“Caring for our mothers, fathers and in-laws can has become a predictable part of adult life. While parent care can be a rich experience, it is difficult under the best of circumstances. Dr. Arnup deftly melds stories from her personal and professional experience to provide practical guidance and sound counsel. I don’t have time for this! is an invaluable resource for all of us with aging parents.”
“Katherine Arnup’s book provides an important missing link for those seeking information and support on caring for elderly parents. Far more than a checklist of financial and healthcare issues to cover, it provides the compassionate companionship families need to make this journey together with love, courage, and humanity.”
“Caring for aging parents, or parents who are living with a life-threatening illness, can be both challenging and rewarding. Dr. Arnup’s book will help you cope with the demands and privileges of caring for your elderly parents, while taking care of yourself. Her accessible insights, advice, and tips are based on scholarly work, her personal experiences caring for family members, and her years of service as a hospice volunteer. I recommend this book to anyone who is worried about their parents’ aging and how best to support and care for them.”
– Stephen Claxton-Oldfield, PhD, CT, Associate Professor,
Mount Allison University
“Dr. Arnup writes eloquently and sincerely about a deeply personal journey that resonated with my own experiences as a palliative care physician. Her reflections are both practical and spiritual, providing validation for difficult feelings and a roadmap for how to deal with them. Children of aging parents will find this an invaluable guide to navigating the complex and difficult task of caring for oneself while caring for dying parents.”
“I don’t have time for this! is filled with insight, support, and guidance for those caring for their eldering family members. The beauty of this book is Katherine’s own story of taking care of her elders and using this as an opportunity to look at her own aging and need for care. This book carries an important message: if we are caring for others, we need to also allow care for ourselves. May this book remind us all that we only have this life—this time of our lives. May this book benefit and support all those caring for themselves and others.”
“Katherine Arnup has been able to capture the complexity of life and living in family relationships while guiding us gently through the inevitability of death and dying. Documenting both sides of the care giving/receiving experience, this important and timely resource helps us summon the courage to have the sometimes difficult conversations with loved ones, service providers and with ourselves. A validation for those who have been a part of an end-of-life experience and an inspiration for all of us who expect to be part of one in the future ~ even if it is only our own.”
“This book is courageous. It is written with great sensitivity to, and respect for, those facing aging, sickness, and death themselves; the caregivers attempting to attend to their needs; and especially the complexities of the human dynamics entailed when those realities involve family members. The author draws on her own rich experience as a coach, as a hospice worker, and most important, as someone who has lived through and learned from her own involvement with family members facing aging, illness, and death. Using these experiences, Arnup opens up new vistas for her readers, providing them with different ways of thinking about the issues that face them so that they can act authentically and realistically in the unique situations that are facing them.”