At the TMA Annual Myositis Conference in Las Vegas, I attended a wonderful seminar entitled "Living Well with Chronic Illness", put on by clinical psychologist Laury Goolsby. It was there that I was introduced to a new term describing the care giving relationship. That term was "Care Partners". To me this better represents a sharing and an understanding that care giving is not a one way street but that it involves much more. It is the emotions, issues and commitments that both individuals not only share but also may have, see & feel differently.  Many of these issues and emotions of the "care giving" partner will be the same things the ill or "recipient partner" is thinking about and dealing with, but they often are seen from different prospective. 

For the care giving partner it is a much more realistic and compassionate term for those unselfish individuals who do so much to help out the one they love who is sick with a chronic and often debilitating illness.  It acknowledges that the person who helps care for a partner also has their own needs and feelings and those things need to be recognized by all involved and in turn be dealt with. 

On the other hand it also recognizes that the other partner, the one receiving the care is not helpless and has not become their illness. They are not less worthy or less of a person. It accepts the fact that they are a thinking, spiritual, loving and caring partner that can give back emotionally to others and can also contribute to a situation or event, in other ways, even if they can not do the things physically they were once able to do.I would like to salute all the care giving partners and in doing so try to provide some resources and encouragement to help with their difficult and sometimes unseeingly unrecognized or unappreciated efforts.  

National Alliance for Caregiving www.caregiving.org  

Caregivers Discussion Bulletin Board Forum - Jim Kilpatrick's (IBM) website where you can post questions, thoughts or information and read what others have posted. www.myositissupportgroup.org/discussion.htm   

Family Caregivers Support Network www.familycaregivers.org  

The Caregivers Handbook