Peace in the midst of chaos

Caring for your loved ones who have challenging medical concerns, yearly medical forms, and out of the ordinary doctor visits can oftentimes consume your entire day and/or week in some cases.

Recently, all of our 4 children had some medical issue going on at the same time. Each child was seeing a doctor, specialist, had a trip to the urgent care center, or needed to be on antibiotics. One child needed a sports physical, one had an infection and needed multiple antibiotics, one had multiple health issues that needed focused time and attention to, and one had a follow up appointment with a specialist and needed a copy of their current medical health record for another doctor visit.

Now in the past things like this would have tended to stress me out. I would have been searching for all of the correct doctor information, current health records, calling doctor’s offices to get copies of their health records, trying to remember the last time they saw a doctor, if they had any allergies, etc. It would have been very stressful, causing anxiety and worry. Usually I would try to do this at the last minute rushing to fill out all of the paperwork while I sat in the doctor’s office waiting to be seen. Each child needed my time and attention, needed me to be able to make important health decisions on their behalf, and I needed to be mentally present in talking with the doctor and understanding all that was being said.

At times it can be challenging to remember these things for my own health let alone anyone else; but I can tell you it was a different experience this time around. Because of my Coming Home Medical Organizer here are some steps that we took to help bring about peace of mind.

Because of our medical organizer we had the doctor’s information at our fingertips. I had a folder with our children’s medical health information; it was current and up to date. At the different doctor visits we just needed to hand the paperwork to the medical staff for them to make a copy of.

This allowed for my husband and me to tag team with the kids much more easily. He was able to take a couple of kids to their appointments and he had all of their information. I was not the only one in the family to have all of the information regarding our children’s health. It helped to work together and share the experience and the load.

With our special needs daughter we were able to have a timeline in place that charted the various changes in her care. This was helpful information for the doctor as we worked together to make decisions with her medications, follow up tests, and return doctor’s appointments.

Life happens. But when life happens with medical concerns stress and anxiety do not need to be a driving force throughout the process. With a little bit of time in putting together your Coming Home Medical Organizer you can have peace in the midst of your chaos.

Penny Hanlon
www.cominghomeguide.com