Recovery Support
Pipe Dream

Not all support flows the same way

Support flows like water — through pipes that can connect, leak, or block. The people who love you most might accidentally build the wrong kind of pipeline. Ready to see how support really works?

Based on research on family support in injury recovery

Level 1 of 3
Recovery fuel

Tap a pipe to select it. Tap a grid cell to place it. Tap a placed pipe to rotate.

💧 source
recovery
Available pipes — tap to select
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The 6 caregiver junctions

Most caregivers silently absorb all six of these roles during recovery. Tap each to expand it.

Most caregivers carry 3 to 6 of these roles simultaneously.
Nobody asks them how they're doing. Recovery isn't just about the person who got hurt.

Ready to build your real pipeline?

A 15-minute family meeting can change everything

1
Draw your support map
Three circles: inner (daily support), middle (weekly check-ins), outer (occasional check-in). Who is in each circle, and what are they actually providing?
2
Name the roles
Who is filling which of the 6 caregiver roles? Are any roles empty? Is anyone carrying too many? Say it out loud.
3
Ask the question nobody asks
"What do you need right now?" — directed at the primary caregiver. Not the person recovering. The one holding everything up.
BTD Guide 3
Navigating Transitions Together
Goes deeper into family role renegotiation — not just during injury, but during every major transition that diabetes throws at a family.

The research-backed pipeline

Here's what an intentionally designed support system looks like

support
recovery
The ideal support system uses empathic responding as the backbone, autonomy support as valves the recovering person controls, structured collaboration as the wide main line, and friend fuel as a separate parallel pipeline.

"No family starts with the perfect pipeline. The point is to build toward it together."