✨The View From Here: Who Takes Care of the Caregiver?
I suppose I first became a caregiver when I was still in high school. My best friend’s mother had cancer, and because she was like a second mom to me, I spent day after day and week after week sitting beside her—and this was during our late high school years. I held her hand, told her stories, laughed with her and cried with her. She is the reason I became a nurse.
Before she passed away, she left me her nursing pin and her decorated nursing cap. It was one of the kindest and most meaningful gifts anyone has ever given me. I promised her that I would do whatever it took to become a nurse, and I did. Her daughter, my best friend Pam, became a doctor. If her mom could have lived just a few more years, she would have seen us both fulfill those dreams. Then again, I think she already knew we were going to make her proud.
Perhaps caregiving was simply stitched into me long before I understood what the word truly meant. Years later, caring for my husband, Ray, would become the honor of my life. There is something caregivers are not always very good at doing, however, and that is allowing someone else to care for us.
If you were to ask whether accepting help comes naturally to me, my answer would be a resounding ‘ABSOLUTELY NOT!’ In fact, it may be one of the hardest things in life for me or any caregiver in the world. This is second only to losing one of our furry children, a dear friend or a family member. I am far more comfortable being the person who helps, organizes, handles things and makes everything work.
For years—decades, truth be told—I postponed surgeries that I knew I needed because I was convinced no one could care for Ray the way I could. As it turns out, I was wrong. Following my recent ankle surgery, we found the most wonderful nurses to step in and help with the things I normally do for him. They have been capable, compassionate and absolutely amazing. Watching them care for Ray so beautifully has given me something I did not expect: peace.
Then there is Ray, who suddenly found himself in the nurse’s role with me. He has been wonderful! The nurses caring for him have even inspired him with new ways to care for me. Watching my husband, who has depended on my care for so many years, turn around and become my caregiver has left my heart with a perma-grin for the past couple of months!
A few months ago, my internist suggested that I need to address my 'caregiver burnout.' Was I ashamed of that? Yes, very much so. And yes, caregiver burnout is a real thing. I had been living with severe back and shoulder pain (a torn cuff that has needed repair since 2020) while continuing to do what caregivers so often do--push through, put someone else first and insist that everything is fine, or at least manageable. I now believe that living with so much pain contributed significantly to my burnout. My body had been asking for help for years, and I kept telling it that it was going to have to wait.
I am now preparing for both back and shoulder surgery in the months to come, and strangely enough, I feel more at peace about it than I ever have before. It is not because I suddenly enjoy needing help. I assure you, I have not undergone that dramatic a transformation! I have peace because I finally understand that allowing others to help does not mean I have failed Ray. It does not diminish the care I have given him or the promise I made to myself so many years ago.
Sometimes caring for the caregiver means allowing someone else to take your hand, sit beside you and say, “I’ve got this for a while.” Maybe receiving care is not the opposite of strength. Maybe it is how caregivers find the strength to continue.
The view from here is that caregivers deserve the same patience, compassion and care they so freely give to everyone else, even when accepting it is one of the hardest things they will ever do.
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