Everyone is both a caregiver and care receiver.
The Co-Caring Initiative gathers a "co-caring" community of people during this long disaster. Mutual support can help us heal from health, social, economic, political and environmental crises in the past several years.
Why are we building this community? Because everyone needs someone to have their back.
After a major cycling accident, I found help hard to find despite my area's incredible number of research hospitals. Thank goodness for friends and family. Friends came from other states to help, people from childhood and brand new friends were there for me. They hugged me, got groceries, and organized things that my brain couldn't handle.
Here's how others helped me (helpful to share this!):
Arrange meal partners; buy groceries.
Have someone arrange and help w/follow up doctor appts.
Expect recovery to take twice as long.
Educate others.
As a patient, I wondered if I would ever walk normally again. But the support motivated me to help, myself!
This community and I have given "last-mile" critical care support during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the Sonoma and Camp Fires in CA, COVID-19 in 2020-2021 and the Afghan and Ukraine refugee crisis. For example, during early COVID we organized supplies. Can such efforts continue and be multiplied as we witness more global changes?
People coming to grips with their mortality, and find surprising inner strength and resilience. Everyone needs someone to have their back.