OTS Meeting: Successfully Navigating Life as a Caregiver
The next OTS meeting will be held on Friday, May 3, 2024. This meeting will be held on Zoom, starting at 7pm CST. Our speaker for this meeting is Barb Stewart, who will speak about the topic: Successfully Navigating Life as a Caregiver.
Barb Stewart claimed the unsolicited title of Caregiver in 2013 when her husband was diagnosed with end-stage liver failure. Her role continued throughout and after his live-donor liver transplant at Northwestern in 2016.
Barb’s knowledge, research, experience, and curiosity led her to become the author of The Caregiver’s Guidebook and a spokesperson for Caregivers nationwide. In this presentation, Barb will share her passion for helping Caregivers successfully navigate their new role while she helps them become more educated with the healthcare system. Her mission is to help Caregivers embrace the title of Caregiver, and provide them with awareness, encouragement, and comfort.
Concerns of Caregivers:
· Are you overwhelmed not knowing what to expect or what to do next?
· Are you faced with tasks and decision-making that you never thought about?
· Are you spending most of your time away from the comforts of home?
· Do people offer you help, and you do not know how to respond?
· Do you feel anxious about navigating parking and time spent in the hospital?
· Do you have feelings and emotions that appear long after the transplant?
Barb’s Presentation Helps:
· Eliminate confusion and frustration during your hospital stay.
· Suggest how to deal with logistics in the healthcare industry.
· Provide tools for effective communication.
· Offer tips and lists for taking care of the Caregiver.
Barb will explain how her book, The Caregiver’s Guidebook, is an all-inclusive place for you to keep track of your journey and provides awareness of experiences commonly associated with transplant. She offers a glossary of medical terms, descriptions of the role of healthcare workers, and simple ideas of how to take care of the Caregiver. Once you embrace this new role, you will be able to help pave the way for Caregivers that will follow in your footsteps.
Barb is the owner of a wellness and therapeutic bodywork business, Project Coordinator for Transplant Village, is a motivational speaker, two-time author, and has over 20 years of experience working in a community hospital.
This meeting is free and is open to the public. We will email the Zoom login info the day before this meeting.
We hope that you and the caregivers in your life will join us for this meeting on Friday, May 3, 2024.