stabilizing our nursing care and our home. They’re complicated, slow, and absolutely worth it.

by Lauren Roschen, NP Home Care Nurses are not babysitters. Assuming this does a disservice to the credibility of the nurses who choose to go into this line of work, and fails to recognize their value. Nurses like Lauren should be celebrated.

I’ve written some hard things about healthcare — and at times about nursing. I stand by those critiques. But they’re incomplete without this truth too: some of the nurses who walked with our family were extraordinary. Not saints. Not superheroes. Human — and at their best, deeply skilled, fiercely compassionate, and quietly life-changing. This is for the ones who showed up and carried us when we couldn’t carry ourselves.

by a retired Child Abuse Detective with 31 years of experience; What to know when others care for your child

The evolution of grief

Hypoventilation and Decoding Blood Gases

What I wish I'd known Before Welcoming Home Care Nurses Into My House

by Matthew Might, PhD Choosing between spending time with a terminally ill loved one or fighting for them, their legacy, or an impossible cure.

When my medically complex son Declan came home from the hospital, he needed round-the-clock care. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. A full-time worker puts in about 1,960 hours a year (40 hours/week, minus vacation and holidays). Each year has 8,760 hours. That means caring for Declan required an equivalent of 4.47 full-time employees, every year. In Minnesota, where we live, for even the highest-acuity cases, coverage is essentially capped. Typically, you can’t be covered f

*edit: since originally publishing this article, I'm pleased to announce that we are getting our construction drawings revised and will have family bathrooms at all of our parks!! ADA Compliance Is the Floor, Not the Ceiling I’m constantly amazed by the lack of accommodations for disabled people everywhere I go. I think about my own lack of awareness before I had Declan, and I get how people who’ve never needed to think about accessibility don’t understand the problem. Somet

How can we all be more inclusive

Traveling and living after loss

Navigating our grief journey after the death of our medically complex child

Human Composting vs other green options, traditional burial, or cremation

For some of my writing, specifically for the author's note for my book, I did some digging into statistics. One of the things I looked for was whether there were any statistics around how likely it is for someone to be abused by a caregiver. Stats I Found: (These studies measure different populations and settings, so aren't directly comparable - but they point in the same direction.) According to the CDC , 1 in 10 older adults who live at a home experience abuse. The WHO

by Natassja Sheils, Home Care Nurse When I first met the Youngdales, I was a night-shift nurse working with three different kiddos. I was used to being one of ten to fifteen nurses rotating through each case. It was a good system—efficient, organized, predictable. You got to know the family, and you got to know the child. What you didn’t get was a relationship. In homecare nursing, relationships matter. I never understood just how much until I switched to day shift and starte

1 - Stomahesive powder. Get some. Declan's g-tube stoma was always immaculate. How? That powder. Generously apply the powder around the stoma after every cleaning and voila, no more redness and irritation! 2 - Reusable gauze. Split gauze always fell off of Declan's stoma. We'd tape it, but it just didn't work that well. You can get reusable pads on Amazon or Etsy, that stay on and work a lot better. 3 - The little blue tip that comes with the 60ml syringes? Ok, not all o

Things I wish I had known as a new trach mom. 1 - Vent Sleeves are a thing. You know how you have to drain the tubing constantly? Especially on a night you don't have nursing, getting up just to drain the tubing and the water trap is obnoxious. And.... unnecessary! Ask your DME to send you a sleeve for the tubing. I don't know why they don't offer this information up. But the sleeve acts as a sweater and reduces the amount of condensation, which reduces the amount of sa

According to the Cleveland Clinic, Risk factors for child abuse include: Living in poverty, being younger than 4 years old, and having special needs. Yep, the more vulnerable the child, the more likely they are to be abused. 1 - Unexplained Reactions. If you see a child reacting negatively and intensely to a specific person, regularly, that is a RED FLAG. Even if a child doesn't particularly like someone, they are not going to have extreme reactions to someone who isn't