When a loved one faces an amputation, whether as a result of a war injury, illness, or other accident, the entire family embarks on an emotional journey.  Everyone’s primary concern is the health and welfare of amputee, but family members and spouses often make huge emotional, financial, and personal sacrifices to care for and support their loved one during recovery, and sometimes for the rest of their lives.  Information and guidance about local support networks may be hard to find.  Injured service men and women, in particular, may face a letdown of sorts when they return home from Walter Reed, where they received the best of care and had a support network of peers facing the same issues.  Once home, while they may have a closer network of family members, they also face the demands of home life without the constant interaction with peers and professionals who understand their issues.  This can put even more pressure on family caregivers.

There are probably many people across the country who have had similar experiences and faced similar problems in caring for loved ones who have had amputations.  There is undoubtably much valuable advice that could be shared if there were an easy way for caregivers and family members to communicate.

This blog could serve as a tool to enable this type of communication.  What problems have you faced as a caregiver?  What resources have been particularly helpful?  Are there topics we could cover in this blog that would be helpful to you as a caregiver?

This entry was posted on Monday, August 10th, 2009 at 12:07 pm and is filed under amputees, caregivers, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.