Eleanor Gaccetta’s One Caregiver’s Journey is an inspirational guide for family caregivers.

Family caregivers are family members, relatives, friends, and neighbors who dedicate part or most of their time in taking care of sick, disabled, or elderly loved ones. As such, of them are just volunteers and are not medical personnel or health worker equipped with skills equal to doctors and nurses. Although they can execute tasks that are essential in providing nursing care, supervision, emotional and technical support, some protocols and services would require knowledge and experience. It can be acquired through training, but many learn via years and years of experience. Eleanor Gaccetta dedicated almost a decade as a full-time family caregiver to her mom. Her extensive experience is chronicled in her published work One Caregivers Journey, published in March 2019. In her book, Ellie (as she is fondly called) shares her journey from a career employee to a hands-on caregiver. The nine and a half years spent with her elderly mother gave taught her valuable lessons that she now shares with her readers.

A Guide to Overcoming Family Caregiving Challenges

Eleanor Gaccetta’s One Caregiver’s Journey is a compilation of her experience during her time with her mom. In this book, we see the changes and transformation that Ellie encountered and in a way provided her with great lessons and valuable insights that are useful for solving challenges encountered by caregivers. More importantly, Ellie highlights the many challenges and difficulties of being a family caregiver, particularly a solo caregiver.

“If you are a caregiver or about to become a caregiver, One Caregiver’s Journey is a must-read. This personal memoir that will make you laugh or tug at your heart as the author shares her experiences about providing 24/7 care in her home to her mother for 9 ½ years until her mother’s death at age 102. The book is an easy read, honestly written, and provides suggestions and information that can be utilized by all caregivers. This book is based on personal experiences and not medical findings and candidly details the daily unexpected health or age-related challenges caregivers face. Because the book was written over a period of 9 ½ years, the reader will experience first-hand the various stages, changes, challenges, and complexities of being a full-time caregiver. The author shares insights, practical advice, and experiences of how her caregiving routine evolved over time as her mother aged. The book is a caregiving blueprint that empowers readers to realize that the challenges we face are not insurmountable. The book extends out six months afterward and proves there is life after caregiving. The author was able to recognize how special the time she spent caring for her mother was, how much she learned about herself, her strengths, and how her life has been enriched.” (excerpt from book description)

Being a family caregiver, particularly a solo caregiver with full-time responsibilities brings stress, anxiety, as well as physical challenges. More often than not, these adversities take a toll on the individual, and before long the caregiver manifests symptoms of depression and fatigue as well. That is why it is important to have a guide on how to not only take care of one’s patient but of oneself as well. Self-care, exercises, communicating with others, and enough rest are just some of the aspects that every caregiver should attend to take care of his or her well-being. Eleanor Gaccetta’s nine and a half years of full-time caregiving is no easy feat and caregivers, whether professional or volunteer can very well learn a lot from her experience, detailed in her exceptional memoir One Caregiver’s Journey.

To know more about Eleanor Gaccetta and her works, grab a copy of her book One Caregiver’s Journey or visit her website today!