The communication magic of “Caring Bridge”

by Carolyn Thomas   ❤️   Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky)

Last week, I responded to a comment here from one of my longtime Heart Sisters  readers, which reminded me of a remarkable patient resource site called Caring Bridge  Her comment took me back in time to my own experience with Caring Bridge – not as a patient, but as a person who just wanted to help out a friend. My response to that comment reminded me, dear reader, that I had not ever mentioned this useful site to my own readers. That’s about to change today!

Here’s how the Caring Bridge site may help you and/or your family: 

“Facing a health challenge is overwhelming, isolating and lonely. Sharing individual updates takes time, and asking for help isn’t easy.  Caring Bridge is a place to easily communicate health updates, share important milestones, and request needed support from friends and family.”

Whether you or your family are navigating a serious illness, injury, or recovery, one thing is always true: it takes a village.  And Caring Bridge is a simple way to activate communication with your own village.

I first learned about Caring Bridge years ago when my friend’s husband  was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer that worsened over many months, leaving him unable to work –  by then rarely able to even get out of bed.

My friend  had essentially become a single parent, who now had to:

• manage the entire household without participation or input anymore from her very ill husband
• take compassionate leave from her full-time job in order to provide his care
• raise their three teenaged children on her own

When my friend and her family learned about Caring Bridge, and then shared that link with people in their own community, it immediately opened two-way options to communicate both her husband’s medical updates, plus the family’s requests for help (the help they needed and – just as importantly – often what they did not need).  As you can imagine, this family’s  needs ranged from help with meals, transportation, yard work, household errands – and so much more.

As the Caring Bridge site explains:

“While patients are always at the centre of the heath journey, family caregivers often bear the brunt of sharing updates, financial strain, and coordination management during this stressful  time.

“Feelings of being overwhelmed, isolated or lonely are prevalent among family caregivers and the loved ones they support. Caring Bridge addresses those needs by improving emotional health and social support, helping people come together in support of healing.”

The opportunity to send out updates to your selected community as needed about a patient’s medical status can save valuable time and energy when you’re already feeling completely overwhelmed.

This non-profit organization was founded in 1997 by a woman named Sona Mehring in Minnesota – at a time before Google or Facebook were invented.

Sona had offered to support her good friends JoAnn Hardegger and Darrin Swanson by keeping their community updated after the premature birth of JoAnn and Darrin’s baby daughter, Brighid. After making many emotionally taxing and time-consuming calls, Sona knew there must be a better way. She created a website to help keep the family’s social circle connected while surrounding JoAnn, Darrin and their new baby with support – and thus Caring Bridge was born.

Family caregiving is hard. Asking for help shouldn’t be. Caring Bridge introduced simple ways to help families clearly share what they needed from others – and make it easier for their community to step in and provide help of all kinds – help with meals, transportation, errands, yard work, and so much more.

The Caring Bridge site is a uniquely helpful tool from a resource that’s free, private and protected.

Here’s how another family on Caring Bridge reviewed this resource: 

“Caring Bridge is a place to easily communicate health updates, share important milestones, and request support from friends and family. You’re in control of your privacy. Customize your settings to make your updates private or public. Your personal data is never sold, and there’s no outside advertising.”

Back then, when I learned about Caring Bridge (via the link my friend had sent me in response to my own offer to help her out), my friend told me that thoughtful people within their generous social circle had started spontaneously dropping off muffins or cookies or soup for the family – not knowing how many muffins or cookies or soup containers were already being stuffed into her fridge and  freezer.

When I signed up to volunteer to help her family on Caring Bridge, I was careful to offer only what I knew I could actually manage to do.  I was a heart patient with random  bouts of crushing fatigue and other symptoms, and I knew I had to protect my own health to be able to pitch in. I didn’t want to over-promise and then under-deliver.

So because there were three teenagers in this family, I asked my friend if dropping off my homemade pizza every second Friday would be something she and the kids would enjoy.  This bi-weekly schedule also piggy-backed onto my own family’s longstanding tradition of homebaked Friday night pizza.

I learned a lot about the importance of pacing after my heart attack, so I paced my plans to get the pizzas organized in relaxed stages (shopping for toppings at the market one day, chopping up veggies the next, and finally mixing, rising and rolling  out the dough for delivery. And I LOVE working with dough – especially punching down gleaming and bubbly new dough!  So therapeutic!

I was already making my family’s pizza every Friday – so it took only minimal effort to make extras bi-weekly to share with her family, too.

Deciding on a scheduled meal delivery for every other week worked well for me and my own family – and over the months, my friend often mentioned how her kids cheered when they saw “homebaked pizza” on their incoming menu calendar!

I could see from the menu schedule online that some people in my friend’s community routinely brought over weekly meals, others delivered one per month, and some were last-minute surprises!

You can learn more about this remarkable resource here.   And if you ever feel the need for something like this useful site, don’t hesitate to sign up  – and then share that link with the people who ask you (as they  almost always will):  “Let me know what I can do to help!”

Friends, neighbours, co-workers, family – they do want to help,  but often don’t know what the family needs or wants. And that’s where Caring Bridge shines.

The opportunity to send out updates about a patient’s medical procedure or a specific request for help to your selected community can save valuable time and energy when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Your community doesn’t want to guess how to help; they really do want to know.

And when people know how to help someone in practical ways, they’re more likely to engage – and then stay connected.

♥

Image: ©CaringBridge

Q: Have you participated in Caring Bridge or a similar resource?

NOTE FROM CAROLYN:  You can find my book, “A Woman’s Guide to Living with Heart Disease”  (Johns Hopkins University Press) at your local library or bookshop. Please support your favourite independent neighbourhood booksellers, or order it online (paperback, hardcover or e-book) at Amazon – or order it directly from my publisher, Johns Hopkins University Press (and use their code HTWN when you order to save 30% off the cover price!