The week notewriting down what happened

The notebook

One notebook. By the kettle, or wherever you stand still most. Every day, a few lines, dated: how they were, what they ate, what they took and when, who came, what the nurse said, what worried you. Not well written. Not complete. Just written.

It takes two minutes and it is the single most useful thing a caregiver keeps. Doctors ask "how has the last fortnight been" and nobody can answer that from memory. The notebook can. Carers who hand over to each other read it instead of guessing. And on the bad weeks it is proof that there were better ones.

What to note

Facts more than feelings, though a line of feeling does no harm. Sleep: roughly how much, and how broken. Food and drink: what went down. Medicines: anything missed or changed. Pain, breathing, confusion, mood: better, same or worse than yesterday, in a word. Visitors and calls. Questions for the next appointment, as they occur to you. One good thing, if there was one.

The week note

Once a week, Sunday evening is good, read back over the seven days and write a short note for anyone who helps. Four or five sentences. What this week was like. What changed. What is on next week. What would help.

"A tiring week; three bad nights. The new tablet started Wednesday, no sickness so far. Clinic on Thursday morning, Jo is driving. Meals on Tuesday and Friday would help, and someone to sit on Thursday afternoon so I can sleep."

That is a whole week note. It tells the people around you how things are without a dozen separate conversations, and it tells you, because you had to put it in words.

Who sees it

The notebook is yours and the person you care for. The week note is for the circle: the people who have said they will help. Share only what the person you care for is happy to have shared. Some weeks that is a lot, some weeks it is "a quiet week, nothing needed, thank you."

If you are in a tree here, the week note has a place of its own, and Kim, the software that keeps the calendar, will send it to the circle for you. Inside the tree the week note never counts who did not come. Nor should yours.

Later

A year of notebooks is a record of a hard season that you will be glad to have, whatever happens. Keep them.