Friday, October 24, 2008
THE REAL UNSUNG HERO
When you are in the hospital, especially for something as interesting and potentially dangerous as a lung transplant, you get lots of attention. People phone, write, visit.
Nutritional, institutional meals and snacks are served regularly and without fail. Various medicines and procedures are like clockwork. Though you may get confused by the 20-30 medical personnel whom interact regularly with you, at least you have plenty of contact and more importantly you are given the latest updates as to your health and find out what we are gong to try next and why it is necessary.
This is not so for Karen, my wife. The “spouse” or “primary-caregiver” usually gets her information on my health second-hand from me when she visits…in-between unpacking my clean laundry and packing up my already-worns. She may be lucky enough to time her visits for when one of the doctors is here and thus gets to ask questions and clarify for herself what I have left unclear.
In addition to taking the time to dress and look great for each visit to cheer me up, she has a ton of other things to do. Nobody is making her meals, or doing her shopping, or our laundry or purchasing the hundred little odds and ends necessary to modern life. She’s busy paying the bills, trying to manage two households, only to find that our home on Gabriola now has a foot high lawn and the bushes etc. are out of control.
She also has to manage her own health with fibromyalgia, chronic pain, disintegrating disk disease, sciatica, and her esophageal problems that are getting a lot worse of late. And all those delightful things that go with fibromyalgia -- absolutely no sense of direction or spatial reference. She has the route from the condo to the hospital memorized as well as the route to the mall but if she misses by one street she has to backtrack. Always as the crow flies and never taking a short cut for fear of getting lost. Short-term memory loss is no fun.
Managing as much as Karen does would be a full time job in itself, but in addition, she no longer has what little help I could give. So when she leaves here after several hours (often for as long as 9+ hours) of keeping me upbeat despite each medical setback, her real life of taking care of everything begins and she does this with very little support. There are of course phone calls from her mom and others who care. And emails from friends who are helping maintain our Gabriola home, fish, plants, yard, and Cutie our cat. All these help Karen, but in the end she is still physically alone and I know sometimes cries herself to sleep. So when I get the occasional phone call from my exhausted wife saying that she “can’t make it in today, sweetie”, I understand and put my disappointment on hold. I just have to get better or die. Karen, like other caregivers has to manage everything else. So, you tell me who is the real hero.
I want to thank my wife Karen, not just for the extra load she is carrying, but for insisting we get married after I became ill. Many people would have found a healthier mate…Karen didn’t. I also want to thank her for the thousand little things she does to make my life better. Most of all I want to thank her for truly being the light of my life, and, as Jack Nicholson put it, “being the kind of woman that makes me want to be a better man”.
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Nutritional, institutional meals and snacks are served regularly and without fail. Various medicines and procedures are like clockwork. Though you may get confused by the 20-30 medical personnel whom interact regularly with you, at least you have plenty of contact and more importantly you are given the latest updates as to your health and find out what we are gong to try next and why it is necessary.
This is not so for Karen, my wife. The “spouse” or “primary-caregiver” usually gets her information on my health second-hand from me when she visits…in-between unpacking my clean laundry and packing up my already-worns. She may be lucky enough to time her visits for when one of the doctors is here and thus gets to ask questions and clarify for herself what I have left unclear.
In addition to taking the time to dress and look great for each visit to cheer me up, she has a ton of other things to do. Nobody is making her meals, or doing her shopping, or our laundry or purchasing the hundred little odds and ends necessary to modern life. She’s busy paying the bills, trying to manage two households, only to find that our home on Gabriola now has a foot high lawn and the bushes etc. are out of control.
She also has to manage her own health with fibromyalgia, chronic pain, disintegrating disk disease, sciatica, and her esophageal problems that are getting a lot worse of late. And all those delightful things that go with fibromyalgia -- absolutely no sense of direction or spatial reference. She has the route from the condo to the hospital memorized as well as the route to the mall but if she misses by one street she has to backtrack. Always as the crow flies and never taking a short cut for fear of getting lost. Short-term memory loss is no fun.
Managing as much as Karen does would be a full time job in itself, but in addition, she no longer has what little help I could give. So when she leaves here after several hours (often for as long as 9+ hours) of keeping me upbeat despite each medical setback, her real life of taking care of everything begins and she does this with very little support. There are of course phone calls from her mom and others who care. And emails from friends who are helping maintain our Gabriola home, fish, plants, yard, and Cutie our cat. All these help Karen, but in the end she is still physically alone and I know sometimes cries herself to sleep. So when I get the occasional phone call from my exhausted wife saying that she “can’t make it in today, sweetie”, I understand and put my disappointment on hold. I just have to get better or die. Karen, like other caregivers has to manage everything else. So, you tell me who is the real hero.
I want to thank my wife Karen, not just for the extra load she is carrying, but for insisting we get married after I became ill. Many people would have found a healthier mate…Karen didn’t. I also want to thank her for the thousand little things she does to make my life better. Most of all I want to thank her for truly being the light of my life, and, as Jack Nicholson put it, “being the kind of woman that makes me want to be a better man”.
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