About the Book

In this book, I’m going to talk about the impact of chronic illness on families from my perspective as a caregiver during my childhood and early adult years. I will also provide information from my perspective as a career financial services professional specializing in building protection portfolios for my clients. These products would not have eliminated our family's issues, but they certainly would have allowed for different choices had we had some of the products that are available today. I will tell some of my personal stories, and I will tell them like they were—no sugarcoating or tiptoeing around the truth. And don’t worry, we’ll have some fun along the way, too. My stories are full of humor and humanity. For each one, I’ll point out how things could have turned out differently had the people around me made different choices about how to support me better.

When a child becomes the caregiver, they become the parent (if they are capable), and the parent becomes the child (or at least assumes that role emotionally). I know because that was my life. I hope that my story can help shed light on the ways we, as a society and as individuals, can help prevent children of chronically ill parents from slipping through the cracks like I did.