Minimemo #3 A Minimalist Approach To Caregiving

When you have a parent like me who frequents the hospital almost once every few months, moving in and out of the hospital is an ordeal of its own. Much like traveling with less, packing the essentials for the hospital is also necessary. Being more intentional about the things we pack creates a faster and seamless moving process and this has helped me a lot. Obviously, all these come from a fail and try experience that I’ve been having from the past year.

Today minimemo is about that, navigating hospital experience and how minimalism has helped me and my family making it more efficient experience in times of crisis.

Here are some of the things that I do to create an easier experience from the admission to leaving the hospital.

First is to have a ready-to-go back for emergency cases. We learned from our lesson that whenever my dad is having a stroke, or seizures and randomly fainting, we won’t be panicking about what to bring to the hospital. In the prepper world this is called a BOB (bug-out bag) and we apply the same ideas to the emergency bag. We simply need to call the ambulance, a family car, or any transportation and bring our BOB bag.

However, rather than cluttering our bags with the unnecessary items, we learned the very essentials. We bring some medicine necessary, a few pieces of clothing, a towel, essential oils and some personal items needed. These aren’t to be taken out of the bag and stays in the bag.

We have a compartment for the insurance documents and everything needed for the admission that should never be taken out of too unless cases of emergency like above.

The first time we did this, we were scrambling to figure out what to bring and we always ended up bringing so much to the hospital. These days, we learned our lesson and we kept improving to learn what is not really necessary.

The next one is that we make sure that we delegate tasks. I am still fortunate to have my mom who’s willing to stay in the hospital while I take care of other things outside home. At first, I was staying with them but that proved to be a lot more inefficient because it’s not easy being in the hospital surrounded by sick people for more than 3 days in a row.

Third, we ensure that if we get gifts from visitors or anyone, we send the things that aren’t needed home. Typically, some relatives like to bring some food and often their bag can clutter the space. So, to keep our areas clutter free, I am simply bringing out the bags that aren’t needed inside the hospital. At the same time, it will help us with carrying less items especially when we leave the hospital.

Last but not least, I am trying to make the best of my time with my parents. I am an only child for my adoptive family and I am all they have and they’re not going to get younger. So, rather than visiting them all the time, I focus on only visiting them a couple hours in my day, talking to them, updating their situation and ensuring that they have everything they need during their hospital stay. Not only it keeps my sanity intact but it also is more meaningful and better quality time spent with them as during my visit, I don’t play with my phone or laptop & leaving anything related to work behind.

Even if you’re not in the same shoes as I do, I am hoping that this experience could help because I wished someone would have told me all these a year ago when my dad was getting in and out of the hospital. Here I am sharing my experience in case you might need it, one day.

Minimemo is a serialized blog that will be published every Friday in which I’ll talk about my minimalism journey, learning and experiences co-existing with a hoarder. If you want to follow that adventure, stay tuned every Friday!