One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is delegating. As on oncology nurse we often reminded patient’s that they don’t have to it all by themselves. I know I like to “do it myself” but as a person with persistent pain I don’t. I do cooking, clean up from cooking, shopping, and laundry (at my own pace) and take out is fine if I am not up to cooking. My husband does the rest (although I have to admit I had to lower my standards a bit. My daughter does the dusting when she is over. Of course this is a different story if their is no one or family and friends are unwilling but don’t let pride get in the way of asking. Also if someone says “I want to help” or “what can I do” be specific and give them a task; “Could you get my groceries , it would be a huge help”; “afternoons are hard, can you take the kids for a couple of hours twice a week?”, “Would you be able to vacuum for me today (or maybe weekly)? Because my son moved in with us and we have the grandchildren here a lot, we converted my husband’s office into a bedroom for them and he moved into my office. There was a lot of paring down to do but I started way ahead doing a little each day so it wasn’t overwhelming. As I am retired, I got rid of a lot of books and journals. I am still working on paring down files but a little at a time.
