A million and one times, caregivers are told “take care of yourself,” “take time for  yourself,” “you’re going to have to put yourself first.” All of this great advice theoretically has benefit, but putting it into practice can backfire.

My Mom is a 45 year old in an 85 year old body. She is my right hand with much of my caregiving responsibilities. So when I had to include her in my caregiving queue, it was not only distressing but a bit of a last straw.

The first time it happened she broke her hip….no….she corrects me every time…she did NOT break her hip like some old lady. She fell while power walking and broke her femur at the top near the hip. While in rehab, Mom worked like a trained monkey to get out of there. But I still had to bring her laundry to rehab, go and check on her, help take care of her bills and her home, etc. As caregiving goes, it was one of the easier gigs.

Two years later, she needed a caregiver when she went to her cabin in Canada and within hours of arrival, she fell and broke her arm. She forced my brother to drive her  eight straight hours back to Pennsylvania for medical care because she didn’t want to get stuck in a Canadian hospital .

This time I was already inundated with caregiving for my brother-in-law, my mother-in-law and my friend who had recently experienced a traumatic brain injury.

My mother basically has 8 children. I put my foot down. I called a family  meeting and told my sisters (yeah the smart brothers lived far away) that I was not going to be the go-to person this time. I live the closest to my mother, but the rest of my sisters live within 15 or 20 minutes.  My oldest sister, Tina agreed to be the daily coordinator. All my other sisters divvied up the jobs of grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, bathing assistance, etc.  Doctor appointments and pharmacy runs would be done as needed. Any mission that was not set in stone would require a call to Tina, who would either do it herself or ask someone to help.

My mother attended this caregiver summit. She understood everyone’s mission and consulted the chart of who was coming when. Since Mom had been assisting me with all the other people on my caregiving list, she was well aware of the time and energy commitment a caregiver puts out.

The last thing I said to her was, ‘if you need anything, you call Tina first. She will make sure it gets done pronto.”

The first week my Mom was home, I was so busy I barely noticed a week went by.  Day 8 my mother calls me:

“Hey, Mom, how are you? Is everything going ok?”

“Yes, everything is pretty good. I’m feeling good and I can do more than I expected. The doctor said I can’t drive for 6 weeks, but we will see about that.”

“Ok, we’ll see, but don’t do anything crazy.”

“Well, that’s why I’m calling you. I wanted to know if you would take me to the grocery store.”

Now normally, I would just say, “sure”, or ask what she needed so I could pick it up for her. But some little devil sat on my shoulder and shouted, “TINA.”

“Aren’t you supposed to call Tina?”

“Well, I didn’t want to call her because she lives so far away and you’re just around the corner.”

Through gritted teeth,  I said, “I’ll call you right back.”

And then I called Tina.

Don’t ever think that anyone, even your right arm, really understands caregiving. Which is why……

“You just have to Laugh….”

©2014 Cathy Sikorski