About

On February 12, 2011, I received an e-mail inviting me to my 10 year High School Reunion.  Already?  Has it really been that long?   My heart sank into a quarry of emotion.  Through Facebook, I have reconnected with many of them and have glimpsed into their lives through updates and pictures.  Their lives are soaring.  As with most people in their mid-to-late twenties, many of my classmates have married and started families.  Others have finished their Masters degrees and a few have earned their PhD.  Some have traveled the world for their own exploration or through their work.  They have goals and dreams, which by all accounts they are likely to acheive, a concept to which I cannot relate.

The summer before my senior year in high school my mother was becoming very ill.  The previous two years she had been treated for allergies.  This had not been allergies.  Something much worse was afoot.  Later she underwent therapy for her swollen arm (lymph-edema).    She decided to rearrange all the furniture in the house and then felt a sharp pain in her neck.  The doctors assumed that it was a pulled muscle.  Two months passed, the pain had only increased.  This was no pulled muscle.  She told her primary care physician that something was wrong and needed to be done.  She was scheduled for a biopsy that week.  This began my life in the waiting rooms of clinics and hospitals.  The biopsy returned as recurrence of Breast Cancer metastasized to the lungs (Stage IV) confirming our fear and the doctors first thoughts.  Her diagnosis was one month shy of her 20 year victory as a Cancer survivor.

My mother has been battling this for a decade now by taking weekly treatments.  Treating the cancer has come with great costs.  The chemotherapy has damaged her memory and her motor function.  After my 25^th birthday, it was apparent my mother could no longer live independently.  By that point we had already been traveling to Jackson from Nashville every weekend to do laundry, cleaning, and to sort her meds and prepare her meals for the week.  It wasn’t enough.  There were limitations to the therapy and help she was getting from home health nurses.  She needed round-the-clock care.  We began praying and weighing out our options.

We came to the same conclusion.  It was biggest decision that we had ever made, and it was not to buy a house, start a family, or  further educational or professional pursuit.  My husband Chase and I decided that our life had to end in order to help her live her last days with grace.  He gave up a great job in a time of economical uncertainty.  In this process, we lost our health and life insurance.  We had to give up our townhouse.  We downsized everything we owned so we could move into the room I grew up in as a child.  Over the months that followed our savings and other financial safety net were gone.

I don’t regret it nor would I change our decision if I could.  The truth is we love her, and that’s the bottom line.  There are a roller coaster of emotions that come with care-giving: depression, hope, helplessness, anxiety, worry, sadness, grief, anger,and anticipation; just to name a few.  Some things are easier than I imagined, other things are extremely difficult.  Some days it is really hard to give a care about anything especially your loved one that you have to cater to their every need.  All things considered, we have adapted well.

Caregiving has many roles.  A caregiver becomes a nurse without a certificate to show for it, also a cook, financial planner, maid, sanitation worker, life coach, file cabinet, counselor, and most of all a source of comfort for the one you care for.  You find that you have a home away from home in the waiting rooms.  There you have a family, friends, and an understanding that does not exist outside those four walls.

If you find that you are in a similar situation, and you can find more humor than sadness in morbidity; pull up a chair, bring some new magazines (not Golf Digest or Sports Illustrated, please) and join me in the waiting room.