Caregiving How-To
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My Father – Part III: Learning to Live With a Tracheostomy
By the time “tracheostomy” entered our vocabulary, cancer was in my father’s breath, not just his reports. The trach, we were told, would help him breathe and clear secretions. What no one really says is that a tracheostomy doesn’t just change a neck; it changes a household – the sounds in the room, how you…
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My Father – Part II: Food, Germs and Guests
When cancer moves into a home, it doesn’t just live in the scans and reports. It moves into the kitchen, the bathroom, the bed sheets, the doorbell. It quietly rewrites how you think about food, germs and guests. In my head, after years of studying cancer, I knew nutrition and infection prevention were important. In practice, I…