Positive Alternative to Euthanasia Share the Care Teaches Team Care for Friends In Need.(Brief Article)

The 12 women didn't all know each other; in fact, some of them were total strangers. But they did have one thing in common: Susan. Sitting in that room in New York City, each woman's thoughts centered on how she could help this friend, Susan, whose battle with cancer was growing intense. For three and a half hours they brainstormed with Susan and her therapist, Dr. Sukie Miller, about all the things Susan needed and how to get them to her.

Cappy Capossela and Sheila Warnock found themselves at opposite ends of the spectrum that day. To Cappy, Susan was strong: an achiever, a success, and a peer. Susan's cancer exposed her vulnerability in a way that absolutely terrified Cappy.

On the other hand, Sheila Warnock was Susan's best friend, had been there since the diagnosis, and was doing double duty as the sole caregiver of her own very ill mother. By the time Susan and her therapist met with the 12 volunteers, Sheila was already a burned-out caregiver.

The group's goal was to provide Susan with all the help she needed, without overloading any one person, and leaving Susan with as much control as possible. And so Share the Care was born.

Over the next three and a half years, the 12 women became known as "Susan's Funny Family." There were no limits to the projects they undertook on Susan's behalf. They shuttled her to and from doctors' appointments, checked her in and out of the hospital, filled out reams of paperwork and kept it organized, charted medications, cooked, shop-ped, flew her to an alternative care center in the Bahamas, and even supervised her daughter's wedding. Somewhere in the middle of being Susan's friends, the women became friends with each other.

For it is in giving that we receive. Sharon and Cappy's experience caring for Susan up until her death proved so rich and fulfilling for them, in addition to what it did for Susan, that the two wrote a book about it called Share the Care. The book is not only the story of their journey with their friend and the lessons they drew from it, but also a documentation of the unique system that yielded such fruit for everyone involved.

I found my way to the Share the Care web site (www.thefuneral directory.com/stc_book.html) and clicked on a link labeled "Share the Care Forms" out of curiosity. The lists, charts, and step-by-step outlines would warm a schoolteacher's heart.